when your hand begins to hurt, STOP. If you do not, you usually will end up hurting yourself. As it is, I cannot audition becuase I hurt my wrist becuase I foolishly went on.I shall audition next year. Take the octaves slow and easy. You should be able to increase the speed within a few days.
Hi GuysFirst--please rethink the use your 3rd and 4th fingers on octaves! The resultant twist in your wrist can cause a host of injuries and severe pain. I know this from bitter experience. My rehab with Taubman technique has been the most enlightening experience in my career. I've really learned how to move easily!
There is a lot of good physical descriptions of how to practice octaves, and how they feel when you get them going good. I want to add though for the sake of those who find those descriptions more disastrous than helpful, my own approach!I found in my own playing that the biggest barrier in playing octaves was losing sight of the melodic content. I tried to play them bouncing, I tried to play them with wrist, in, out, zig zags, around, all that. In the end it didn't work for me. It was the natural breathing space of the melody that I was missing. On the recordings it is easy to be blown away by the octaves, and it sounds like exact, precise repetitions of movement. But it is not that, it is superior melodic playing, that covers up all the seams in how the movement actually takes place.The way I discovered to practice octaves is to play them in single notes and really learn in depth the melodic contours, and all the gradations of sound within the melody, and sometimes I learn them as if they were compound lines like in Bach's works. This way the ear is naturally learning when to let up, and when to get more intense. The problem with a lot of people's octaves is that they want them to be equal intensity, all the time. Simply put, nothing works like that. After you learn the contour, when does it get heavy, when does it get light, octaves become, I guarantee, at least 75% easier. Maybe even more but that much I can guarantee. I play the octaves in Liszt Sonata a tempo without any wrong notes, whereas before, trying all these physical voodooisms, it was just a big mess. I hope that helps someone out there.Walter Ramsey
but that's my little 'secret' for octaves. fifth finger on white, fourth on black.
ummm "your" little secret? I have never seen a pianist who doesent use this fingering for octaves
Yundi Li, 1-5 all the way baby
Maybe i need to forget about thinking about it and just go for it
Yes it's funny this octave bussiness... Think of knocking on a door... no, not heavy like "KNOCK, KNOCK", more of a slightly more discretely polite and quick knock: "knockelyknockelyknock".
I saw a performance on tv yesterday where Martha Argerich was playing Liszt's Funeraille. And when the octave passage came out I was just amazed at the speed and accuracy that she played it in.
If this is considered fast enough (HR6) - then I'll tell you my secret(and sorry for that mistake on 'd') https://rapidshare.de/files/22083938/oktave_hr6_vetma.wav.html
i know exactly what you mean! Gilels could really do it well. it's like percussive, but it isnt, all at the same time; real trippy
ummm "your" little secret? I have never seen a pianist who doesent use this fingering for octaves, so if you thought you invented this you're way off