Book Or DVD And Other Advice

I hope my story is interesting enough to justify troubling you for some advice. I was a keen pianist at school. In my only public performance I played the C sharp minor fantasie impromptu. When I went out to work I more or less dropped the piano for 25 years. Now I have decided to give it another go. I bought a new 8' Bluthner concert grand (the like of which I would never have been able to afford, or find room for, when I was younger). I decided to take on the challenge of one of my favourite pieces although it was some way beyond my technique. Thus I have been working very hard at the Beethoven's E flat sonata "Les Adieux". Subject to some polishing and final interpretation I am now happy with the first 2 movements. I have found the 3rd movement very difficult, mainly because once I get the speed into the 90s it is terribly hard to keep the fast passages accurate and (unlike Chopin) that seems to be the essence of this movement. I am not miles away from mastering it, nor could I say it is within my grasp yet. The way I practise the difficult passages has been to play them very very slowly fortissimo until the accuracy is drummed into me. This is the one thing I carried away from my teacher, who learned from Solomon. Sometimes this enables me to switch straight to a fast speed without difficulty, sometimes I need to progress very gradually. I am worried about getting RSI and therefore avoid practising more than an hour a day. Many years ago I got a nodule on the tendon of my RH thumb after a few weeks of hard practice. It went away with a steroid injection but obviously that is worth avoiding. I hope you find this story interesting and would be delighted to hear your comments. In particular, would this be a good time to try your technique? If so should I get the book or the DVD or both? Having come so far I don't want to lose momentum on the sonata. There are a couple of points which I am perplexed to find an answer to. They are very specific and somewhat trivial so you may not feel in a position to answer them. First, would you pedal every crotchet in bar 4 of the allegro (ascending crotchet chords)? The music cries out for it but with crotchets at 200+ I have no idea whether people actually pedal that fast. Second, I struggle with the written out shakes in bars 53-56 (and elsewhere) of the 3rd movement. It seems odd but I can't play shake semiquavers as well as the more virtuoso passages elsewhere in the movement. Is that normal and can anything be done about it? Best regards Hfffoman

Hello, thanks for you post! Bravo for getting back to what you truly love! Given your background, I think my book and DVD would be ideal help for you. You mention repetitive practicing, an established way of drumming notes into one's head and fingers. I think my materials will offer you a more potent approach, one that will allow you to learn the notes better, less mechanically and more thoughtfully, yet a powerful sense of physical capability. As for the passages at mm 53-56, they are more difficult because of the awkward arrangement of the hand the passage necessitates... Try playing the passage attending more to the skeletal connections of your hand as it adapts itself to the required shapes. As for pedalling each crotchet, it is difficult but certainly not impossible - go for it! My approach doesn't seek to invalidate the training and experience you already received, but to help you better understand what you went through and better use the knowledge you already possess. Hope this helps! AFF

Thanks Alan, I appreciate your comments

Ok I decided I will get the book and DVD. You mention using different ways to get conquer a passage without endless repetition. That certainly sounds worth a go. I usually find getting reasonable fluency at a new passage isn't so hard. The hard thing is avoiding little inaccuracies in the rhythm, for example in playing a series of semiquavers one or two will be slightly too long and one or two slightly too short. It is easy to pick up these errors without noticing and once they are there it is terribly hard to eradicate them. I have been taught a technique where you play the same passage in a whole range of different rythms to unlearn the wrong one. It works to some extent but on the whole I find very slow repetitions is a better way of training myself to play accurately. If your method shows me a better way to deal with this problem I will be absolutely delighted. Best regards

The trouble with practicing passages with dotted rhythms etc, is that the inaccuracy that was in the passage played normally tends to get secretly transferred into the dotted rhythm as well. The underlying problem is one of perception - it is your ear that habituates to the inaccurate rhythm and then your reflexes play along. My exercises seek to refresh the physical sensation of your hand on the board so that you become sensitive to the slight tensions that either provoke rhythmic inaccuracies or that rhythmic inaccuracies inevitably provoke (which came first, the chicken or the egg?). The physical sensation becomes a signal that the rhythm is off. When the hand is organized to stand well on the board, you begin to see that its misalignment led to rhythmic unsteadiness, because now you have a more potent way of standing on the board, one that is simultaneously more secure and more fluid. You can also approach the solution from the other end: often practicing with a special emphasis on each pulse note miraculously improves rhythmic evenness AND the potent standing structure of your hand. So yes, I do believe that I can offer you some new solutions to this common problem! Best wishes, AFF