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Topic: Fingering in Debussy's "Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum" (Read 10073 times)

preludium

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Fingering in Debussy's "Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum"

on: November 16, 2006, 02:10:51 AM

Hi,

first of all, this is my first message to this board. After having lurked for about two months I decided to get an account. I'm quite new to the piano but I've played flute and guitar since my childhood.

I wasn't sure whether I should try to tackle the piano on my own, because I already taught myself a lot of things in my life, but on the other hand I was afraid of ingraining bad technical habits, so I looked for a teacher. Until now I've had two lessons with him and we started to focus on the two part invention #13, which I already play almost fluently HT, and Debussy's Dr. Gradus. It's quite demanding for my level but I think it's whitin my reach and I made good progress last week.

So I tried to figure out some fingerings for the first two pages of the piece and played them during this week's lesson. My teacher stopped me in the section where the left hand has to play between the fingers of the right hand and asked me to change my fingering. I had tried to find a way to move both hands as rarely as possible to be prepared for the fast pace that the tune requires, so with the left I played e - g - e and then again c - a with the 3rd and the 2nd finger. The right hand I positioned to span 7th's so I could keep it in the same place for some time. Now, my teacher wants me to play all left hand notes with the index and span only 5th's with my right, which results in more than twice as many position changes for both hands. This doesn't look very efficient to me, but who am I to contradict...

Anyway, I'm a bit sceptic about the whole thing, so what fingering would you consider more suitable - more movement of the fingers and less of the hands or the opposite?

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desordre

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Re: Fingering in Debussy's "Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum"

Reply #1 on: November 16, 2006, 02:42:17 AM

Dear Preludium:
Welcome!
First of all, I would not recomend this piece to you if I were your teacher. In its surface, it's straightforward, but to render it properly takes a lot of work and this deals with speed and relax. Be careful, cause this kind of technique can easily harm your hand or arm if not well done. To be very specific, the tempo of Doctor is about 150 to the quaver and the path to achieve it is hard.
After this, and trying to answer your question, there is no problem of moving your hand. Think of Chopin's opus 10 number 1: it's barely the same speed of Doctor, and the right hand spans the whole keyboard. In the particular section that you talk about (B), I play the melody with LH (near always with the third finger) and the broken chords with RH (using mostly 4 2 1). With the proper relaxing, I'm able to play this passage as fast as I want.
Hope it helps! And if you keep this piece on, good work to you.
Best wishes!

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preludium

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Posts: 75

Re: Fingering in Debussy's "Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum"

Reply #2 on: November 18, 2006, 09:18:24 PM

Well, it wasn't me who made the decision to work on it seriously. I just showed the teacher some pieces I had tried and said that I realized a few were out of grasp for me. Then he suggested the Debussy. I can play the right hand part with the arpeggio-like stuff in the beginning at 110 quite evenly now.

150 would be an incredible speed. I have a recording where it is played at about 135, though with a lot of rubato, and I don't have the impression it should be any faster. In my opinion it's more about accuracy than speed. I don't like the rubato in the first part of the recording and would like to play straighter, even like a sewing machine. After all, the piece is a parody of a child practicing Clementi etudes. One should play more freely in the middle part, where it changes keys to Bb major and Ab mixolydian. Here the child probably has a break and still ponders about the etude (this is the main theme reoccuring in different keys), then practice starts again with the change to C major and a straight pace.

The piece is eating up a lot of my practice time. It's at the very edge of what I can handle at the moment. When I get the impression of practicing it to death I will probably stop and try again in a few months, but right now I'm confident and can see the progress.

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desordre

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Posts: 388

Re: Fingering in Debussy's "Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum"

Reply #3 on: November 19, 2006, 01:27:34 AM

Dear Preludium:
You wrote something that make me think you're not in the wrong way with this piece: if you can play 115 and don't get too tired (and specially don't feel pain) you're working well. Furthermore, at this speed the fabric starts to render and the piece shows itself.
By the way, I agree with you: the piece is much more about evenness than pure speed. My remark was just to consider a common plateau of speed (around 150).
What about the fingering? Did you solved it?
If you need any further help, please let me know. Good work!
Best wishes!

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preludium

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Jr. Member
Posts: 75

Re: Fingering in Debussy's "Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum"

Reply #4 on: November 19, 2006, 07:00:37 PM

The "solution" is to play the fingerings that my teacher showed me. I still am not convinced of their usefulness, but maybe that's something I'll get to understand only later. At the moment I tend to hit wrong keys where it wouldn't be possible with my own fingering, since the fingers would already be in the right place most of the time. If it turns out on the long run that my fingerings are not ideal in some respect beyond my grasp right now then the lessons would already have paid off.

As for relaxation: if I tried to be more relaxed I would probably fall off the chair. I've been making music for almost 30 years now and the sense for relaxation has somehow come to me along the way without ever paying any attention to it. So this shouldn't cause a problem before it comes to one handed sixths and octaves, but this won't be this nor next year. I can actually pretend playing parts of the Debussy piece at any speed without feeling any physical tension. (The result is a mess, of course)

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quantum

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Posts: 6260

Re: Fingering in Debussy's "Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum"

Reply #5 on: November 20, 2006, 11:52:35 PM

You must remember that fingering is personal. Not everyone has the same shape and physique of hand, and not everyone can use the same fingering.

You seem to have worked out a very logical fingering in this section that works for you. I would recommend you use it. It may not work when your teacher uses it because he may have a different shaped hand that requires different fingerings.

It is always good to try out a new system of fingering just to see if it is any way better that your own ideas. But in the end, if it is more uncomfortable and you find it less able to express the music you should revert to another more suitable fingering. You haven't lost anything by trying out this new fingering, but have gained some knowledge of how your hands work and how they more suited to particular fingerings.

On the side note, I use something very similar to what you worked out and prefer to have the hand cover as many notes possible in order to avoid inefficient position changes.

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