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I'm 2 weeks into learning Mikhashoff's transcription of Casta Diva after a long time thinking that I'll never achieve it. I'm making surprisingly good progress but I'm having difficulty playing the fast runs (4.58 to 5.16 of youtube.com/watch?v=OnntKrp08Bs). I can play them fluently from memory now but going at full pelt (while still maintaining accuracy) it's still only about half speed and isn’t noticeably improving as it was. I didn’t think I could play them exactly like on the recording but maybe something approaching it. I was hoping that if I continue practicing them they will gradually speed up naturally over several weeks / months but I'm starting to have doubts.

I think there are several approaches to articulating them, playing all the notes with a relaxed right hand, dividing groups of notes between left and right hands, playing the single note before the right hand thumb with left hand to give a bit of extra time to move the right hand to the next position and others. I'm currently banking on the first method.

Is there a better way? Does anyone have any tips for this or am I on the right track?

I've been playing the piano for nearly 40 years but I didn’t have my first lesson until I was 20. Is this one of those things that only those who started playing at 5 years old have the flexibility to articulate?

Thanks.

Two weeks into learning a tricky piece and you're worrying about speed?

Developing speed isn't a linear progression. It comes when it comes - just don't lose control in your bid to force the pace when your fingers aren't ready. The last 10% of speed takes 90% of your practising.

Incidentally, when I was learning Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu as a kid a long time ago, it took me several months to master the RH and play it at the right speed. I tried different fingerings etc, but nothing felt secure........until it finally did. (I did put it aside to learn other stuff that my teacher was teaching me, but kept returning to it periodically).

Sounds like you are on the right track. Have you also experimented with the fingering to see if other combinations might work better for you? Ultimately you may need to accept the fact that you will never get these passages up to the same speed as the pianist in the video (certainly no crime in that) - but increased speed should come with more time. Just curious - have you played similar passages successfully in other pieces?

Thanks Bennevis and Carey. Interesting about non linear progression, I never thought about it like that. I realise I'm not going to achieve perfection or sound like the recording but I'd be happy with something reasonably close that sounds ok and a listener wouldn’t notice anything clumsy without making a direct comparison. I'm not worrying about speed, most of the piece is still at the very slow practice stage. Yes I've worked out and noted down the fingering that feels the most comfortable so that the right keys fall under my fingers.

The reason for the post was to see whether anyone had any favourite techniques or tips for playing these fast passages (I don’t imagine there's any big secret that would suddenly make it all happen). No, I've never attempted them before in any other pieces and it may work out practicing them as I am with just the right hand. But if not, I would have to abandon it to start again using a different method maybe after having invested many weeks and months practicing in a way that was never going to work for me. Or I may even have to abandon the whole piece which is why I was trying to concentrate on these passages first but I couldn’t help playing the rest of it as well.

I think I'll be ok with the rest of the piece, I always keep the faith that it will all come together eventually no matter how long it takes (apart from these fast passages where some doubt has crept in). I sometimes think when people say they can’t play a piece it may be because they don’t have the faith and gave up on it too soon or didn’t go for it in the first place. For me, one of the most enjoyable aspects of playing the piano is that moment when a piece or a passage that I thought was way beyond my capabilities suddenly all falls into place after weeks or months of long practice (like with your Fantaisie-Impromptu Bennevis). Experience has shown me that it always does, eventually (apart from maybe these fast passages which remain to be seen heard).

There are some practice techniques you might try for these passage of "fioritura".

1) practice the passage in small groups with varying rhythmic patterns: short-long-short; long-short-long, etc., etc. This helps assure that all the notes are solid, and that some are not being skipped over.

2) start at the end of the passage playing only the last few notes; then, add the previous note to the passage, and continue "backing up" one or two notes at a time towards the beginning of the passage. This way you will be assured that it is not only the beginning of the passage that is secure but also the ending.

3) divide the passage into small, logical groups of notes, and play each group of notes as quickly as you can without losing accuracy. Then add two of these groups together, then three groups, and so on.

And, perhaps most importantly,

4) continue s..l..o..w practice!

Regards,

Many thanks BruceD that sounds excellent advice and I will definitely follow your steps. By playing the sequence in a different order in step 2 I would assume I always use the same fingering I worked out initially and would use the same for steps 1 and 3. I'll let you know how I get on but it may be some time!

Also, metronome is your friend and also exposes the truth to you, I find.

Set slowly. Once you can play at a certain speed, bump metronome up by 5 bpm, or whatever. Rinse and repeat.

Ok, thanks Zaphod.

" ... but it may be some time." That's one of the main points to consider; these accomplishments don't happen over night!

Regards,

Work S-L-O-W-L-Y. None of this will work if you try to take the music up to full tempo too soon, and doing so will lead to a mess later on. You'll create what I've called a hole in your performance because the more difficult part will never, ever, ever, match or fit in with the rest of the piece around it. (Learned from experience here!).

The way to overcome this is work at the piece extremely slowly. You want to focus on hand position, fingering, and note values even if you play the work well under tempo. You also have to watch that the left hand remains steady and the other bravura notes spread around those, and the only way to do this is slow.

Once you get the music all together at a slow tempo, you can then work at bringing it all up to tempo in stages. The thing is if you speed up and it falls apart, you need to work at the music slowly again.

Also keep in mind that your fastest accurate speed in music is always the fastest notes in the piece. If you can't play those accurately, then you're going too fast.

I'm going to add a bit more as if I didn't have a lot to say here already!

