Technique Help - Mozart Sonata in D - K.284

[jayd]

I 'm not sure that this is the right board to post these types of questions in!

I'm trying to play the first movement of Mozart Sonata in D - K.284 and am "stuck" on two areas, which are hit and miss if I play any faster than a snail's pace - I am sure this is due to poor technique rather than lack of practice - unfortunately I am not going to see my piano teacher for some time and it is driving me crazy! I hope someone can offer some advice about how to move my wrist, where on the keys to place my fingers, anything!

The first problem area is in bar 10 in the right hand. The second problem is in bar 40, in the right hand again. Both involve a dotted semiquaver followed by 2 demi-semi-quavers. Sometimes I play it right and sometimes (usually) I miss the first demi-semi or hit it too fast/too slow.

I hope someone can help because I've put hours and hours into this and I'm getting nowhere. 

[m1469]

Hi jayd,

Well, from what I can tell, it seems that perhaps you are taking sections which are too big, even if it is just one bar at a time.  Mine and my student's motto goes like this :  "If we can't play it up to tempo, it's too big".  So we make it smaller, even down to just two notes (actually, I have even done single notes.... he he).  It sounds like you may want to take the two demi-semi-quavers, followed by the semiquaver, with one note in the bass on beat 2, and just work on that. 

Investigate to figure out whether it is a problem of notes, fingering, or rhythm or some combination of them.  Trouble shoot by taking either rhythm or individual tones out to find out where exactly you stand with the other, and this should help you know what to do next.    But, I am thinking it is probably an issue of rhythm, as it is the same rhythmic figure in each measure.

I hope this helps,

m1469 

[gaer]

I 'm not sure that this is the right board to post these types of questions in!

I'm trying to play the first movement of Mozart Sonata in D - K.284 and am "stuck" on two areas, which are hit and miss if I play any faster than a snail's pace - I am sure this is due to poor technique rather than lack of practice - unfortunately I am not going to see my piano teacher for some time and it is driving me crazy!

How long is "some time"? And why have your lessons stopped? Is your teacher gone for some reason?

The first problem area is in bar 10 in the right hand. The second problem is in bar 40, in the right hand again. Both involve a dotted semiquaver followed by 2 demi-semi-quavers. Sometimes I play it right and sometimes (usually) I miss the first demi-semi or hit it too fast/too slow.

First, allow me to refer to the problem notes as "32nd notes". Three beams. The problem at measure 40 is much more difficult. But why are you making yourself crazy over these measures?

If you think you are playing the rest of the movement without problems—and I'd wager there are other problems, though perhaps not as annoying—why not temporary simplify the rhythm in those measures? Play the problem notes as 16ths. Until you are able to take a lesson again. Or until you are able to find a solution.

The rhythm is the same in both spots, but measure 40 is much more difficult for me. Do you realize how fast these notes need to be played, in rhythm, if you are playing the whole piece too quickly?

My advice: work around these troublesome measures until your next lesson. You are apt to do more damage than good if you have hit a wall. This is what teachers are for, and no amount of text is going to substitute for seeing someone do these spots correctly and giving you tips.

In my opinion this is a very difficult piece to work on alone unless you are very advanced, in which case I don't think these spots would be giving you so much trouble.

My advice to my students is always this: "If you have problems at home, if you get frustrated, review things we have covered and wait until next lesson and give me time to show you WHY you are having problems."

Gary

[jayd]

Thanks for the reply m1469. I have tried dissecting it every which way, taking it apart as you suggest, but I don't feel any closer to figuring it out.

Gary: the reason my next lesson is a while away (another week now) is only cost - I can't afford to go every week! You are right in that the rest of the piece is not perfect but these sections are by far worse than the rest. I haven't been working on it alone - I've had several lessons on it, but we just haven't addressed these problems yet because there were other problems to pay attention to at the time. I just want to get these bits right! I know I should be patient, but I'm not 

I started learning as an adult and had already taught myself the basics before I started with a teacher and as a result jumped straight into 4th grade without going through the earlier grades (now up to 8th grade 4 years later). Thanks to the way I started my technique is all over the place and there are probably some very basic things about hand position etc I don't know because I skipped the years when you learn those things, so any suggestion, no matter how obvious, might help. If anyone could compare what they would do to what I'm doing it would be greatly appreciated, but I realise it is finicky work to describe.

