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I am having difficulty playing continuous multiple notes quietly.
For example, the left handâs part of Chopin Prelude OP. No.4 is hard.
If I play very delicately, I miss some sound of the notes, or the volume of each note does not come out the same.
I wonder if there are any tips.
Eric Lu is doing a wonderful job on this video.
Eric Lu â Chopin: Preludes, Op. 28: No. 4 in E Minor, Largo (youtube.com)
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Brett Bachus I guess I am trying to play soft and am making it more difficult. I will take time and practice. Thank you for the advice.
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Uh! This is a good one...
Well... Right now...
I'm having trouble voicing the middle section of the Prelude op.28 no.15 ("The Raindrop") of Chopin.
Since there are passages that have the melody in the middle finger of the chord...Reply-
Adriana LĂłpez there are a few techniques I think are worth exploring. One is to play the voiced note loudly followed by the supportive octave right after, but as quietly as possible. Once it starts to make sense then try shortening the time between the two until they are played simultaneously. Another one is to think of âaimingâ with the finger that is playing the voiced note. I use both of these approaches all the time.
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Third movement of Beethovenâs Appassionata. All the fast left hand work is pretty challenging for me although Iâve made great strides with my left hand in the past few years. The big thing that has helped me is symmetrical inversion (I think thatâs the right term). It helps to train my left hand by showing me how the right hand would handle those passages. But the biggest thing is learning to rotate my left hand. For example, the last beats in measures 52, 56, and 62 are difficult for me to make clean as I want to rely too much on pushing my fingers down instead of rotating the wrist as my right hand would do it. Any and all tips are appreciated!
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Many⊠also, Jeez you guys, lots of really big handsful of notes here.
Prokofiev 8th Sonata, last 2 pages of first movement. Just in cleanup mode but it's been a long time coming. 3rd movement - not as hard and tons of fun. But there is a lot of it!
Beethoven Op 90, the stretchy Alberni bass bb 55-58 and similar. How to get that sounding like it isn't a huge lift?
Learning Rachmaninoff Op23 #8. Lovely piece, essentially an etude. One long passage. Lots of work for a guy without big mitts. Long process of refining the exact approach to each of the chords.
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Beethovenâs Sonata no7, 3mvt, Trio part. Iâm still struggling for a long time to make right hand fast, soft, smooth and even.
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I've been playing the piano since I was 5. I'm now 81 and I still haven't quite figured it out :-)
But I can share some things that took me too long to learn:
1. Relaxation! I first heard this from Mme. Lhevinne when I was about 17. It's a big part of the secret of what separates virtuosos from us ordinary mortals. Watch Martha Argerich play anything. Total relaxation. Of course, she's a genius, but that doesn't mean we can't learn something from her. Similarly, watch Rebecca Penneys play the last movement of the Chopin b-minor Sonata on youtube. This is a woman in her 70s (who was runnerup to Argerich at the Chopin Competition) and she plays this movement, which I consider one of the most physically demanding in the entire piano literature, with mind-boggling ease. She has one of the most efficient piano techniques I've ever encountered and I think observing how she plays can help the rest of us.
2. Fingering. Juana Zayas, who made a really masterful recording of all the Chopin Etudes (recall that even Rubinstein didn't tackle that project!), told an old and dear friend of mine who has occasional lessons with her, that many, if not most, technical problems are caused by bad fingering. Think about it -- there's wisdom in that remark.
3. Redistribution. Yes, it's true that Rudolf Serkin was opposed to redistribution. But none of us is Rudolf Serkin. I asked Marc-Andre Hamelin once about whether he redistributes, knowing Serkin's position on this matter, and he looked at me as if I had two heads. "Of course I do". I don't think it's possible to play much of Gaspard de la Nuit, particularly Ondine, without redistribution. Another example -- the Prokofiev 3rd Sonata. There are passages that are difficult to impossible to play as written that become possible with redistribution.
