Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Complex Polyrhythm: How Detrimental is Failing to Master It?

I certainly think it is, at least in teaching the neophyte who has never encountered it before.

If I can get a student to master 3 against 4, then the more exotic combinations are much much less of a problem.

Complex can depend on the circumstance. Playing 3 against 2 is complex if you have to do it in the same hand.

+1

Lera Aurbach, Prelude in f minor: quarters, eights, and triplet eights in the right hand at the same time, for four measures. At least the left hand voices the melody.

Seems impossible at first, but once it "clicks" in one's head, it's not so bad. Oh, and all a semitone apart, too, making my ears swoon with pleasure.

Back in college, we would practice our scales 7v6, 5v7, 4v7, just because we can. All you need to do is calculate where the hands eventually play together and go for it. Seems like such a waste of time now though, but hey, we were young.

I was thinking of one of the Brahms Cello Sonatas. I think it is the first one.

Polyrhythms are even more fun when there are rests inserted in both figures.

I too was assigned to learn Fantaisie-Impromptu in university and felt like a failure because I never mastered the rhythms and it was assigned to me as an easier piece.

A year or two later I was playing something else with the 3 vs. 4 polyrhythm, and had no problem with it. I'd like to think that all that time struggling to play it helped for future use. In my current rep, I'm able to let the left hand play go on autopilot for the 4 sixteenths while hearing the melody in triplets. Being able to hear the melody in triplets allows me to play that part in time.

Even now I think there is something funny with my 2 vs. 3 polyrhythm because the duple always messes with my melodic shaping.

Hope I never have to play polyrhythms with rests!

I just realized that no one has mentioned Barber's 3rd Excursion yet.

Not to mention Godowsky's 45th transcription study based on the Chopin's A flat major posthumous etude. It definitely teaches you that one of the most successful ways to handle polyrhythms in tonal compositions is to pay attention to the counterpoint control of consonance and dissonance.

Other than Scriabin, are there any other composers pre-1950 who regularly use in their piano music polyrhythms more complicated than 4 vs.3 ?

Other than Scriabin, are there any other composers pre-1950 who regularly use in their piano music polyrhythms more complicated than 4 vs.3 ?

All the major ones from Beethoven on. Bach writes a 2 vs.3, but the practice of the time required that you play the 2 as a dog-legged triplet so I'm pretty sure that doesn't count.

Chopin uses complex polyrhythms all the time, but they are intended to be ornamentation and flourishes, so maybe people don't think of them as polyrhythms.

That's right - even an early piece like Op.9/1 has 11:6 in bar 2.......

Yes, I wouldn't call those fiorituras polyrhythms because I don't think they're usually played or meant to be played with perfect rhythm.

I disagree. Many examples from his output, in particular the ballades and nocturnes come to mind, are not fioritura but are written out as exact polyrhythms to be played as written.

Sure, but I sure hope you don't play them mathmatically perfect against each other...that would be anti-Romantic period.

That would certainly be the exception rather than the rule, unless you are taking into account very simple types of polyrhythms.

Charles Griffes's Roman Sketches has a bunch of complex polyrhythms. I dusted off Nightfall about a year ago. It has a couple of 7:5 and 7:6 sections, but nothing more than a measure at a time. They go by quickly and you can just sort of plow through them.

My teacher at the time told me to learn each hand separately and completely. Then "just play them together." Oh, okay.

I think most people will focus on one rhythm to the detriment of the other. The trick is to "check in" with the other part often enough that it will still sound steady enough to be a recognizable grouping.

The more difficult complex polyrhythms are the ones in which the two figures in question have less similar numbers of notes. For example, an 11 against 10 polyrhythm would be much easier than a 7 against 10.