Some more info:

I need to play the following notes in the right hand:
 
C# and E together (Dotted quaver/eighth note)
then D and F# together (demi-semi-quaver / thirty-second note)
then B and D together (demi-semi-quaver / thirty-second note)
then A and C# together

The fingering (from the music) is:

4 5 4 3
2 1 2 1

The speed I have the rest of the piece at right now is 1 crotchet/quarter note per beat, 92 beats/min, and it needs to be faster (my recording has it at 146 bpm but I don't expect to get that fast).

Doing as m1469 suggested I can do the 4543 (E F# D A) just fine at 92 bpm if I just play the top notes. I can do the 2121 (C# D B A) just fine if I just play those notes. This doesn't really matter though because you have a lot more freedom to move your hand when just playing the top or bottom notes. When I try and put them together one or more of the following happen:

- my thumb sometimes gets stuck travelling from D to A (the bottom notes), falling into the depressed B key (depressed by the 2nd finger) and hitting the edge of the A key instead of travelling over the B and falling on to the A;

- the F# doesn't sound because I don't depress it enough for the hammer to fall on the string;

- the 4th finger is prevented from depressing the D because it hits the edge of the C# key and the pressure seems to go sideways into the C# key instead of down on the D key.

My wrist and forearm are straight and parallel with the keybed. My fingers are curled, I am hitting the keys at the very tip of the black keys and on the white keys about half way between the end of the white key and the end of the black key. My wrist swings a little to the right when I hit the second pair of notes and swings back to starting position during the next 2 pair of notes. My thumb is hitting the notes almost side on just abbove the knuckle. The rest of the fingers are hitting notes on the very tip of the finger.

Again, if anything I've written stands out as bad technique or  if you can see a way to make it easier, please let me know!

[gaer]

Gary: the reason my next lesson is a while away (another week now) is only cost - I can't afford to go every week!

I can't tell you what a poor substiution forum help is for a good teacher. If your teacher is giving you fine help, again, I encourage you to wait until your next lesson. I have several ideas about how to help you with the problems you are talking about, but I can't do it here.

In addition, although a lesson every two weeks is better than none, I can't tell you how wrong my students can get things between the time they leave a lesson and the time they return the following week. I am not criticizing them. It's just that when someone has shown you how to do something, during one lesson, you have six more days to accidently "mis-follow" the directions.

Each time a student misses a lesson, I would say that in general the things I have to fix are not just doubled. I see four times as many problems. Or more. In other words, the longer between lessons, the more things go wrong. And you must remember that people get very "good at being bad". If you practice something wrong, again and again, eventually you will be nearly perfect at doing it wrong. Negative practice, negative results.

Measure 40 is a nasty problem, because there is no magic fingering to make this easy.

But the tempo you mention, 146, seems very fast to me. Who is the artist you are listening to? Surely you can't be getting this tempo from the edition you are using. Mozart gave no metronome indications.

There is nothing terrible about 96 for a student, but have you considered that you may not be able to play it that fast? What if you could only play it, accurately, at 80? Suppose, for instance, that you were satisfied at playing it within a short period of time at that speed.

Well, you might get rid of tension, you might have time to improve all sorts of things. Then, suppose you "put it away" after that. Give it a rest, move on to other pieces. Music, music, more music. Come back to it after a few months. Give yourself time to forget it. When you come back to it, your first impression will be that you have forgotten everything. But IF your work now has been solid as a rock, you will relearn the piece in a fraction of the time, and you may be able to play at 90 to the quarter. Or 95. Or 100. Who knows? Now, supposing you review this piece for the rest of your life, and your review all the other pieces you learn.

