Studying A Brilliant Music

How do you proceed ? Gradually step by step from slow to fast ? Not gradually but springing up from slow to fast ? Very slow and very fast, very slow and very fast, etc. Other methods ? One example: Beethoven sonata op. 27 n. 2 (moonlight sonata), 3rd movement. Thank you.

I am not even remotely at a level where I can give advice on this piece, but I can point you to this link on Alan's blog: My guess is that you would need to break the piece down to manageable pieces, figure out the exact physical motion you want to employ (which may be different than your habitual way of playing) and practise it in a speed in which you can be accurate and in control. Mind you that I am not speaking from experience (I am still a beginner), I am sure others will have better answers.

All of the above! First of course you take a bar or two or four and play them at a speed where all the notes can sound evenly, comfortably and fully. If you do this well, you have already created a sound basis for playing the passage well - but this is the stage most of us leave out! It is not easy to do this well. It takes concentration. It may even take using the metronome at a very slow tempo to uncover your unconscious rhythmic inaccuracies. Go slow enough that you can hyper-activate your fingers - they are most likely lazy, sluggish and not used to being well-coordinated (sorry, I don't mean to insult!). Use the opportunity of slow practice to zero in on where you are collapsing inadvertently. Overemphasis of rhythmic pulse helps very much in bringing this to your awareness. In the opening measures of the Moonlight 3rd movement be sure to use a 5 2 5 2 fingering in the left hand so that these fingers play simultaneously in both hands - this does a great deal neurologically to help the hands coordinate. And as you gradually increase tempo, overemphasize pulse in the left hand more than the right, which will start to race ahead more easily if the pulse is reduced to a light minimum. Well I guess that's enough for starters... Once all this is clearly established, you have to teach your reflexes how different things will be at speed, and for that all of your proposals can be useful. In a nutshell: 1) Make sure that are present in your slow playing. 2) as you increase speed. Let us know how it works out! AFF

All of the above! First of course you take a bar or two or four and play them at a speed where all the notes can sound evenly, comfortably and fully. If you do this well, you have already created a sound basis for playing the passage well - but this is the stage most of us leave out! It is not easy to do this well. It takes concentration. It may even take using the metronome at a very slow tempo to uncover your unconscious rhythmic inaccuracies. Go slow enough that you can hyper-activate your fingers - they are most likely lazy, sluggish and not used to being well-coordinated (sorry, I don't mean to insult!). Use the opportunity of slow practice to zero in on where you are collapsing inadvertently. Overemphasis of rhythmic pulse helps very much in bringing this to your awareness. In the opening measures of the Moonlight 3rd movement be sure to use a 5 2 5 2 fingering in the left hand so that these fingers play simultaneously in both hands - this does a great deal neurologically to help the hands coordinate. And as you gradually increase tempo, overemphasize pulse in the left hand more than the right, which will start to race ahead more easily if the pulse is reduced to a light minimum. Well I guess that's enough for starters... Once all this is clearly established, you have to teach your reflexes how different things will be at speed, and for that all of your proposals can be useful. In a nutshell: 1) Make sure that are present in your slow playing. 2) as you increase speed. Let us know how it works out! AFF These are only first 24 seconds of Beethoven sonata for a test. I have follow your advice and I have used method n. 3.

OK not bad at all! One thing I notice is that there is a physical inversion - your wrist is higher than your metacarpal phalangeal joints. I believe the roughness of tone and the lack of total rhythmic control (are the left and right hands together?) may be related to this physical anomaly. Otherwise, sounds pretty good! AFF

OK not bad at all! One thing I notice is that there is a physical inversion - your wrist is higher than your metacarpal phalangeal joints. I believe the roughness of tone and the lack of total rhythmic control (are the left and right hands together?) may be related to this physical anomaly. Otherwise, sounds pretty good! AFF Thank you Alan ! I observed the same thing, but I have not found relation with the sound, many thanks. Another thing: I observed that incidentally in my head there is this interpretation that I love:

If you want to discover the relationship of your hand shape to your sound, simply compare your sound to Kempff's and also compare the visual look of your hands. To me the correlation is plain as day! Your musical intentions are very similar. If you could scientifically compare to the microsecond the attacks of your notes and the attacks of Kempff's notes, they would probably be very close. But there's a big difference between his tone quality and yours which doesn't just have to do with his superior instrument. This is a great illustration of the question we're discussing in the thread right next door: can tone quality be altered? AFF

If you want to discover the relationship of your hand shape to your sound, simply compare your sound to Kempff's and also compare the visual look of your hands. To me the correlation is plain as day! Your musical intentions are very similar. If you could scientifically compare to the microsecond the attacks of your notes and the attacks of Kempff's notes, they would probably be very close. But there's a big difference between his tone quality and yours which doesn't just have to do with his superior instrument. This is a great illustration of the question we're discussing in the thread right next door: can tone quality be altered? AFF Thank you Alan it's a pleasure to talk to you ! Of course I don’t wish play like kempff, it’s impossibile, he is a Pianist, I admire his very superior tone quality, on the contrary, I only try to play the piano decently. Add that Tune of my piano is not ok. Where is the thread ?

It is the "Arm weight debate on my website" thread

OK not bad at all! One thing I notice is that there is a physical inversion - your wrist is higher than your metacarpal phalangeal joints. I believe the roughness of tone and the lack of total rhythmic control (are the left and right hands together?) may be related to this physical anomaly. Otherwise, sounds pretty good! AFF I notice that moving my body during the performance cause tension of muscle of my left leg, that remain “in tension” ! This problem I think that cause the roughness of tone.