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Topic: 4 vs 3, Practice fast or slow?  (Read 1575 times)

Offline pover

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4 vs 3, Practice fast or slow?
on: September 19, 2014, 11:28:38 AM
I know this question has been asked a lot but the diversity of answers always confuses me. I started learning Fantasie-impropmtu a while ago (I know... stop telling me it's over-played and what not). Honestly, I think it's a great piece, very pianistic, with lots of challenges to overcome which will improve my technique, and bring a great addition to my repertoire. I haven't worked on a "longer" work in a while; I've been doing lots of shorter pieces, most of them slow, so I'm excited to start working on this.

As you can imagine, the 4 vs 3 is tripping me up. I have no problem whatsoever with playing 3 against 2 (and I find myself using it a lot in my pathetic improvisation attempts), but I can't for the life of me do 4 against 3. Some people say you should practice it slowly, with the correct rhythm. I tried doing that (Together, Right-left, Right, Left-right... doing that in the correct rhythm), but I can't get myself to play that with anything faster than a snail's pace.

Others say I should just focus on getting the beats aligned, but that doesn't work, because sometimes one hand or the other won't be exactly correct (Skewed triplet rhythm, for example). Another method I read about was playing 1 beat of the RH and finishing on the first note of the next beat (So for example, bar 5, starting with 2nd half of measure, I'd play D#-C#-D#-C#-B#), and then immediately - when I play the B# - I start playing the LH triplet, all while using the metronome. Read more about this method here: https://www.practisingthepiano.com/more-on-practising-polyrhythms/

The last method I talked about seemed helpful but I'm worried that I'm actually not doing it correctly. Sometimes I feel the LH is lagging behind on a certain note (skewed triplet rhythm again) or the RH is playing faster than it should.

The piece is full of challenges with voicing, phrasing, and general accuracy, but I find it all fun and rewarding to work on except this particular challenge, which is showing no sign of letting off. So does anyone have any experiences with this and have any ideas on how I can solve it so I can start enjoying myself? :P

Offline carl_h

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Re: 4 vs 3, Practice fast or slow?
Reply #1 on: September 19, 2014, 11:43:37 AM
Hello,

Well, your brain has to get used to that rhythm. I would strongly suggest SLOW practice while counting in the beginning. (have a look here as well
)

So I would say, practice slowly while counting (to 12) for 30 minutes every day, hands together (while also doing hands seperate practice, not included in the 30 minutes). One day you will just _GET_ it, that will be a good day! From that day on you should have no problem with speeding up as much as you want. This is also transferable to any other piece with 3against4, so you only have to do this once! :)
Good luck

Offline schwartzer

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Re: 4 vs 3, Practice fast or slow?
Reply #2 on: September 19, 2014, 06:15:50 PM
The way I found the easiest to learn this piece, is by knowing what notes in the left and right hand are played together. Once you know that, you just fit the others.

Offline pover

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Re: 4 vs 3, Practice fast or slow?
Reply #3 on: September 21, 2014, 06:23:53 PM
carl and schwartzer, thanks for the tips.

Carl, I really liked the video you posted. It gets you to feel the rhythm without you worrying about whether you're doing it right or not.

Offline amytsuda

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Re: 4 vs 3, Practice fast or slow?
Reply #4 on: September 23, 2014, 05:04:04 AM
Oh, yes, Fantasie Impromptu! Can you play left hand only at the right tempo smoothly with no tension in arm or hand from the memory? If not, you need to really practice your left hand to be free and to be in the auto motion. How about the right hand only? Did you get the fingering perfectly natural on the right hand at the right tempo from the memory?

You really need to feel like both hands are freely floating, as soon as one hand gets a tension or trips, your attention goes to the particular hand and that screws up the polyrhythm. For example, my hands are small (I can barely grab 9th) so some arpeggios are a bit stretchy to my left hand. If I have to think about it or my left hand gets tense, the right hand start getting dragged by the left hand. 
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