Mastering Tricky Passages and answering your questions!

Hey Dominic, 

Been learning Bach/Busoni - Num komm der Heiden Holland.

What fingering for the RH would you do for these sections? 1st & 3rd photo: red circled. 2nd photo: measure 11-12. 

Appreciate you! 🙏

Not many questions here, so I will take the liberty 😁.

Liszt Transcendental Etude no.2 , again! Bars 65-68 seem to be nearly impossible to play accurately at full speed. Many thanks for your help, Dominic!

Hello Dominic,

I studied Liebestraume  III in A flat major by Liszt many years ago  but I was not happy with cadenzas m 25 and m 59-60. My problems was I couldn’t able to make the tone shiny or ring and was not flow nicely. I written the finger numbers and grouping the notes. 
Can you help me how to practice theses cadenzas to improve? Thank you.

Hi Dominic,

This might be a good opportunity to address a technical problem I have. It's in the left hand of Comptine D'un Autre Ete from the film 'Amelie' (score by Yann Tiersen). I can play repeated octaves and just stretch a 9th sometimes. But the repetition in the LH part of this piece (which involves a middle note as well as an octave) causes tension to develop - so it's been sat on the shelf not mastered. 

P.S. I'm in the South of England (UK) and today we are experiencing an unheard-of heat-wave with temperature forecast to rise to over 100F. We don't have air conditioning!!!

Hope to see you later,

Rachel 

Hi Dominic, thanks for always doing these livestreams! Would appreciate your insight on a couple of passages:

Chopin Sonata 3:

m. 24-25 - I’m having trouble maintaining the line of the bottom voice in the right hand after the rolled chord + making sure the A isn’t too soft, do you have any tips or practice methods for this spot? 

m. 41 and onward - keeping the left hand figurations smooth when there are jumps over an octave + not adding unnecessary/unintentional rubato

Heroic Polonaise:

m. 91 - I’ve been using the fingerings in red for this measure for a while but have always found it a bit awkward to voice the chords because of the 1-1 on the A+B — any advice or maybe alternate fingerings? 
m. 96 - practice methods for getting this set of chords up to tempo? I recently started using the fingerings in red instead of 5-2-1 the entire time which seems to help with hitting the right notes 

Thanks in advance! 

Hi Dominic, I'd really appreciate some advice on the piano part of the Beethoven 'Spring' Sonata first movement.

I am struggling with getting the repeated chords from bar 38 (and again in different key later) up to tempo, maintaining accuracy and dynamic control without getting fatigued/tense or some notes not sounding. 

The action on my (upright) piano is quite heavy and I find using some right pedal makes the keys go down more easily, but then I'm not sure what articulation I'm aiming for. From bar 54 where LH does repeated chords while RH takes melody, it feels like it needs to be especially clean and light.

I feel unclear about what action/movements I should be using in these passages, and how to practise.

Any suggestions gratefully received!

Hi Dominic, 

I am hoping you can help me in a few of the difficult spots I face in Chopin's Prelude Op. 28, No. 16.  So many questions I could ask but will focus on the following:

 - Bars 6 - 9 (Especially bars 8-9), RH

 - Bars 22 - 33, RH

I may be wrong but my sense is that the Right-Hand should mostly be heard as Legato?  If so, Bars 1-5, this is fairly straight-forward but then when I come to bars 8 - 9 especially everything falls apart.

Do you have any advice on how to learn these bars solidly since all of a sudden you are faced with all kinds of directional turns and it can sound choppy.  Also, 99% of the time this is where everything starts to fall apart. 

How to first learn to play it with a relaxed hand resulting in a somewhat Legato outcome?  Same question applies to bars 24-25.

Then for Bars 22 to 33 as well this page generally seems just slightly more difficult to play than the remaining piece.  Often it is very tight turns and my fingers getting bunched up resulting in being very difficult to play cleanly etc.

I would be very glad if you can offer some advice on how to practice these spots to overcome these difficulties.  Of course, if there is time I would welcome any other advice on learning this Prelude.  I do practice hands separately but joining the two hands in not a match made in heaven - apparently.

Hopefully you have the full score available.  Pages 1 and 3 only attached here below.

I am currently trying to learn Moonlight Sonata 3rd Movement and I am struggling with the beginning of this piece. Can you please help? Thank You!

Thank you, Dominic! This was very inspirational on so many levels. Wonderful! Thank you to all who asked questions, too!

I know the livestream already happened, but does anyone have any advice on the 10ths and 12ths in Liszt's Paysage?