Carl Czerny has an interesting chapter on this in his Op. 500, Complete Theoretical and Practical Piano Forte School, Book 3, which is available from archive.org and from IMSLP.org

In Book 3 in Chapter 4, pp. 42 - 50, he gives some examples of those Chopinesque kinds of runs of multiple notes against a steady bass.

Many thanks John. I'm still progressing with BruceD's steps and it is slowly improving. When I've tried introducing the left hand into the passage I need to play it so slowly the left hand notes are so far apart they lose all continuity. Most of the time I'm still practicing the right hand at the fastest speed I can play totally accurately (which is still increasing). As you say, if I lose it, I slow it down again until it’s accurate again. When the right hand has reached the "automatic" stage (almost there) it should be easier to play it around the left hand notes by slowing it down again. I’ll have a look for the Czerny book.

I don’t tend to practice a new piece all at the same speed, I break it down into sections which I practice at different speeds according to their difficulty. They're all at different speeds at the moment, the easy bits I can pretty much sight read up to speed so I don’t practice those as much. The runs being the hardest are the slowest and take the most time, all the other sections are somewhere in between. Eventually when all the sections are up to speed they should fit together like a jigsaw.

This is not such a good idea. I used to do this myself, and the problem is, as my own teacher pointed out, the easy sections never quite match up to the more difficult sections as if that jigsaw puzzle parts aren't fitted very well. (Using your analogy). In the end the whole piece was never quite finished as it should be.

By playing the whole piece together slowly, you'll ensure a consistent level of solidness through out rather than have sketchy sections and smooth sections.

Another thing to keep in mind is those so-called "easy" sections can come back to bite you later on if they're not given the attention they deserve. This is most apparent when you play the piece in public, or even attempt to record the music, and most definitely if you attempt to memorize. (How would I know... ahem).

I agree with this, JC, that one needs to play a piece through at a consistent tempo, even while still practicing it. However, I don't think that that should imply not taking more challenging sections and working on them independently, as slowly as necessary to get them accurately before trying to bring them up to speed.

Regards,

Thanks, apart from the few parts I can pretty much sight read all of the sections are challenging to varying degrees.

Absolutely spot on as always, Bruce.

Take out the hard sections and work on them as needed to get them at the same level as the rest, but we also need to keep everything consistent and well built as well. This overall is one of the most difficult things to get us to do. We're so overjoyed to be working on the music that we don't take the time out to get it right in the beginning.

I started the piano at 6, and although I've never actually stopped playing there was a period of about 30 years when I just stood still at around grade VII. Building a house, being an engineer during the day, bringing up 3 daughters and running a choir and a choral society, as well as getting involved in politics, saw to that. I stopped most of that around 10 years ago, and took up my piano playing once more until pain from tendonitis kept it bottled up. I was precribed a carpal tunnel release which I had done in 2013, with instructions to play the piano as physiotherapy.

Almost immediately my right hand (the one operated on) worked about 30% faster than it had before - it was an immediate and dramatic overnight improvement. That may strike a chord with some folk round here (no pun intended).

I will be practicing the piece with a consistent tempo but at the moment it's all in disarray where the maximum accurate playable speeds of the various sections are all different. I'm not playing the sections in sequence but they should all equalise out eventually after spending more practice time on the more difficult sections and less on the easier ones. Then I should be able to play all the sections in sequence with a consistent tempo but still won’t be at full speed at that stage. Does that sound like an ok approach from the advice above?

I sometimes wish I'd started playing at 6 Fareham, but didn’t have the opportunity with my parents not being very musical and having no piano. Do you mean you could play 30% faster than before the operation or before you were diagnosed with tendonitis? Sometimes when I try to play fast it feels like wading through treacle. I was never interested in taking grades after my first piano teacher (about 1980) showed me the awful modern pieces I would have to learn to play to a high standard and I was happy playing what I wanted. I'm practicing more now after I took early retirement but I unfortunately have issues with performing (playing when I know someone is listening). It means I can only practice when everyone is out or in bed when I use the practice pedal but that’s another story and maybe a different post one day.

What has occurred with this piece is exactly what I had expected would happen - been there and done that myself, and it's caused by rushing through the basics as my teacher has told me more than once.

Slow is the name of the game here so at this point in the game I wouldn't even think about a maximum speed. Seriously you need to start everything at the slowest tempo possible and work on it at that tempo all the way through so that all the parts fit together. There is no other way to unfix this as it is with all the parts are in various states of good, bad, and other.

With that in process you will also have to focus energy on getting those bravura sections right in addition to other complex sections. This process means you'll be disassembling the piece and putting it back together, albeit, slowly.

Once you are comfortable playing accurately all the way through, with no interpretation, you can then move on to the next level which is the expression.


As far as starting young... Some people are lucky that way that they can do that and have that opportunity to make something of a career out of it, but as Fareham said life gets in the way sometimes and it isn't until much later that one can finally enjoy something like music the way they want.

I'm not sure what it is you think has gone wrong John but it's still all coming along quite well, there's nothing that needs to be unfixed. The different sections I'm playing are still at different speeds due to varying difficulty, slower than full speed but at the maximum speed that I can still achieve total accuracy.

I'm still devoting most time to those bravura sections and I'm starting to detect a very slight glimmer of them sounding like runs rather than like practicing scales. Still got a long way to go though. If I practiced it playing the whole piece at the same speed that I can manage the bravura sections, I would be playing the easier sections many times slower than I need to to progress.