2022 our 25th year online!

Welcome to the Piano World Piano Forums
Over 3 million posts about pianos, digital pianos, and all types of keyboard instruments.
Over 100,000 members from around the world.
Join the World's Largest Community of Piano Lovers (it's free)
It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!

SEARCH
Piano Forums & Piano World
(ad)
Who's Online Now
66 members (benkeys, 1200s, aphexdisklavier, akse0435, AlkansBookcase, Alex Hutor, AndyOnThePiano2, amc252, 10 invisible), 1,847 guests, and 273 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Hop To
Page 1 of 3 1 2 3
Joined: Jul 2020
Posts: 28
B
Full Member
OP Offline
Full Member
B
Joined: Jul 2020
Posts: 28
It's not coming naturally at all to me, how long should I expect to struggle? x(

Joined: Jul 2020
Posts: 28
B
Full Member
OP Offline
Full Member
B
Joined: Jul 2020
Posts: 28
Tips and tricks?

Joined: May 2015
Posts: 12,370
S
PW Gold Subscriber
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Offline
PW Gold Subscriber
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
S
Joined: May 2015
Posts: 12,370
Bingo
You started studying the piano in June. Why are you concerned about learning polyrhythms???

Joined: Jun 2019
Posts: 133
F
Full Member
Offline
Full Member
F
Joined: Jun 2019
Posts: 133
In piano i did that for like after many years.
But tips and tricks are learning a god rhyme for it. With your foot stomp and make the sound "taka" for eightnotes. "Takataka" for 16th note and "takata" for triplets. Start using your left hand åretend-playing for keeping with the 16th and right hand for your triplets.
This is not easy - so if you are a beginniner. Wait a bit.

Joined: May 2016
Posts: 2,430
I
2000 Post Club Member
Offline
2000 Post Club Member
I
Joined: May 2016
Posts: 2,430
You need to multiply 3*4 and count for 12

1**2**3**4**
1***2***3***

Joined: Jul 2017
Posts: 2,598
M
2000 Post Club Member
Offline
2000 Post Club Member
M
Joined: Jul 2017
Posts: 2,598
I want to learn this one day to get secure in this rhythm. Chopin wrote it for a series - method of methods - which was where about 10 composers wrote pieces for.



It's like this:

Together, left hand, right hand, left hand, right hand, left hand,

I can do 4:3 like this quite easily and there is many threads on it if you look.

I think eventually in a piece you can just let it flow making sure you keep focus on when the notes are together but this takes skills and maybe an etude like the Chopin one above. It is very difficult. Unlike Reddit where every beginner is playing fantasies impromptu badly it can takes many years.

Interestingly I can't play this FI or this nouvelle etude 1 so I think it's harder to maintain this 4:3 polyrhythm for a length of tine. So even when a single 4:3 rhythm is very easy it can be much much harder to maintain it for a piece.

I think it is a reasonable query even if new to piano. Good luck!

Last edited by Moo :); 08/16/20 08:51 AM.
Joined: Jul 2017
Posts: 2,598
M
2000 Post Club Member
Offline
2000 Post Club Member
M
Joined: Jul 2017
Posts: 2,598
Originally Posted by Iaroslav Vasiliev
You need to multiply 3*4 and count for 12

1**2**3**4**
1***2***3***

? It is humanly impossible to count to 12. Was this a josh wright video? I know he can do this .

Joined: May 2015
Posts: 12,370
S
PW Gold Subscriber
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Offline
PW Gold Subscriber
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
S
Joined: May 2015
Posts: 12,370
Originally Posted by Moo :)
Originally Posted by Iaroslav Vasiliev
You need to multiply 3*4 and count for 12

1**2**3**4**
1***2***3***

? It is humanly impossible to count to 12. Was this a josh wright video? I know he can do this .


Moo, finding the common denominator in the two rhythms is a common way of teaching the concept of polyrhythms

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b29H5RLcijs

Joined: Jul 2017
Posts: 2,598
M
2000 Post Club Member
Offline
2000 Post Club Member
M
Joined: Jul 2017
Posts: 2,598
It really doesn't work for this rhythm. You cannot count to 12 in a beat.