What's going to happen?

If you practice, they will ALL go faster each time you review, and you will relearn them faster each time. This will also improve your sightreading dramatically.

My students always want to play things full speed NOW. If I work with them, at only half speed, then say, "Great, you have it," they look as if I have lost my mind. But then I immediately move to something they have previously played "down tempo" and have them relearn it either at full speed or close to it. Do you see?

YOU CANNOT FORCE SPEED.

You must have patience. And you must learn to play more slowly and enjoy it. I guarantee that IF your practice methods are solid, each time you return to pieces, you will be able to play them faster.

There have been pieces I wanted to play that defeated me because of a couple sections. The rest of the piece worked, a couple sections would not work full speed, or the speed I had in mind. When this happened (or happens), I simply ignored the rest of the composition, realizing the rest was "in the bag". I practiced only the sections that I was unable to play.  I spend very little time doing this, because it is the quality of the practice that gets the job done, and to many repeats just lead to failure. Burnout. And sloppiness.

Now, if you can't play 5 pieces because there are trouble spots, and those are the only 5 pieces you play or want to play, you are in big, big trouble. But if you are working on dozens of pieces, rotating through them, coming back and back moving away, coming back, always changing, always varying, your work—practicing—becomes fun. And what happens? Problem sections fall into place, in their own time. Suddenly a whole piece comes together. Does it matter which one? Not if you are playing many things.

As for how to get the most out of practicing, several of the posts I've read by Bernhard echo my own thoughts and put it into words 100 times better than I could. I do not write instructions well. I'm incredibly lazy, and I encourage my students to learn how to get the most possible results in the absolute minimum amount of time. After four years (is this right?), you are only getting started. You have the rest of your life. If you want to keep going, you have to learn to make it fun. You have to learn how to get success in a short time. You have to learn how be comfortable where you are NOW and enjoy that NOW, not make youself miserable because there are things you can't yet do.

PATIENCE! Let these trouble measures GO. Wait until your next lesson. What if you decide that a fingering recommended in your book, or another one suggested, is going to work, then your teacher says, "Oops, that isn't going to work for you." You will have to unlearn a fingering that does not work.

Good luck!

Gary

[kolmogorov]

Hi, jayd

I think you should try not to hit those thirds only with mvts from the fingers .

For legato (or non-legato) thirds , it is useful to play them just with the arm.

That is: you put the hand over the keys, with fingers prepared to hit C# and E.
Then you low your arm (not the fingers; sometimes you can just low the wrist, but I think it's better with the arm) .
Then you raise your arm (of course, just enough to almost been in touch with the keys). Meanwhile you prepare fingers 5,1 for D and F#.
Then you low your arm , etc. Always with a flexible wrist (for raising you can use a little wrist help, but the idea is using just the arm).

You can try this sequence first non legato to understand the motion, then making it gradually more legato.
With arm motion in thirds, you are free of many tensions that prevent you to attach better speeds.

You can also try this arm attack in groups of two: 42 down, 51 while raising the arm, then 42 down, the 31 while raising the arm.

May be you should investigate other fingerings . There are some possibilities for thirds runs. In general, I do not like too much 51 for thirds. Also try to see if you can really change those fingers attack positions (42 to 51 to 42 to 31) at high speed. It seems difficult to me.

Javier

[turner]

Measure 40 of K284 is indeed difficult. All suggestions made so far are valid and helpful.

In another part of this forum, there is a thread on the double thirds in Beethoven's Op. 2 No. 3, opening of the 1st movement. One poster suggests minimizing excess and extraneous movements in all parts of the playing mechanism--fingers, wrist and arm. I think the same advice is applicable to K 284 as well. Unnecessary movements will slow the execution.

Also, in the fingering suggested,

4543
2121

you might consider, in the lower voice, a break between the 1 and 2 in the middle (i.e. 21~break~21). Sure, you will not achieve a 100% legato-thirds run, but you might find this break a relief that you need to make the entire execution more manageable.