Help with this rolled chord in Clair de Lune?
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I do 5-4-3-2-1, but it didn't work for me at first--it was uneven and unpredictable. The way I figured out what to do was as follows. I don't know if I can explain it in words, but I'll try.
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I looked at the pattern of notes in the left hand, Eb-Gb-Ab-Db-Eb in the treble. The chord starts on Eb which is on the right side of a 2 black key block (Db and Eb), skips over 2 white keys to the next black key, Gb, then the next black key, Ab, then skips four half steps to the black key, Db, and finally the next black key, Eb.
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Then I figure out how to mirror that pattern for my right hand. So mirroring Eb-Gb-Ab-Db-Eb going up, I play in descending notes--with my right hand--Db (half step from middle C), Bb, Ab, Eb, Db using 5-4-3-2-1. It's the same pattern the left hand has to play but reversed for the right hand (and on different notes obviously, it's the pattern that counts).
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If I can play the mirror image of the pattern with my right hand, then it's just a process of figuring out what I'm doing on the right side of my body (hand, arm, shoulder, ...) that I'm not doing on my left. For me, I discovered a good deal of tension in the crook of my left elbow.
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Then I start making up exercises for my left hand while it's crossed in front of my body, specifically in an effort to open up my left elbow. For instance, holding my pinky on the Eb, trying to play step wise with my thumb and fore finger several notes away. It turns out I also had stiffness on the inside of my upper arm. It's a slow process and sometimes intense, but it works for me.
Of course, we're all individual and none of this may help. I hope it does.
Otherwise, an alternate fingering.
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Sudden thought, is your body far enough right to make the fingers feel natural? Maybe move up the stool, or try the chord two octaves lower to find what works?
@AndyD thanks! I'll try to see where I'm sitting, and if I can lean more to the right. That's very helpful!!
@bernard omg! doing the mirror thing is brilliant!! I'm also going to try to do the LH rolled chords an octave (or two!) lower and just see how it feels, because I haven't tried that at all yet.
These two things (mirroring and moving lower on the keyboard) might also help me decide whether to use the thumb on the top two notes.
My current teacher has very small hands, like, to my eye, dramatically small. I'm 5'4" and have probably a slightly larger than average reach for a woman. She is quite petite, maybe only 5' tall, and her hands are very small and her fingers look short to me. But of course, she can get her hands to do all kinds of things that I can't. So I think the thumb on two keys things is probably something she has to do. And it sounds fab when she does it.
But I'm not sure I "have" to do it this way.
So I will try all these ideas -- leaning to the right more, mirroring to see how I'm using my body when the roll is in the RH, and then also playing lower on the keyboard to see what fingering feels natural -- and then go from there.
To your (@bernard point about making up exercises -- I was trying to play just the top three, 3-2-1 and it's really getting over "c" that is the problem. (also I think my 3-2-1 spread is stiff)
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BTW, I like my new teacher but she's no where near as dynamic and creative an instructor as my previous teacher was.
That's the way the system here works (uni music school), I don't have much choice, and my teacher last year is graduating in Dec (with a doctorate in piano performance) so she's not teaching this semester anyway.
It's fine, but it really underscores 1) how good my last teacher was, and 2) how inexperienced my current teacher is as a teacher.
All the ideas in this thread are things I don't think she would come up with, but I bet my previous teacher would. She had a trick or a solution to anything I threw at her.
/threaddrift
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I’m not near my piano (in Miami for a conference) but will chime in in a few days. I play that last chord real slow. I like how the C hits before the A, breaking the ‘trebleward’ roll a bit.
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I’m not near my piano (in Miami for a conference) but will chime in in a few days. I play that last chord real slow. I like how the C hits before the A, breaking the ‘trebleward’ roll a bit.
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5-4-3-2-1, but I have big paws. And a thumb that bends outward more than usual (don’t know what that’s called).
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I think I am going to leave out that Gb. If I do that, I can roll the chord in one motion.
It seems almost blasphemous to drop a note when this whole is all about tone colors, but it’s one nanosecond across the whole piece, and trying to get those five notes in was making my wrist hurt. Four notes seems much more doable.
We’ll see what my teacher thinks at tomorrow’s lesson.
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I think I am going to leave out that Gb. If I do that, I can roll the chord in one motion.
