Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Schumann Op 68 no 4 Ein Choral, to pedal or not ?

Technique deficiency?

Now wait, I think the said composer was obsessed by his "technique deficiency" too and used something to improve it... it didn't turn out that well I hear

BTW. Do you say that the romantic composers wrote down pedalling accurately or how they thought it should be used? Or just Schumann? There's plenty of evidence to the contrary...

Did I said that? Oh Really?

I'm asking because you wrote:

"...when the composer didn't want to."

I figure you could mean that to be whenever he didn't specify it in the score...Which he probably didn't even edit himself always. I hear his wife had a lot to do with it...

That is a lot of assumptions and a pretty broad generalization of what I said, don't you think so?

It may be, that's why I wanted to ask first

Some people reading this may not really know much so it's better to make one's intentions clear.

So can we be clear that you were trying to make me look like a fool trying to put in my mouth a broad statement about playing all Schumann or all romantic composers with no pedal? It wasn't that subtle, I'd say you had the pedal all down.

gotta love the internets

Nope, your looks have nothing to do with it. I wasn't putting words in your mouth either. I just don't want people to get discouraged by some of the things you wrote that can easily be misundertood.

Though one could think that you were effectively trying to make the op look like a fool. I would think it's great that someone wants to study his piece from the wider viewpoint than "how to play it exactly as written" and wants to compare different interpretations and is interested in how the use of pedal affects that.

To then write things like "But of course it's easier to put the pedal down to cover up a technique deficiency rather than learn to play how the composer wanted ;-)"
or
"Then, everybody is free to do what is pleased and if somebody rather hammer the pedal down when the composer didn't want to."

very much seems like an attempt to make the OP look like a fool who's looking for ways to cover up his bad technique. But I would not tell you what your motivation was, since I really have no way of knowing.

Anyway, much of what you write in this thread implies that you think there's something fundamentally wrong with using the pedal to make one's playing more beautiful or meaningful, sometimes even to cover up something or compensate for a poor instrument or poor acoustics. Like that's somehow a bad thing? Many pianists with quite satisfactory technique seem to disagree with you. If for one reason or other you cannot do something to your satisfaction without the pedal, but it works well with the pedal, why not? It's not the same as ignoring the need to improve your hand technique on the long run. I think the sooner one learns to use the pedal skilfully (and listening to it's effects) the better.

So, let's play this game, you do thing that the use of the pedal makes anyones playing more beautiful and meaningful? I wish I knew that, Hanon would have been absolutely beautiful and meaningful.

Or let's put it in another way,
a) beginners ofter ABUSE the use of the pedal because is used as a device to cover up for dry sound and bad technique
b) beginners that don't yet know how to use the fingers, have the best chances of adding an additional variable (the pedal) and to master it.

I think it will serve the OP in the short and in the long run to put a little more effort and learn to do finger legato with finger replacement in a piece that is pretty much an etude for that kind of technique, but if you think that "have fun and get a beautiful and meaningful sound" right off the bat because you are encountering a difficulty is serving him better, I gladly keep my opinion and you can keep yours.

I am not here to play games you know...
But lets just do that, although I don't think you did potrait my opinion accurately above. I hope I did. Fun has nothing to do with it.

Some of the things you wrote make perfect sense, but there really is no need to be arrogant or mean towards beginners. And it's rather arrogant for you to imply you know what a dead composer wanted, considering scholars cannot agree with it even after vast study of their subject and the fact that the composer in this thread was mentally unstable and his wants were not necessary very consistent.

Outo, thanks for the points you are making. You are reading into the intend of my topic much more clearly as I meant it.

I will reiterate that I am open to the pedal approach and experimenting with/without pedal in places, a complete no pedal version would be nice too to master.

Just because I said I had not heard a version in places like youtube I really enjoyed without pedal, doesn't mean I have to throw it out of the window. In fact I made it clear that for the hummingbird practice I used no pedal on that whatsoever .... anywhere, where some do in a few places, but doing it in a very subtle way I spotted.

After all ... I opened the topic and posed the question. If I really just want to put the pedal to the floor as Ataru074 says and get on with it, why would I have bothered starting the topic at all.



With that in mind I'll put my Jeremy Clarkson hat on and lighten the mood a bit.

Some say, that if you put a brick on you pedal, you can play legato. Not only that, you can play legato without ever touching the pedal, we call this technique brickato.

