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I amuse myself by trying to play endless variations on the 12 bar blues either with left hand chords or left hand walking. This can go on for some time so I haven't really tried other things. However, recently, I became enamored with Beethoven's piano sonatas and have gathered CDs by Cliburn, Ashkenazy and Gould (I am amazed at the different interpretations but that is another story). Because I am not a good reader at all I figured the "Moonlight" adagio sostenuto was a good start and I found the sheet music on the web. It starts with simple octaves in the left hand and simple triplets in the right - until the last beat of the fifth measure where the theme starts. How does one do this? I can probably get semi-proficient with the left and right hands up to the fifth bar but then how does one start the third thread?

Methinks you might want to learn easier pieces leading up to this one.

It may SOUND easy to play, but that is just the notes.

To play musically, one needs more background than what it seems you have.

But it is a great inspiration!

I think I know what you are asking. You just play it with the right hand too. You will probably use your 5th finger the most, maybe the 4th finger to play those "Melody" notes, although I would have to go home and watch what I do again.

So you will be playing 2 notes at a time, usually the thumb will play the first note in the "Triplet" (really Arpeggio) Chord while at the same time the 5th finger may play the Melody.

If you are a beginner I would just concentrate on that for now. It can be hard to voice this properly until you have more experience. But eventually you want to hold down those top Melody notes with the 5th finger, while you play the other couple of notes in the "Triplet" (Arpeggio), actually you may play the Arpeggio twice while holding down those melody notes. This may take some effort to get your fingers to be independant like this.

Finally you want to play those top notes louder than the underlying arpeggio. This can take some effort too to get one finger on the same hand to play louder than the other fingers. Ah, but that's what makes all this so fun.

Thank you, Blueston!

While I think having a go at such pieces can be fun at first, the toughest part of this piece is not at all measure 5! Don't be afraid to realize that this is way beyond you at the moment, but that you can work toward it by playing wonderful pieces at your level or just within reach. You can always take it up again later and see what you can do then.

Sorry, but I take issue with the condescension and superciliousness of Morodiene and Lilylady. If I want to tackle something that I think could provide enjoyment, that is my business. So what if I make a mess of it? The sonatas do not belong to them. It is not up to them to say who should attempt to play them. I am surprised that these two did not castigate Blueston for having the gall to suggest how I might proceed.

BTW,tonight at bridge, I asked a retired piano teacher how it could be done and she told me to place a friend on my right and let her handle the third stream. This may be a lot more fun than the strategy proposed by Blueston.

That will work fine until the third stream winds up in the middle.. then you'll have your friend in your lap!

Beethoven's writing in this movement is very uncommon, so it doesn't surprise me that a novice would be perplexed by it. You're doing it right when the thirds are steady and quiet and the melody sounds out over them.

Bang on, doesn't matter a whit whether you make a mess of it or not.
But why would you ask for advice if you don't care whether you play well or not?

Morodiene and Lilylady offered advice on the assumption that you wanted to accomplish a task: voice demarcation. Pretty reasonable, really, if you look at your original post.

Some pieces need to be worked up to, or their challenges are irreducible. Walk before you run, and all that. It's not condescension to assess your abilities and say you should work on something else for a while: it's discernment. You seem to think they said you _shouldn't_ play this piece; I got the impression they were saying you _couldn't_ play this piece yet, at least not in the way you seem to want to.
Moreover, I didn't think either of your persecutors was needlessly harsh or even impolite.

And really: why offer background as to your level of expertise - twelve bar blues, not being a good reader, etc - illustrating your level of skill if you're going to accuse people who interpret those data in a polite and reasonable way of being supercilious and condescending?

If you want to learn it, I say go for it.
This piece is actually the one that got me back into playing, after having very basic lessons at primary school years ago.
Maybe I didn't have enough experience to start learning it, but I wanted to, so I did.

The way I do it is to use my little finger on the right hand.
All you are doing is playing a G# octave, then C#, E then the higher G# again. In the sixth bar you then play the octave again and D#, F#.

Remember to hold down the higher G# until the last beat, when you play the octave again.

Note-wise, I think it is a relatively simple piece, especially because it is Adagio, the difficultly stems from the dynamics. If you don't get those right, it doesn't sound anywhere near as nice.



I don't know how much you have looked through the sheets, but the majority of the piece is simple octaves in the left and octaves/triplets in the right.

If it helps, you could try watching videos on Youtube of 'proper' pianists playing to get an idea of the fingering they use.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6txOvK-mAk

That is so rude - you er totally out of order.