It requires different ways to teach complex polyrhythms. Chopin is one of the worst composer for polyrhythm m

How do you think we are taught to play this one? Complex polyrhythms require different strategies



X

Joined: May 2015
Posts: 12,370
S
PW Gold Subscriber
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Offline
PW Gold Subscriber
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
S
Joined: May 2015
Posts: 12,370
You must not have watched the instructional video. You learn to feel the rhythm by counting to 12 and playing each hand at the proper time. That is the beginning step in learning 4 vs 3, and not just on this one video. It is a mathematical problem.

Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 2,861
2000 Post Club Member
Offline
2000 Post Club Member
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 2,861
Repeat after me: Pass the f***ing butter.
Or, if you are a more genteel kind of person, you can use this alternative:
Pass the stinking butter.

Now you are going to drum this phrase with your two hands, left (L) and right (R). You start with left and right together on "Pass" and then you alternate hands on the rest of the syllables:
Pass (L, R together)
The (R)
Stin- (L)
-king (R)
But- (L)
-ter (R)

Do this many times until the polyrhythm gets internalized.
There are also lots of online polyrhythmic metronomes that I found helpful, e.g.:
Bounce metronome (You need to uncheck the mute box.)


"Playing the piano is my greatest joy...period."......JP
Joined: Jul 2017
Posts: 2,598
M
2000 Post Club Member
Offline
2000 Post Club Member
M
Joined: Jul 2017
Posts: 2,598
I know how to do it. He is not correct as it is not how to do all polyrhythms. it does not work on all polyrhythms to split to the smallest denomination of a beat. The smaller denominator in 3:4 that you can count is 4. It is not 12. you cannot count or hear 12ths of a beat. Only josh wright can do this. You can draw lines for the three to see where they are played in relation to the 4. It has the feel of what I described above. I'll let the other pianists and teachers give their view.

Last edited by Moo :); 08/16/20 10:13 AM.
Joined: Jul 2017
Posts: 2,598
M
2000 Post Club Member
Offline
2000 Post Club Member
M
Joined: Jul 2017
Posts: 2,598
Originally Posted by jazzyprof
Repeat after me: Pass the f***ing butter.
Or, if you are a more genteel kind of person, you can use this alternative:
Pass the stinking butter.

Now you are going to drum this phrase with your two hands, left (L) and right (R). You start with left and right together on "Pass" and then you alternate hands on the rest of the syllables:
Pass (L, R together)
The (R)
Stin- (L)
-king (R)
But- (L)
-ter (R)

Do this many times until the polyrhythm gets internalized.
There are also lots of online polyrhythmic metronomes that I found helpful, e.g.:
Bounce metronome (You need to uncheck the mute box.)

My other post was referring to dogperson. I agree with you post.

Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 2,367
E
EPW Offline
2000 Post Club Member
Offline
2000 Post Club Member
E
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 2,367
Originally Posted by BingoDingo
It's not coming naturally at all to me, how long should I expect to struggle? x(

For most normal players it usually is a struggle for poly-rhythms. I still have trouble with them after 40+ years. Jazzyprof has the right approach.


All these years playing and I still consider myself a novice.
Joined: Feb 2019
Posts: 5,064
S
5000 Post Club Member
Offline
5000 Post Club Member
S
Joined: Feb 2019
Posts: 5,064
Originally Posted by dogperson
Bingo
You started studying the piano in June. Why are you concerned about learning polyrhythms???

I think in a month time, he can start playing some Chopin etudes. He will need to fully master polyrhythm by then. I think a couple of weeks of training should be plenty enough time.


Blüthner model 6
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 36,803
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Online Content
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 36,803
Unless the tempo is extremely slow, I think almost all players just make the first note of each hand's grouping coincide and the rest falls into place naturally and correctly. Certainly that applies for the Fantasie Impromptu and the Nouvelle F minor Etude. IMO most of the above discussion is an example of needlessly complicating something and not the way someone ready to play those pieces does things.

Practicing these 4 vs. 3 sections slowly is a waste of time. If one can't play them at a reasonable fast tempo one should practice hands separately first.