I'll do this for the next two weeks just to please, come back and say, look, I played it, I never touched the pedal.

trying to lighten up is ok, but OTOH that piece indeed is well-suited for finger substitution training. Finger substitution and finger pivoting are very, very useful techniques.

still, I read you're a self-taught and began in 2014. I don't think bad playing of this piece is quite within your reach yet, let alone beautifully playing it with finger substitution.

at your current level, or what I believe it to be, I'd try Czerny's op 599 and perhaps Burgmuller's op 100 before this Schumann album.

Finger substitution scares me, never tried anything like that to date, and as I pointed out earlier building up unwanted tension as at an early stage I always try to avoid, but as a sort of half way house as it were with pedal version here and there and easier fingers. I feel I can have a go at it, it may not sound great to the experts of course, but to please myself, but my hands feel comfortable with the sections in the first half I practised in the few last days, taking my time with it.

Isn't this piece grade 2 - 3 (ABRSM) something like that ? not entirely outrageous, given the level in my book 3 Barratt pieces is similar which I am working on, I'd say some of the Barratt pieces towards the end of that book look tougher, but I am only early in that book as well, but perhaps I am being too ambitious with the Chorale, certainly enjoying it though

I still focus on my Barratt pieces anyway mostly, bar one Einaudo piece I learned some time ago starting a few months in, learning hard stuff early was a bad idea I realised very quickly, but by doing that as many starters do, I also got it out of my system. That Einaudi piece is the only one well above my level I played ( and still do ), as bad as it may sound

With my efforts on the humming bird, not getting tension, sounding fairly smooth now, I feel it is coming a long way since I started it. I hope to share that one a bit further along may be in the next Schumann recital, then you can be the judge of how bad it sounds

I will most certainly look at those exercises you mention and see what that involves, thank you for the pointers.

@Alexander:
I think the Schumann album is one of those that are difficult to study effectively without a teacher. In that sense it is more difficult than it's "official" grade for a self learner. The way Schumann writes doesn't always invite the best natural responses, instead often you need to do something that at first seems awkward. A good teacher will show and tell you how and why. Romantic composers were expanding and experimenting on the keyboard in a completely new ways and that often makes it difficult for a self learner to figure out from the score what exactly should be done physically.

So I personally think self learners are much better off starting mostly with Baroque or Classical.

The pedal is used for the sound. You just need to determine what sounds you like best in which places.

In my first estimation, the chorale seems just begging for pedal. The soldier march seems to need a dry, sharp sound.

I agree that this is the first and foremost function of the pedal. But can anyone dispute the fact that after the sustaining pedal became widely available, the romantic composers saw it as an opportunity to write stuff that is physically impossible to play without the pedal, therefore using it as an extension of their hands?

One thing I have learned from my teacher is that the reason why some small handed pianists have achieved great success in playing romantic literature is their great skill in using the pedal rather than the amount of finger exercises.

Wouter, thank you, understood.

Outto. Appreciate that comment after attempting it. I don't intend to go through a lot of schumann in earnest anyway at this stage, after this one.

Still I am learning from this exercise I feel, this thread, the comments people have made, and also having to work on my own fingering, for what on first sight appears relatively straight forward piece on paper when I looked at it, it is more deceptive than the amount of notes look.

Feel free to say, naive beginner view

Yes there places where you must use the pedal for various reasons. That will force you into a certain sound. But even in these places, you often have freedom to use more or less pedal, and thus still have to choose which sound you want.

I think that chronically using the pedal to replace finger work is not good and will severely restrict your possibilities to shape the sound.

Is that a common issue then? How I see it, you cannot really replace finger work with the pedal, but you can extend those fingers. Usually it's much more complicated than it would be just to play it straight as written, which is why I would never do it if it wasn't necessary.

I also don't see pedalling as something to add on top of a piece after learning the hand part, but something to work on at the same time just like any other aspect of the piece. By experimenting one finds out what works tonally and what not.

I never use the pedal with Baroque so I get plenty of finger exercise anyway...

>Is that a common issue then

Yes if you have to use pedal somewhere for some reason, you may end up with a sound that you did not want there. This might have far reaching consequences for your piece.


I also hardly ever use pedal in baroque, again because of the sound. Baroque was played on harpsichord, clavichord and maybe fortepiano which has much lighter sound, faster action and usually no pedal. Most pieces would sound way too heavy with the pedal. Even without pedal they often sound too thick.