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I've got some fast arpeggios in my Grieg piece (Op 12 N3 Watchman Song) which are making me a bit mad.

I've been practicing with the silent feature (digital) and also with the acoustic. Getting the arpeggios using the digital version is a bit easier but only a bit.
Using the acoustic I really can't get an even result.

I can't get a smooth sound (I generally end with at least one empty note ) and I find it very hard to keep it all "pp".

I have no teacher to turn to right now ... any tips from my fellow ABFers?

I really don't know what to do to make this work and the deadline is starting to loom.

Struggling with this in my Debussy too.

With that piece I have to bring out one or two notes in every arpeggio so getting pp and some more mp is tricky but slow practice is helping.

And as my teacher pointed out, for this it's really ear training we are doing.

OK, more specific advice: Totally relaxed hand as always but more so . Slow, slow, slow practice. Yup, one of those times where we all say, "But I can do it slowly, it's just at speed" but I'm really finding it's starting to help with the Debussy. Arm weight as much as possible because you want finger speed to be slow. And, yup, hardest thing is to get those fingers moving slowly but the speed quick. Which really means starting the finger movements earlier. So, practice, practice, practice.

Oh, and I note that my teacher's pp tends to be more what I would term mp with the key thing being she always has great dynamic range and phrasing.

Hi Cheryl,

This may not be very useful to you, because it's pretty hard to replicate, but I'll tell you anyway because it might give you inspiration for how to tackle this in a similar way on your end, with whatever materials or equipment you might have.

As you'll recall, I practiced the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata for months, mostly during a time when I had no piano at home. By the beginning of January, the piece had been pretty much ingrained into my muscle memory, but the first time I played it for my teacher, she drew three angry circles around the 'sempre pp' (they are still there), and pretty much left it at that.

For the next eight or ten weeks after that, I practiced in a pub where there was not only a pretty old and 'rusty' acoustic piano (as opposed to the lighter-to-the-touch, relatively new digital I had been playing up to that point), but also much background noise at almost all times. Needless to say, playing pp was not easy in that setting, and to make matters worse, it was hard to hear whether or not I was playing evenly, in terms of dynamics, through all that background noise.

Then I discovered a drum set in the corner of the room. I figured out that if I released the tension on the snare drum, the snare would resonate with the piano every time I went over a certain volume level. So I learned to listen for the snare drum. If I managed to keep it quiet through an entire performance of the piece, that meant I was playing pp pretty evenly. It became a game of sorts.

Of course, after a week or so of practicing that way, I discovered that when I played the same way on the grand at my lesson, the bass was now *too* quiet. But I had learned a level of control I hadn't had before, so that now I could consciously choose when to play really quietly, and when to play with more volume. This is something that has helped me develop a lighter touch in all of my other pieces, too, which earned me a comment of 'nicely delicate touch' from one of the jurors at my piano exam in June.

So, uh ... buy yourself a snare drum? Or more likely: find something else in your house that makes some kind of noise in sympathetic resonance with your piano, but only when you play it loudly. It just might work!

Are these the septuplets?

Are you using 1-2-3-5 or 1-2-4-5 and have you tried both? Despite my 3 being more reliable than my 4 I'm hardly using any finger movement here and I get more even using 1-2-4-5.

Are you working your fingers or just holding the chord shape and rolling your hand back and forth (with a little wrist action to keep the shoulder weight over the finger that's currently playing)? Fingers are weak and need a lot of muscular force compared to the shoulder. That makes them difficult to control. The shoulder muscles are stronger so they can be more delicate.

Try to imagine playing these notes from your shoulder by controlling a stick (your arm) with four rigid prongs on the end, shaped for the chord. Then soften the bedding of the key by using the springs in your elbow and wrist.

A picture here (or more precisely a video) would be worth a thousand words!

Any help?

Thanks Andy -
I have some questions about what you wrote.

Slow, ok, I get that. Practice practice practice. Ok, got that too.

Arm weight - I suppose let the arm be heavy so that fingers are light?

