brahms piano concerto no. 1 1st movement

[rapmasterb]

Hi, I'm learning the above piece and its going great (Its for a 2-piano performance in a competition). However I'm worried on two counts:

1. I've been working for months on the tremolos but nothing doing, unfortunately. Does anyone have any practice suggestions?

2. There are huge leaps and double octave passages and lots of them. I can play them well on my own piano but I'm worried that in a  concert situation on a foreign piano  and on a stool of a different height I might encounter trouble with my awareness of the keyboard and subsequesntly fluff notes. Whats should I do to prepare for this?

I'd appreciate any help.

Thanks!

[happyface94]

I'm SURE you can adjust your seat height at competitions. Practice the jumps 1 by 1, which you are already doing most likely.

What's your problem with your tremolos?

[rapmasterb]

I appreciate the reply happyface 94. My problem is that I've been practising the tremolos consistently for the whole summer yet showed only a minimal improvement. They are still very slow. I would have expected to be a lot better at them by now than I am at the moment given the time spent on them. I can only assume that I am doing something wrong. I was wondering if there are any big mistakes that people make practising them? This may sound stupid but I'm out of ideas.

Thanks again for your response.

[happyface94]

I suggest you look at your hand position as it is probably not the best way to do it if you can't do it sufficiently fast. As Chang recommended in his book, if you can't handle fast a small section of your tremolo, you won't be able to do it completly. Does it hurt your finger, or your forearm? Assuming your wrist has no tension, so you can rotate easily your hand.

I'm not familiar with the concerto in itself, so I can't help you directly on the tremolo, but if you tell me how you practice it, or what is the tremolo exactly, I could be better help.

[rapmasterb]

Happy Face, The tremolos are all octave ones (the rapid alternation of an octave and the note above it). In other scores of the concerto I've seen them written as and octave with a trill sign above them but in mine they are written as a tremolo. I don't have small hands however they aren't huge either and there is really only one hand position I can manage. I have to stretch a bit and so this naturally creates some tension in the wrist which I have noticed before. Neither my forearm or fingers hurt exactly when I practise but they do ache afterwards which I assumed was muscle fatigue. When I practise I set my metronome to 60 and play 8 demisemiquavers to a beat. I continue until I no loner can with each type of tremolo (there are 4 types: white note to white note, black note to black note, white note to black note and visa versa). I repeat this twice a day. I can't actually play much faster than this for a small section. I have improved slightly over the summer like I say but not really that much for months of work.
Thanks, Rapmaster.

[happyface94]

I absolutly cannot do it with my left hand, (or even something similar). However, with my right hand, I have been able to beat 8 loop per beat of 60/min. I'm not quite sure how you finger it, I've tried the following :

1-5 + 5, Way too slow, not ideal.
1-4 + 5, I dont know about you, but 4 vs 5 is a bad articulation for me, and I can't do it fast enough.
1-3 + 4, this is by far the fastest I could achieve. I happen to be able to play an octave with 1-3, and my hands aren't big at all. Using this finguring, you can rotate the wrist and do it.

If you cant do it faster, I recommend doing a trill instead.
I'm still trying to figure out how to do the black to white... perhaps 1-3+5 but doesnt seem right.

[rapmasterb]

For black to white you do use 1-3 5 in general, you got it right.

Thanks for the constructive comments happyface.