Last edited by pianoloverus; 08/16/20 01:01 PM.
Joined: May 2015
Posts: 12,370
S
PW Gold Subscriber
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Offline
PW Gold Subscriber
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
S
Joined: May 2015
Posts: 12,370
Originally Posted by pianoloverus
Unless the tempo is extremely slow, I think almost all players just make the first note of each hand's grouping coincide and the rest falls into place naturally and correctly. Certainly that applies for the Fantasie Impromptu and the Nouvelle F minor Etude. IMO most of the above discussion is an example of needlessly complicating something and not the way someone ready to play those pieces does things.

Practicing these 4 vs. 3 sections slowly is a waste of time. If one can't play them at a reasonable fast tempo one should practice hands separately first.

The hands can fall together naturally and correctly IF executing the polyrhythm has become natural. When you are a beginner, it is not natural and you need to learn where the notes should fall.

Joined: May 2001
Posts: 36,803
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Online Content
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 36,803
Originally Posted by dogperson
Originally Posted by pianoloverus
Unless the tempo is extremely slow, I think almost all players just make the first note of each hand's grouping coincide and the rest falls into place naturally and correctly. Certainly that applies for the Fantasie Impromptu and the Nouvelle F minor Etude. IMO most of the above discussion is an example of needlessly complicating something and not the way someone ready to play those pieces does things.

Practicing these 4 vs. 3 sections slowly is a waste of time. If one can't play them at a reasonable fast tempo one should practice hands separately first.

The hands can fall together naturally and correctly IF executing the polyrhythm has become natural. When you are a beginner, it is not natural and you need to learn where the notes should fall.
Beginners should not be working on 4 vs. 3, and it's hard to find a beginner piece with that problem. That's why there are so many PW posts about the difficulty with that in Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu. I think almost anyone technically ready to play that piece would handle the polyrhythm the way I suggested irregardless of their prior experience with 4 vs. 3. That's the way I approached it although I had little or no experience with 4 vs.3 at the time.

Joined: Feb 2015
Posts: 4,033
4000 Post Club Member
Offline
4000 Post Club Member
Joined: Feb 2015
Posts: 4,033
Originally Posted by dogperson
Bingo
You started studying the piano in June. Why are you concerned about learning polyrhythms???
Originally Posted by pianoloverus
Beginners should not be working on 4 vs. 3, and it's hard to find a beginner piece with that problem.

I would like to emphasize this point. BingoDingo why are you trying to do all these things that are normally learned only after a couple of years - voicing, legato chords, and now polyrhythms? If you expect your progress to be better you're in for some disappointment. It's more likely that you will build up tension that leads to bad technique, which it seems is already the case since you complained about pain in one of your previous posts. Maybe it's time to forget about this stuff and focus on your basics first, don't you think?

Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 17,274
B
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Offline
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
B
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 17,274
I've learnt quite a time ago that an adult leopard never changes its spots.

I believe the OP is just about ready to tackle Islamey (the unsimplified version, though I don't know of any other) in about ten days' time. By then, he'll have mastered prime number polyrhythms like 7:11 and 13:17.


If music be the food of love, play on!
Page 1 of 3 1 2 3

Moderated by  Bart K, platuser 

Link Copied to Clipboard
What's Hot!!
Piano World Has Been Sold!
--------------------
Forums RULES, Terms of Service & HELP
(updated 06/06/2022)
---------------------
Posting Pictures on the Forums
(ad)
(ad)
New Topics - Multiple Forums
Estonia 1990
by Iberia - 04/16/24 11:01 AM
Very Cheap Piano?
by Tweedpipe - 04/16/24 10:13 AM
Practical Meaning of SMP
by rneedle - 04/16/24 09:57 AM
Country style lessons
by Stephen_James - 04/16/24 06:04 AM
How Much to Sell For?
by TexasMom1 - 04/15/24 10:23 PM
Forum Statistics
Forums43
Topics223,390
Posts3,349,248
Members111,632
Most Online15,252
Mar 21st, 2010

Our Piano Related Classified Ads
| Dealers | Tuners | Lessons | Movers | Restorations |

Advertise on Piano World
| Piano World | PianoSupplies.com | Advertise on Piano World |
| |Contact | Privacy | Legal | About Us | Site Map


Copyright © VerticalScope Inc. All Rights Reserved.
No part of this site may be reproduced without prior written permission
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission, which supports our community.