Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum "Advanced Fingering" and Playing HUGE intervals?!

Hey guys, there's some music that I would love to play! In fact, some of it I should be able to sight-read quite easily! Unfortunately, I think these composers must have a HUGE reach, which is strange since I have fairly wide hands and can play an interval of a tenth. But, the music I am having trouble figuring out is:

*Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Memory": No matter what fingering I use I have trouble playing the famous intro, particularly since there are so many accidental keys between the jump. Even using a thumb-under technique doesn't seem to avail me because of all the black keys that impede the ease of my jump back to the B-flat from the D.

Recently I found a cache of near mint-condition vocal selection books of Rodgers and Hammerstein's shows at a biennial bookstall sponsored by Planned Parenthood, and when I attempted to sight-read some of the much easier pieces (which I should be able to do!) the huge intervals of many of the block chords cause me a great deal of frustration because my hands and fingers cannot read the proper notes in the chords. Many of the rolled chords are uncomfortable, even.

Also, does anyone know if there are any method books dealing with the subject of "advanced fingering" techniques?

I'm also looking for such books...

So, could anyone suggest how they might tackle playing music like this?

For a fingering book, I would highly recommend ‘The Art of Piano Fingerng’ by Rami Bar Niv

For the individual scores, can you post a snippet?

I will try to post snippets this weekend when I can.

I cannot even play an octave comfortably with my right hand so I have learned the art of "advanced fingering" the hard way out of necessity with the help of my teacher, who is very good with her small hands. Yet some pieces I will not play because I cannot make them justice. But I play classical, I think other genres are more forgiving.

To compensate for small reach is a combination of fingering and pedalling. Most often I use hand distribution, play the middle voices with whatever hand can reach it. It makes things a bit more complicated to learn, but often allows all notes to be played without extreme pedalling. Also I take advantage of my flexible and long 3rd in a way that is not common in standard fingerings. And of course when playing faster one just needs to trust that the listener will percieve legato even if not actually there...

I recently got a book about playing with small hands, adaptive strategies for small handed players or something, not much new there, but it was a good read.

Your hands are not probably as small, but the music is written and fingered by someone bigger. It is also ok to leave out some notes if it sounds ok and pedal does not help. Much of non classical notation is not set in stone anyway, but are transcriptions so changes are quite acceptable.

Non-piano music arranged (or deranged) for piano by someone else - most likely not much of a pianist - should not retreated like real piano music or the Holy Grail, unlike Für Elise or Islamey.

That arranger - if he (it's almost always a 'he': female arrangers tend to be more perceptive of the size and shape of human hands as opposed to gorilla hands) got out of bed the right side that morning, would likely have made a slightly different arrangement of the same piece. So take what you see on the page with a dollop-full of salt and re-arrange the notes to suit your hands. Turn chords into arpeggios, add passing notes to make it sound more like piano music, etc.

Even better, get the lead sheets of the songs and make your own arrangements from scratch. That's how most cocktail pianists (a.k.a. lounge pianists) would play those songs for discerning clients.

This is excellent advice. All I can do is repeat what bennevis wrote: Music not originally for piano but re-arranged for piano is often arranged by someone who doesn't care whether or not the arrangement is really playable. Since it's an arrangement to begin with, there's no reason to try to play it note-for-note; do what you can with it to accommodate your skills.

Regards,

I agree that pop music arrangements should not be treated as gospel, and yes, they can be rearranged. However, as part of a query on the ABF, I think actually looking at the score to visually see the problems is a useful exercise not only to the OP but to others of the ABF that read these posts. Dismissing the score as problematic may or may not be correct, An advanced pianist would be able to make an accurate decision....., those of us here that are learning, may need help with evaluating

And the title of the book is a well guarded secret?

There are plenty of excellent arrangements of the famous songs you mentioned where your reach will be more than adequate to play them. I suggest you look for those. As others have suggested, I think you have been looking at some poor and unpianistic arrangements.

No, just my memory not so good...It is this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Adaptive-Strategies-Small-Handed-Pianists-Deahl/dp/0190616857

I fished out the two volumes I have of non-classical music: Dan Coates's Complete Advanced Piano Solos and "The World's BEST Piano Arrangements" (the hyperbole is the book's, not mine ).

They were given to me as Christmas presents a few years ago by someone who thought I was too immersed in classical music for my own good (as I play classical music even at Christmas) . I've sight-read through all of the music at one time or another, and remembered that while Coates's book of his arrangements of movie and Broadway tunes & songs (requiring a technical standard of intermediate/RCM grade 6 or more) contains next to no chords that required more than an octave stretch (the very few bigger chords in it were indicated to be arpeggiated), the other volume - which is almost all jazz arrangements purportedly by the likes of Bill Evans, Ellington, Brubeck, Tatum, Hines, Shearing, Waller et al (though I've no idea if those arrangements were what they actually played, as I don't listen to them) - is replete with consecutive tenths (& bigger) in LH chords. Pages of them, in fact, and clearly not meant to be arpeggiated. Quite impossible for me, who can just about stretch to ninths comfortably (and the odd tenth in LH only with preparation). Re-arranging them would alter the 'jazz voicing', so if you want to play what your jazz idols played, tough luck.........

I can play tenths but have trouble with very fast or filled in ones quite often appearing in music by Waller or Tatum. With a lot of practice one can learn to roll them very quickly but large hands are very helpful with pieces by those two and some others. I once heard a stride pianist with small hands play terrifically but he had been practicing rolling the tenths for years or decades.

For example, in this Waller version of Ain't Misbehavin, which is much slower/easier than some of his pieces, I roll some of the tenths and play others without any roll: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBX_mAbq_3s

Here's the arrangement of "Memory" that I copied off years ago in High School from a friend's copy of "The Singer's Musical Theatre Anthology" (Soprano edn.):

http://forpiano.com/FILEX/M/290ahq189e/memory__cats.pdf

Thanks,
Wade

Do you actually roll them, i.e. play the first bass note on the beat ? I have always played broken tenths by playing the first note, usually the bottom one but often the top for variety, with the the final swing triplet of the preceding beat. I think it gives a better rhythmic effect. I can usually play straight, filled tenths, except Bb, Eb, Ab and Db major, which are uncomfortable, but I often choose to break them anyway, for the musical effect.

Is this the arrangement you have trouble with?

There are no big stretches in it. Remember - you use the sustain pedal and you 'rotate' your wrist.

I usually play the lower bass note right before the beat.

That is a really good tip to selectively utilize the sustain pedal. I'll try that and let you know how it works. But, the stretch is that bottom note when bouncing back from the other two top notes (written without looking at the sheet music).

And, I must say, it IS a "big stretch" with finger 5 on the B-flat, then no matter what finger I place on the F (either the 2 or the 3) is a large stretch up to the D using finger 1 on the F; but it's an equal uncomfortable stretch when using finger #3 on the F when moving from the D back to the B-flat!