4. Slow practice. Rachmaninoff did it. Marc-Andre advocates it. Need I say more?
5. Memorizing. There is a great deal of piano music that requires marksmanship that simply cannot be achieved if you are not looking at the keyboard where you need to be looking! Watch Horowitz play the Scriabin Etude in d#-minor Op. 8, No. 12. He watches those left-hand leaps like a hawk. And he didn't miss. How does Sokolov play the Precipitato movement of the Prokofiev 7th Sonata so accurately, attacking so much of it from so far above the keyboard (which produces his uniquely thrilling sound)? It would be impossible to do what he does with eyes glued to the score. Ok, it's impossible for the rest of us to do what he does no matter where our eyes are, but that does not negate the fact that there is something to be learned from him.
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Don Allen You have excellent observations! Did you know Mme. Llevine in NYC?
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Gail Starr Yes. I had a few lessons with her and many more with her assistant, Martin Canin, who was a wonderful person, musician and pianist. We were friends from that time (65 years ago) until his death 5 years ago. Mme. Lhevinne invited me to study with her at Aspen in the summer of 1959 (I think) and I didn't go. I don't remember the reason, but it was one of the big mistakes of my life. She was extraordinary, a force of nature. I was at her 80th birthday celebration at Juilliard when she played Mozart K. 467. I had heard her play before, but that was really something special.
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Don Allen What fabulous memories! My teacher at university (for the only year I took lessons!), was Seth Carlin who had worked with her. My mom studied with one of her assistants (who may have lived in her apartment in NYC?) and she said she used to hear Van Cliburn wrapping up HIS lessons when she arrived to work with the assistant.
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Gail Starr The Rosina Lhevinne graduating class that included Martin Canin also included Van Cliburn and John Browning. That is a LOT of pianistic ability! Martin was very fond of both of them. And, incidentally, Martin and Glenn Gould were good friends. They met in 1954, before the release of Gould's first Goldberg Variations recording. I heard a lot of wonderful Gould stories. He was clearly a wonderful person and an extremely rare genius.
Most people alive today who knew Martin probably never heard him play when he had two fully working hands; even his daughter, Serena (of the Brentano Quartet), did not. Around 1960, he developed either carpal tunnel or focal dystonia in his right hand, disabling the 3rd finger. But I go back long enough with him to remember wonderful performances of D. 959, the Carter Sonata, and the Brahms f-minor Sonata when his hand was still functioning properly. He made a recording of the Brahms years later -- with 9 fingers! He was still formidable without the use of that finger, though there was certain repertoire that was impossible, e.g., the Arietta from Op. 111 (the trills were the problem, as they are for able-bodied pianists).
I'm not aware of anyone else living in the Claremont Ave. apartment, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. I don't know Seth Carlin.
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Don Allen
Here's a photo of me when I was 14-15 with John Browning!
Seth was more of a dear friend than a professor because I wasn't majoring in music, so our lessons were rather casual. He taught at Wash U where I was pre-med at the time.
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Gail Starr There are a number of videos about or with John Browning on youtube, e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_tqt112TlE
I don't recall which video includes this, but he did an absolutely dead-on imitation of Mme. Lhevinne that is hilarious to those of us who knew her or heard her speak.
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Don Allen I'll check them out! Thanks!
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Thank you so much for your contribution to this broad question Don. I learnt the piano at a young age but my music had to take backstage as I approached 20 as I concentrated on my career. However, in the last 4 or 5 years I have rediscovered (so to speak) that music bug within me. Unfortunately I didnât have a solid grounding in technique when I was young, until much later in my journey. By then I was tackling difficult works but the lack of a solid grounding hindered my true potential. My last two teachers (in my youth) took me right back to basics (Hanon, Czerny, scales etc). It was a good two or three years before could learn some challenging repertoire. I am now 70 and finding it enjoyable expanding my repertoire. I find that all of what you have written goes a long way to making difficult passages playable. I do however have trouble memorising. I know a lot more about the concept of memorisation. In my early days I depended almost entirely on muscle memory. Today of course that is hopelessly inadequate. As much as I try to use analytical skills, I still struggle hence end up playing wrong notes and patterns (memorising Bach is quite an experience. Easier to memorise a telephone directory).
I have written much about myself and I do apologise but thank you for making the effort to wade through my woes. The main point though is that just reading your comments has encouraged me to persist with what I am doing. Iâm currently learning the prelude of the a minor English suite of Bach, tidying up the Chopin Op 48/1, and have just started learning the notes of the Beethoven Tempest sonata.
I find slow practice a challenge as I am by nature an impatient person. Therein lies another problem.
