Question About Piano Playing

Hello Alan! I had ordered a DVD but before I received that, would you please can you give me an advise. 1. When I play liszt's etude n.8, there is a loud big hords, I feel pain on my nails, after I play it for some time. Why it could be, maybe I give too much weight on them? 2. When I play exercise n 31 by Hanon, or for example Schubert's song Atlas, my hand very soon become tired. Why it happens? I tried to play different ways but it helpless. Im realy upset about it. What can you advise me, how should I learn it? Thank you very much!

For the Liszt etude: on what part of the finger do you stand to depress the key? Are you standing right on the tip, so that your nail may be even touching the key? Or are your fingers much flatter so that the big, thick, fat part of the pad has juicy contact with the key? Or somewhere in between? Can you tell me more exactly? For the more general question of hand tiredness, my likely guess would be weakness in its structural organization. Your bones aren't well aligned, forcing the muscles to do way more work than they should be. I think the film is going to help you out with this! All the best, AFF

Thanks for reply. Problem with liszt (not only liszt actually) right hand, top of the finger, where nail and finger tip located, so between that. Pinky, Index, Ring fingers are suffer from pain. Yes my nails use to touch keyboard, I even use to hear it, you mean it is not correct?

Anything done to excess is incorrect more or less... except... oh, I'd better not get into that... Playing so your nails click on the keys can be great and I often do it. But you should be able to use the fattest, juiciest part of your finger pad as well. If you can't, you will be seriously limited in the amount and quality of tone you can produce. So try that to start with, flatten your fingers and lower your wrist to make it easy for your pads to glue themselves to the keys... Try that and let me know what happens. AFF

Thanks for reply! I think you right, I should use more my pads.

Hello Alan! your advise about nails helped me, I have no more pain! I have other problem, here is this spot: 1:30-1:42. Berezovskiy plays it so easy, with very economical motions of the hand, How to gain same performance of the hand as he does at this spot? My hand become tired when I make these jumps. What would you recomend me? Thanks a lot. P.S. Finaly I got DVD I watch it every day, try to learn as much as possible from this film.

Geez, this guy really plays! There is a whole regime of leaping exercises which I haven't included anywhere in my writings - maybe I should! It involves training the reflexes to be free of anxiety at the moment of leaping. So for instance you rest on key, staying very still and planning your leap with no physical 'anticipation.' Then you leap as quickly as you can to the next key or keys but don't play them, just rest your fingers on them. And stop there, motionless and tension-less. Allow your CNS time to recalibrate, return to a state of alive, alert, neutrality. The thing is, to do the actual leap INSTANTANEOUSLY but surround it by extreme slowness. Isolate it and clarify the actual neuromotor process that generates the leap. There's a lot more, but I've no time to write it all down now... You get the general idea, give it a try! AFF

Thank you very much, this advice helped my a lot! Right now I fell better, free of anxiety - THIS IS THE KEY!! besides correct hand movement. You can not play well fast music with anxiety, and it is very defficult to get rid of it. But I will try work on it and get myself out of it. I have one question probably last for this etude n. 8, The begining: I wish to know wich fingers I must(should) use in small arppegious(passge) 5 very fast notes, between leaping chords. In my book following fingers, for example: descending arppegio: D,C, B without flat, A-flat and G, fingers is: in right hand 5,4,3,2, and 3rd on G, left hand 1,2,3,4, 3 on G. Actually it goes same way in other arppegious. Is it correct fingering?, I tried it, and it looks like impossible to play this way at fast tempo. I tried it regulary 1,2,3,4,5 fingers, but still it sounds not well. What would you recommend me at this particular passage? Thank you very much for previous answers. P.S. Yes you should definitely include this to your writings, it is very importent for thechnical training I think, Actually it would be not a bad idea add example of schuberts song Erkoning, this oktaves are very tricky in this song, I'm for example don't now how to play them with correct relaxation. And of course the third's!! this is one of the most difficult thing in piano playing. Also I would like to see example how to play glissando and repeated notes. Best wishes, Alexey