Left hand octaves problems.

[tocca]

I'm brushing up on a piece i once knew, Joplins: The Cascades.
I started this piece for the first time, oh... twenty years ago or so. 
Learned it by heart back then and i have returned to it from time to time.
Now i'm taking it up again and i'm having serious problems with the fast octaves in the middle section.

This is the first time i feel like i have seriously lost technique compared to when i was younger! It feels very strange because i have played it so many times and now i can't. Never happened to me before... and i don't like it!

I will probably get it up to speed with a good dose of practise, but i'm a bit puzzled as to why this is happening. I mean i practise a couple of hours a day still, and as i said this is the first time i've ever (well, last fifteen years that is) had any problems playing stuff i had once played good.

I can play the octaves way above speed easily with my right hand, but the left is tensing up short of final speed. The difference between left and right is so big that i'm almost suspecting that something is wrong?

Has anyone experienced something like this, any ideas. Maybe it's just in my head, i don't know. It really bugs me. It feels like someone replaced my old, perfectly good, lefthand/arm with an inferior one or something!

I've compared the right and left hand while playing octaves, to see if i do something different but it sure looks good. If i play at 3/4 speed or so everything feels good and sounds good, but then it's like it all fall apart.
It's in 2/4, 84 on the metronome (i think it sounds just right at that speed) and with octaves in sixteenth, scalelike motions in both hands, so it's not lightingly fast.

Ah well, i will just tackle it as if i simple don't have the technique for it. Just wondering if anyone had any thoughts?

[ted]

I play this one all the time; just played it today in fact. I think there is unlikely to be anything wrong with your left hand or otherwise you would notice general weakness, not just with octaves. What happens if you play rapid scales and other passages in octaves ? Do you notice the same problem ? If you do not, then it's just something to do with Cascades itself. Do you, for instance, use fingers 1 and 5 for all octaves in general or do you, like me, use a variable mixture of 1-5, 1-4 and 1-3 ?

I'm just conjecturing that maybe you used one method years ago and another now. The two ways are quite different. I find using 3 and 4 enables me to sort of claw my way around at high speed using the fingers to take the load off the wrist and arm - provided, of course, the notes are reasonably close together.

What about the ordinary bass octaves in ragtime and stride in general ? Have you noticed recent weakness with these too ?

Keen as I am to help, this is a very difficult thing to analyse remotely. In a sense it's easy to find out if your left hand has deteriorated by just roaring up and down in octave scales flat out and see which hand tires first. Don't do it more than once or twice though - probably not good for you.

I remember I had a problem once articulating the little fast octave groups at the end of the second strain of Scott's Frog Legs. All I needed to solve it was to switch my "mental accent" onto a different note in the group - again hard to explain at a distance I know.

[tocca]

Thanks for your reply Ted, appreciate it. It's a nice rag, Cascades, i really like it.
I have tested some octave scales with both hands, and i get the same feeling there. My left hand, or rather my left side! is tensing up badly when trying to play fast.

I pushed it quite hard and tried to feel exactly what was tensing and it feels like i'm starting at the shoulder! Feels sort of like i'm trying to push the shoulder forward, although i don't think i move, i just tens it up.
Ordinary scales are no problem, no feeling of tensing up there. Seems to only be an octaves/chords problem.

If i push my right octaves beyond what i really can play, i start tensing up in the lower arm and wrist mainly but it feels very different from the left, much more natural.

Strange really, the question i'm asking myself is: Should i just play slower, relaxed, and build up speed, or should i push slightly and try to "think" the tension away.
It must be something in the head, just an error in my brain somehow.

I used to play darts, and after a couple of years i got what they called "dartitis", suddenly you just can't release the dart, or it ends up WAY off target! Very strange feeling, took a couple of months to work out that problem.
I have no idea if this is something like that, but maybe...

Maybe i should just take a couple of days off from the Piano, it's been a long long time since i did that!  (I somehow seem to always "find" a Piano on vacations, or rather plan them that way).

Thanks again.

[ted]

I know exactly what you mean about the darts. I had the same thing with serving at tennis years ago and it lasted about three months. It's a sort of sudden loss of control coupled with anxiety, and the more you concentrate on it the worse it gets. Mine was very embarrassing. In doubles competitions I sometimes served onto the net player's back as well as double faulting half the time.

The only time I've had this occur in piano playing was when I had involuntary striking of a particular finger. The whole trick in fixing it is NOT to concentrate on the error but to think about the other correct fingers and movements. Even then it takes quite a while.

Assuming that it is a mental, or nervous problem, you could try attacking it by over-relaxing, by deliberately playing the figures in an entirely new (for you) physical way, or by anything which breaks the habit of misdirected concentration. You might have to slow it down for a while of course.

I assume you have eliminated the possibility that some recent, regular non-musical activity is causing it ? It's possible for playing the piano to cause bother at the time while the real underlying cause is what you might be doing with the new lawnmower every week. I know because it has happened to me. 

[tocca]

I thought about some nonPiano activity too, but i've not done anything special that could cause this lately.
I remember that the problem i got while playing Darts was showing it's face when i suddenly upped my practise dose. The team i played in had players in four different divisions and the best guys managed to take the step up to the highest series.
I was playing in the group below that and i really wanted to take the step up to National series. (And get to meet all the best players, thoose on the world ranking).

I practised a lot, got Dartitis and had to play in the "beginner series" (and i was not one of the best even there) 
I actually managed to get to play in the highest series six month or so later, but it was a bit too tough. Practising Darts three hours a day was a bit too much for me. Fun to have been there though.

I think your suggestion about trying a new way might be something, use a new fingering maybe. I mostly play octaves with 1/5 one whites and 1/4 on blacks. Maybe i could use 1/3 more, just do something differently.

Thanks a lot for the suggestions and support, i'll let you know if it gets any better.

I just got the sheets for Shreveport Stomp, something to dig into in the meantime. It seems to be quite a challenge to get up to speed. 

[ted]

Good luck with Morton. I have the Dapogny transcriptions of all his works but I'm far from satisfied with my playing of his pieces. Morton was a very individual pianist, both musically and technically.  Whatever it takes to play him fluently I haven't quite got yet. It's not a question of finger dexterity but some other intangible. The rewards of intimacy with his music are certainly great though.