But --getting the fingers moving slowly but the speed quick? You lost me there. Likewise on starting the movements earlier...
(do you regret trying to help now? )
sorry, but I'm at sea.




Saranoya - I can see what you are talking about..the only think I can think of doing to simulate that might be with the fall board of my piano. If it isn't positioned "just so" - it vibrates. I don't know if it vibrates because of frequencies or volume - I'll have to check. Not sure that it will help , but I'll check it out.

Richard: I'm using 3 and 5 not 4 and 5. I believe I have formed a pretty clear picture in my mind's eye of what you described. (I am sitting at the computer moving my shoulder -- and think maybe I see a connection between Andy's tip and this...

Well, I'll certainly give these ideas my best shot!

Thanks very much for such quick replies, I appreciate them very much!

casinitaly, I have read your post, here:

I've got some fast arpeggios in my Grieg piece (Op 12 N3 Watchman Song) which are making me a bit mad.

I've been practicing with the silent feature (digital) and also with the acoustic. Getting the arpeggios using the digital version is a bit easier but only a bit.
Using the acoustic I really can't get an even result.

I can't get a smooth sound (I generally end with at least one empty note ) and I find it very hard to keep it all "pp".

I have no teacher to turn to right now ... any tips from my fellow ABFers?

I really don't know what to do to make this work and the deadline is starting to loom.

____________________________________________________

casinitaly says: I've got some fast arpeggios in my Grieg piece (Op 12 N3 Watchman Song) which are making me a bit mad. I've been practicing with the silent feature (digital) and also with the acoustic. Getting the arpeggios using the digital version is a bit easier but only a bit. using the acoustic I really can't get an even result. I can't get a smooth sound (I generally end with at least one empty note ) and I find it very hard to keep it all "pp". I have no teacher to turn to right now ... any tips from my fellow ABFers? I really don't know what to do to make this work and the deadline is starting to loom.

humblebeginnerpianoplayer says: You will, of course, be guided by advanced piano players, but as a beginner, playing the piano you should read though the piece to make sure you know the names of the notes. Next, you crawl through the measures slowly reading, saying and playing the notes without mistakes. It can take many hours, days, weeks of playing slowly without mistakes, and it can take it my hours, days, weeks, of playing slowly without mistakes and playing the piece smoothly. And, of course, it is all about listening to yourself play the notes. I humbly submit that it has nothing to do with a teacher, because playing any music is all about going slowly without mistakes and listening to yourself. It doesn't matter whether you are playing an digital piano of the worst quality or if you are playing an acoustic piano of the worst quality, it is the playing and the listening and doing it all slowly without makes that matter. Cheers, don't quit, just be patient, you will do just fine.

Michael, thank you for your encouraging words. Maybe a teacher isn't necessary, but sometimes good advice is.

You're quite right that playing slowly is one of the major keys to making improvements - I'm working on that!

Yes! And I'm not intending to put the cat among the pigeons but...

These notes are meant to be a single fluid motion, a blur, seven notes in the time of one quaver/eighth note. These are the Spirits of the Night, after Shakespeare's three witches. Even practising this passage at a speed of two to four seconds per quaver, with concentrated mental preparation before playing each note/chord, this figure should spring from one motion, one impulse, one cycle of hand/wrist rotation.

Don't worry Richard, the pigeons scattered weeks ago when I listened to some top pianists playing, and heard that they do manage to convey the sense of ghosts flitting about.

I think I do have to practice slowly just to make sure I have my hand positioned properly, in order to achieve the effect - but it won't be a "one note at a t
ime" slowly.

(In fact I was practicing this after reading the posts today - and this, combined with some feedback Morodiene gave me earlier seems to be helping....though I am fighing muscle tension big time!!) ....?

Best advice evah. . .