You might look at a transcription of it that is scaled down for those who lack the skill to play the original. Century Music published an easier version which might give you the satisfaction of playing the melody (it's in the key of C) and not be so frustrating.
While I'm sure the suggestion you wait until prepared to play it wasn't meant to be insulting and condescending, your post implies that you are not quite ready to tackle the complications of the original. Sheer dent of perseverance might get you there but I'm not sure about that.

Anyway, good luck with it.

I might add that the transcription follows the entire piece and it is not shortened at all.

No one can fault your taste in choosing your challenges, at least. If this piece exceeds your present abilities, it will at least help you in formulating your goals.

My tuner (a former Performance major) once remarked to me that the Beethoven sonatas are easier to read than to play. Not that I'm any great expert at Sanscrit, but their omnibus words are like that--- not much to see, on the page, but a single fragment unfolds to a meaning that conveys lifetimes of effort.

Still, trying is worth it.

Why did you get upset with Morodiene and Lilylady? Their replies were not rude or codecensing. You have a problem dude!!!

Actually, Varcon, I used Songwriter to transpose the original nine measures from C# minor to A minor which indeed is much easier to tackle (although it doesn't sound as good). Furthermore, I noticed that, at least for those measures, the third stream often contains a half note that is an octave above the root of the triplets. So, I can attempt to play the third stream an octave lower and save some finger stress.

Geez, people, for the time being, I am only interested in playing those nine measures. If I have to slightly bastardize it, no one will hear. Furthermore, I come from a jazz background so I have no religious need to faithfully reproduce the original (for example, compare Ashkenazy's and Gould's versions of Moonlight - there certainly is improvisation in choice of tempo, dynamics and pace).

Thank you, Ronald and Izaldu, for being concerned with my problem.

That's not improvization. That's called interpretation.


You're pretty new here, so you probably don't realize how many "I'm a rookie, and I just started the Moonlight..." threads there are here. Lilylady and Morodiene gave good advice in a very nice and encouraging way - the piece is too hard for you. You can either take the advice or not. If you want to play it, play it. Give it a shot.
If you ask for advice, though, you'll often get good advice.

This is always an interesting question, because it's hard to say exactly where the problem lies. There are many different answers, depending on what's being asked.

When I read questions like these, I often wonder what "this" means. If "this" is "play the top note", then the answer is simply "with your little finger."

Except that seems too obvious, so maybe he's asking how to voice the melody louder than the other notes, in which case we could give advice on voicing.

Or maybe it's a question of reading, not understanding the notation of different voices within the same hand, in which case we could describe how that works.

Or maybe it's a technical issue - that his hand isn't supple/flexible enough to manage the rhythm fluently.

Or a rhythmic issue - how to manage triplet vs. 16th

And maybe it's all compounded by a reading issue - not being familiar with C# minor (jazz players who don't work with vocalists or guitar players spend most of their time in flat keys.)

LilyLady and Morodiene aren't being condescending, they're just trying to deal with a complicated question that has a lot of different answers. It would be like me going to a home improvement forum and saying: "I just started remodeling my bathroom. I got half the tile down but need to go around a corner. How do I do that?" A professional who cares a great deal about quality work would likely tell me that bathroom remodels are a bit beyond the average do-it-yourselfer, while someone who appreciates someone trying to be frugal and learn something new might offer some advice, assuming that the do-it-yourselfer knows that the quality of the work probably won't end up at a professional standard and finds that an acceptable compromise.

The following comment is not necessarily intended for the OP, but rather a general comment on one misconception among amateur players of this movement :

The biggest problem with the interpretation of this first movement is one of voicing. It's not absolutely correct to think of the first beat of most measures as an octave; rather there are two voices, one an accompaniment in triplets, the other a single-note melody line which both happen to coincide an octave apart at certain points. However, for those who have studied and played the movement there's a big difference between that coinciding of two voices an octave apart and the playing of a simple octave. Understanding and realizing this constitutes the main difficulty of playing this movement.

Regards,

Please point to a condescending statement that I made. I cannot find it. In fact, I was trying to be encouraging and I think my words reflected that.

I was stating a fact that if you were having issues figuring out what to do at measure 5 perhaps this piece it too hard for you. You asked for opinions, and I gave it. It was not a comment on you as a person or even as a musician. We are all in a process here, some further along than others. I don't "own" the Moonlight sonata, but when someone comes asking for advice to the general public, then that means I can give it as I see best. My best advice to you was to choose other music to help you get to the point where you could play this piece with greater ease.

You can choose to ignore advice given, but don't accuse people of being 'condescending' simply on the grounds that they gave advice you didn't agree with.

It's not as easy as it looks. There's some large stretches and to play it musically is a different matter. Perhaps play something a little easier and build up to it.