Polonaise Op 53

Hi, Just saw a brief advertisement on youtube of your dvd, looking for a completely unrelated movie and after seeing the part with the hand rotation and the Campanella I knew I had to get the DVD. Can't wait to watch it. My question of tehnique though, how does one go about playing fast octaves in left hand, like the ones in Chopin's Polonaise Op.53 measures 85-96 97-99. Top note is always played with the thumb probably but what about the bottom note fingering. And how do you get them fast ? I am trying to use 5-3-4-5 for 85-96 and 3-4-5-3 or 3-4-5-4 for 97-99 and I'm having trouble especially at 97-99 (getting stiff and painful). Thanks, cornel

Aaaa, those octaves in the A flat polonaise... the bane of us all. You're going to have to take the long road to solve that one - in other words, wait for the DVD to arrive and then study it To get those octaves going you must get the basic function of your hand going. But the short answer is, play the lower notes non-legato but with the legato fingering, not all 5-5-5-5. Throw your hand loosely onto the keyboard but don't allow that looseness to destroy your structure or make it flabby. The looseness should allow a stinging shock to be administered to the fingers as each octave is played, a shock that travels up right through the hand's skeletal structure into the arm, galvanizing the hand and keeping its structure potent. In other words, don't bind your hand up effortfully in order to manage a legato fingering. Allow the legato fingering to encourage your hand to let go and be looser. Find the loose, twisting way to get to those notes... By the way, pay special attention to the two-part voicing of the right hand here - that is much more interesting than the octaves! AFF

Funny thing you should mention octaves, specifically LH octaves, because I just made a breakthrough with octaves a few days ago. I've always been able to play decent LH octaves (I tried Dreyschock's trick of playing Chopins etude 10/12 with LH octaves, it really went alot less horribly as I was expecting) but my RH octaves have been very poor. It felt like I was trying to smash down piano keys and my hand was always behind the music. Furthermore, my forearm seized up and the sound was absolutely horrible. I realized that there were two problems; the first problem was in the of all places. In my left hand, there was a small, but powerful motion of the upper arm coming forward, towards the piano, as supporting the forearm as it flexed down into the keys. Second, my left hand was at a better angle to the keys - it seems that I cannot get stable support from the keybed unless my fingers (in this case thumb+pinky) are approaching the key at almost 60 degrees. Watch this video, in it Vladimir Horowitz demonstrates his famous octaves: Look at his upper arm and wrist, everything works in perfect harmony. Needless to say, none of this works if the hand structure is collapsed.

You're thinking like that guy - good going! AFF

guy - good going! AFF What

I wanted to say that your way of approaching the problem was right on. You are using the principles of skeletality and structural function as a context to sense what you're doing, and then correcting your own playing based on that - instead of dogmatically trying to play with your wrist higher or lower or something just because somebody said so... I wanted to send you congratulations - from the "Craft of Piano guy..." Good work! AFF