It seems almost blasphemous to drop a note when this whole is all about tone colors, but it’s one nanosecond across the whole piece, and trying to get those five notes in was making my wrist hurt. Four notes seems much more doable.
We’ll see what my teacher thinks at tomorrow’s lesson.
@ShiroKuro If it were me I'd leave out the Db in the left hand as it will be far less noticeable and a Db appears in the right hand as well so it won't be entirely missing from the chord. The Gb seems pretty important to the harmonic movement and it's the only Gb in the chord so it's elimination would make a big difference.
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@ShiroKuro If it were me I'd leave out the Db in the left hand as it will be far less noticeable and a Db appears in the right hand as well so it won't be entirely missing from the chord. The Gb seems pretty important to the harmonic movement and it's the only Gb in the chord so it's elimination would make a big difference.
If it were me I'd leave out the Db in the left hand as it will be far less noticeable and a Db appears in the right hand as well so it won't be entirely missing from the chord. The Gb seems pretty important to the harmonic movement and it's the only Gb in the chord so it's elimination would make a big difference.
Thanks so much for this suggestion!! I wasn't tracking that Db in the RH, but of course, there it is!
I played it w/o the Gb and thought it sounded fine, and it was sooo much easier to play, so I thought I'd go with that. But finger-wise, if I don't have to get 2 on that Db, doing 5-4-3 on Eb-Gb-Ab and then 1 on Eb ought to be relatively easy.
I will try this tonight when I practice.
Thank you!!!
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If it were me I'd leave out the Db in the left hand as it will be far less noticeable and a Db appears in the right hand as well so it won't be entirely missing from the chord. The Gb seems pretty important to the harmonic movement and it's the only Gb in the chord so it's elimination would make a big difference.
Thanks so much for this suggestion!! I wasn't tracking that Db in the RH, but of course, there it is!
I played it w/o the Gb and thought it sounded fine, and it was sooo much easier to play, so I thought I'd go with that. But finger-wise, if I don't have to get 2 on that Db, doing 5-4-3 on Eb-Gb-Ab and then 1 on Eb ought to be relatively easy.
I will try this tonight when I practice.
Thank you!!!
@ShiroKuro I barely notice it if the Db is dropped from the left hand. Think of it as changing the voicing (dropping the LH Db) versus changing the harmony (dropping the Gb).
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@ShiroKuro I barely notice it if the Db is dropped from the left hand. Think of it as changing the voicing (dropping the LH Db) versus changing the harmony (dropping the Gb).
I barely notice it if the Db is dropped from the left hand. Think of it as changing the voicing (dropping the LH Db) versus changing the harmony (dropping the Gb).
Yes, it makes total sense! I'm looking forward to trying it this evening. The big question is how it feels under my fingers. I will report back!
And thank you for this suggestion, now I won't look like an idiot in my lesson tomorrow for not having noticed this!
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@bernard I think you found the answer!! Leaving out the Db feels like it solves everything!
My wrist is very stiff (in terms of lateral movement) and when I bring my hand to this part of the keyboard, I just can’t get it in a good position. Leaving out the Gb, I was able to play the roll in one movement that sounded nice but it involved a fair amount of contortion that was pretty uncomfortable.
But by leaving out the Db, first of all, I can get all my fingers on the notes at once with no contortion, and crucially, no discomfort! So I could play that just as a block chord, which I couldn’t do when playing all five notes, and when playing the Db and leaving out the Gb, I could play it as a block chord but as I said, it was uncomfortable.
And second of all, even with the Db missing, it still sounds nice and lush, and it requires very little attention to get my fingers where they need to be. And that was after only practicing it for maybe 5 minutes.
Yay, thank you Bernard!
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@bernard I think you found the answer!! Leaving out the Db feels like it solves everything!
My wrist is very stiff (in terms of lateral movement) and when I bring my hand to this part of the keyboard, I just can’t get it in a good position. Leaving out the Gb, I was able to play the roll in one movement that sounded nice but it involved a fair amount of contortion that was pretty uncomfortable.
But by leaving out the Db, first of all, I can get all my fingers on the notes at once with no contortion, and crucially, no discomfort! So I could play that just as a block chord, which I couldn’t do when playing all five notes, and when playing the Db and leaving out the Gb, I could play it as a block chord but as I said, it was uncomfortable.