Cathy

Do you have/use the soft pedal on your acoustic? That said, I'm going through soft pedal madness with my digital. I've learned that on grand pianos, everything moves to one side so that the hammers hit less strings. You get a different quality of sound, and not just "quieter". On upright pianos, the hammers are moved closer to the strings, like hammering with a short handled hammer vs. a longer one - less force. It doesn't have the same effect. My DP's soft pedal settings aren't adjustable, and there is hardly any difference. That is, I have a "grand piano 1" and "grand piano 2". If I use 2, then the difference is greater, but it kills loud sounds, and especially loudness in the bass. Part of my music asks for quiet followed by sudden rapid loudness in the bass. 2 also does weird things to the tone. So back to 1, where the soft pedal doesn't do much.

So can you pull in the soft pedal on yours?

Upright pianos, not acoustic pianos in general. As I understand it, the effect is like hammering starting the hammer head from a closer distance above the nail vs. far away from the nail, rather than changing the length of the handle. (Although changing the length of the handle would be another way to reduce the force.)

I corrected the word I intended to use.

With the action of the grand piano, when two strings are hit vs. one string being hit, there is a different quality of sound because of the interaction of the two strings.

Not quite. It strikes two strings rather than three for the bulk of the keys giving less tonal power but because the action is shifted slightly to the right it uses a softer (less worn) piece of hammer felt. It's the hammer that changes the tone.

- have you tried playing the first note of the arpeggio with the LH thumb?

- actually, just realised I was cheating a bit with this by not playing the last note of the arpeggio...but the effect is still ok to my ear.

I figured it was an unintentional typo, and that you were describing both grand and upright actions, and the differences between them. I should have worded my post differently to make that clear.

I appreciated that you caught it, PianoStudent88.

Richard, I don't doubt that the texture of the hammer may be different which will affect sound - like hitting a pot with a wooden spoon or a metal spoon - but that does not make what I wrote untrue. First, a different number of strings are being hit: 2 instead of 3 where there are 3; 1 instead of 2 where there are 2 strings. That is half as many voices: think of two singers singing at the same volume, and one of them stops.

Then there is the "interaction" I alluded to. Strings are often "imperfect" (diameter fluctuations, twists etc.) so that they have a beat, which gives a texture or quality to the sound. So when you have 2 or 3 strings, you might have several sets of beats going on, which gives another texture. If less strings are vibrating, the texture will be different. Also, strings don’t stay perfectly 100% in tune, and that will also have an effect. All of that will affect the type of sound you get. Less strings will change that quality.

So to summarize, on a grand piano, the shifting mechanism that changes the number of strings being hit causes the following changes:
- the hammer possibly having a softer texture (Richard's contribution)
- a different number of strings being heard (like 2 singers instead of 3, or 1 singer instead of 2) (also in Richard's contribution as "tonal power")
- the interaction of beats of each of the strings when there are beats, or depending on the tuning of each string (less complex)

Altogether this creates a changed quality of sound, and not just a quieter sound.

On an upright piano, the hammers are moved closer, creating less striking force. The same number of strings are struck, but it is quieter through the lessened force (distance X time). The textures or qualities are not changed.

ok. um... working my way through the nuances of pedals and their functions..... to answer Keystring's question....I'm not sure.!

I have 3 pedals, the right is the normal one, the centre is to shift and lift the hammers off the strings for when I use the digital mode and the left.... I have no idea! I've never used it.

Just a minute...

Ok... I tried it. Um yes.... I have a soft pedal.
This may be of infinite help in getting through this piece!

Diretonic --- yes, I have indeed tried playing the first note of the arpeggio with my LH thumb - and I may go back to that as I feel a LOT of tension with the other techniques. I will still work on the suggestions for rotation that I've received (and check out that snare drum concept !) - but I think that until I have the support of my teacher to help me with the tension I may be putting myself at risk again - and I don't want to do that. I lost several months of playing due to worked up tension I couldn't get rid of and I am very very cautious now.

Thanks again for all the tips, suggestions and encouragement - and for teaching me something new about my piano!

just to add one item to your list keystring... on a grand I think the reduced number of strings hit also produces a somewhat (possibly subtle) different resonance (if that is the right term) from nearby strings. You can use the Una Corda in many pieces, not only for pp, but even if it is just to get that slightly different coloration for additional interest.