And second of all, even with the Db missing, it still sounds nice and lush, and it requires very little attention to get my fingers where they need to be. And that was after only practicing it for maybe 5 minutes.
Yay, thank you Bernard!
@ShiroKuro I'm glad it was helpful. Yay! Hopefully your teacher will be on board with it.
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@ShiroKuro I'm glad it was helpful. Yay! Hopefully your teacher will be on board with it.
@Bernard She was mostly on board. She sort of started out by saying that it's such a well-known piece and I might try to keep all five notes in the roll. But I said I didn't really want to strain just to get that, so she agreed to dropping a note. And she definitely agreed that the Db is the one to drop!
I'm working on this piece up through page three on my score, which is measure 34 (of 72) so I'm about halfway through it. I asked her what I should do for the next week of practice, whether I should focus of the first three pages or should I move ahead and work on parts that are new that I haven't looked at yet.
She said move ahead, so that was interesting to me.
I only have two more measures and then the key changes (for 8 measures before changing back). So I guess I should work on those two measures, and at least start the key change section.
I keep thinking I'm on the edge of giving up on this piece, and then something happens and it feels do-able... And then I realize that is total folly...
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I’m not near my piano (in Miami for a conference) but will chime in in a few days. I play that last chord real slow. I like how the C hits before the A, breaking the ‘trebleward’ roll a bit.
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Clair de Lune update…. So the rolled chord is now a non-issue since I decided to drop that Db (thanks again @bernard !)
But wow my progress is so slow with this piece! I am working through the first 4 pages so far, well not even, since I’m only up through the first two staves of page 4.
That’s after 6 weeks of (literally) daily practice on the piece.
I can only add maybe 2 to 4 new measures each week. At this rate it will take me another 4 months to get through to the end! And that’s not even getting up to tempo or polishing, that’s just working out fingerings and getting all the notes in my fingers.
That’s probably not how long it will take in actuality, but my teacher thinks I can play this for my jury — which is about two months away. There’s no way.
Fortunately, I’m working on two other pieces, and I think either would be fine for the jury. But it’s a little frustrating to me that she seems kind of clueless about what it means that I’m progressing so slowly through this piece. For the record, this is my new teacher at the music school, I’ve had 6 lessons with her so far. She’s a doctoral student in the piano program here, as was my teacher last year. But my last teacher and this teacher seem miles apart in terms of teaching experience. Anyway, this post wasn’t meant to be about the teacher…
So back to CdL… I feel like my rate of progress is a clear sign that this piece is too hard for me. With other pieces, I can move through an entire page in a week…
But could it just be a sign that my other pieces are too easy for me? Is this pace (2-4 measures of new music per week) how most people move through learning new music?
For comparison, one of other pieces I’m working on is Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, by Ryuichi Sakamoto. The internet tells me it’s maybe a grade 6-7 piece, while CdL is grade 8. And compared to CdL, MCML almost feels easy, so obviously that’s part of it.
Anyway, part of the point of this post is to ask, is CdL too hard for me, or are my other pieces too easy?
The other point of the post is to say, my god, CdL is hard, but I’m going to keep working on it till I get to the end!
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BTW MCML has 5 flats, like CdL, but no key change. It has a section of five-fingered chords and a challenging ending. I’ve been working on it for three weeks and I’ve worked on every part of it except the last 8 measures. I’ll probably try to tackle that part tomorrow.
It’s really beautiful, if you’re curious:
Link to video
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Heh... It depends on how much you like/love a piece. CDL is one of the few pieces that even non-classical music lovers know and love. Even once you have all the notes down, there's a gestation period before you really get to work in the depth of the piece.
I think I spent forever learning the 1st Contrapunctus of Bach's Art of Fugue. It was a real slog through a tropical jungle with some swamps along the way. And a couple of years hence, I'm still learning from that journey - sorting out touch and tone issues that I didn't capture the first round. And it's only 3 pages long!!
Personally, I would keep at it, but perhaps down the intensity of your focus - just settle for a measure or 2 at a time. As for the jury, maybe take a stab at something easier - but I would encourage you to keep some effort on Clair de Lune.
Having said that, I know longer think about learning a major Beethoven Sonata. i prefer to learn a prelude, mazurka, song without words, waltz, Bach pieces - or recently, Standchen by Schubert/Liszt - still a relatively shorter piece.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do.
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