Choose Debussy's piano music problem

[a1]

     Hi, i am a stupid student which have learn piano for 8 years but
  i am just not as good as normal people . I never try to "give up " .
  Now i am playing Debussy's Clair de Lune and almost can finish but
  still too far from good music. I also interesed in Reflect dan Leau but i just
  dunno i should start or quit because i can not play most of that piece.

  Any suggestion i really appreciated.

[teresa_b]

Hi a1,

Why do you say you are stupid???  Claire de Lune is kind of difficult--not as easy as it sounds!  I have played Reflets dan l'Eau, and some of it is challenging, especially in the middle section.  You might first want to try something like Pagodes (from Estampes)--it may help develop that rippling arpeggio technique. 

Keep playing! 
Teresa

[asyncopated]

I'm learning this piece right now.  Was thinking of doing the prelude or passepied from suite bergamasque but decided to go with claire de lune first be cause i thought i would be easier (since i sort of know the piece).  Boy was i wrong.

One whole week and i only have the first page partly down , as in the motions are not fluid and I have a lession tomorrow.  Double .     I'm not a big claire de lune fan murdering the piece day after day is not really my idea of fun -- i think i need a second piece with more crunch... this is just too pansy, and 3 hours of pansy a day on the same passage is more than i can handle.

[iumonito]

I am learning some Debussy these days as well, so your post caught my eye.

I think this is what you need:

Easy, at least easy to play the notes, otherwise always everything is difficult, which is not the point:

Le Petit Negre
Les Pas sur la Neige
La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin
Jimbo's Lullaby
The Serenade of the Doll
The little shepherd

Pretty easy still:
Arabesque 1
Bruyeres
Minstrels
Reverie
Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum
Golliwogg's Cakewalk
The snowflakes are dancing

A little more difficult
Danse
Suite Bergamasque, prelude
Suite Bergamasque, Clair de lune
Arabesque 2

And yet a little more
La serenade interroumpie
la puerta del vino
Suite bergamasque, passepied
Etude pour le huit doigts
La Cathedrale engloutie

and the hard and loud
Pour le piano
L'isle joyeuse
Feux d'artifice
General lavine

and pretty hard
Images I
Estampes

and bordering on impossible
Images II

I am leaving stuff out, but I would say unless you love their sound, stay way from them.  Pick something you don't know from the first group.  Footsteps on the snow probably the most arid of the group.

Good luck.

[asyncopated]

I am learning some Debussy these days as well, so your post caught my eye.

Thanks for the post.  I think this is a challenge piece for me.  Will discuss this with my teacher tomorrow to see what she thinks. 

At the moment, i'm also finishing off some bach and some haydn.  So i expect to get some crunchy bach tomorrow.  It will balance out the debussy.  After playing losts of hazy shapes it really gets to your head.  Also the piano at my college has a loud bass, so the my left leg is perpetually on the soft padel. 

BTW do you know who is the artist who played the clair de lune recording on the forum?  The one attached to the sheet music.  The playing sublime.

[ilikepie]

Hi a1,

Why do you say you are stupid???  Claire de Lune is kind of difficult--not as easy as it sounds!  I have played Reflets dan l'Eau, and some of it is challenging, especially in the middle section.  You might first want to try something like Pagodes (from Estampes)--it may help develop that rippling arpeggio technique. 

Keep playing! 
Teresa

Isn't claire de lune to pagodes a little bit too much?

[a1]

  hi, i am a1 .Sorry for not reply to all of you.( i am very busy )
 Thanks for all of you great suggestion. Honestly, i play very little
  hard piano piece but i just love to play Clair de Lune.
 
  I would like to congratulate teresa_b  for achieve such difficult
  piece Reflect Dan L'eau . I also hope that i can play Reflect Dan L'eau
  one day too..........................................

  A little thing i like to say to asyncopated is don't rush to complete
  Clair de Lune because the most  important thing are enjoy the process
  of playing not to complete the piece.I played Clair de Lune almost
  3 years. Although i play very slow but i never give up. I remember
  the time i used to  play the first page about 4 month .
  I sure you can play very well while i hope i can play the whole piece
  the sooner the better.

[teresa_b]

Isn't claire de lune to pagodes a little bit too much?

It may well be.  I think Claire de Lune is harder than it sounds.  But Pagodes gets pretty hairy at the end you're right--still, it's easier than Reflets, at least for me.

Teresa

[kriskicksass]

For practice in Clair de Lune, switch all the "p"s to "mf"s and work from there. If you work with a slightly louder dynamic palette while practicing, it gives your muscles more security in the motions, which will later allow you to play a with sweeter pianissimo and more controlled shapes and colors.

Too often in Debussy we try to make the hammers disappear too fast. First you need to get comfortable with the hammers, then you can make them go away. Hope that helps!

[asyncopated]

For practice in Clair de Lune, switch all the "p"s to "mf"s and work from there. If you work with a slightly louder dynamic palette while practicing, it gives your muscles more security in the motions, which will later allow you to play a with sweeter pianissimo and more controlled shapes and colors.

Too often in Debussy we try to make the hammers disappear too fast. First you need to get comfortable with the hammers, then you can make them go away. Hope that helps!

Are you joking about this?  The soft padel for the first two pages is always down for me.  After all he did say con sordino and never did indicate that one should take it off anywhere, although you might want to playing the forte bit.

I also work ridiculously hard with the movment to get rid of the hammer sound.  Even at the beginning the sound should blur, but the top notes should sing out.   how do you make the hammers go away not having practicing the movement and touch for it to not be there in the first place?

[ekirth]

I do agree with where kriskicksass is coming from:

For practice in Clair de Lune, switch all the "p"s to "mf"s and work from there. If you work with a slightly louder dynamic palette while practicing, it gives your muscles more security in the motions, which will later allow you to play a with sweeter pianissimo and more controlled shapes and colors.

Too often in Debussy we try to make the hammers disappear too fast. First you need to get comfortable with the hammers, then you can make them go away. Hope that helps!

If you start practicing with it at pp from the first time you play it, chances are not all of the notes will come out clearly (not clearly as in w/pedal, but clearly as you can hear all the notes come out), and you might not be exploring the dynamics/tone colors fully. If you practice at first at mf or so, it's much easier to decide how to express certain things and exaggerate the dynamics to get the feeling of it, and make sure everything's clear. It can then be toned back down to pp if you wish when it's being readied for performance/etc.

I had a hell of a lot of trouble playing this piece at first--it took a lot of patience, but the end result is well worth it.

[asyncopated]

I do agree with where kriskicksass is coming from:

If you start practicing with it at pp from the first time you play it, chances are not all of the notes will come out clearly (not clearly as in w/pedal, but clearly as you can hear all the notes come out), and you might not be exploring the dynamics/tone colors fully. If you practice at first at mf or so, it's much easier to decide how to express certain things and exaggerate the dynamics to get the feeling of it, and make sure everything's clear. It can then be toned back down to pp if you wish when it's being readied for performance/etc.

Here is the thing.  I thought that this stuff is impressionistic... which basically means that you are suppose to blur the notes, expecially the appegios.  Ofcourse the melody has to pierce though, but that is really not the big difficulty.  The tone color is one that needs to blend.  Right now I am working on a gliding action.  This action is completely different from that used in the baroque or classical period, where you do require clarity in each note.

Maybe we are talking about the same thing, because the touch that I am using will probably produce an mp without the una corda pedal on.  What I am trying to do at the moment is to make sure that there is no focus/core to the sound in all of the appegios, so that you cannot tell each note distinctly and they all blend and feels like running water.  This is very difficult for me.

Thanks for your posts.  I will think about it more and try out what you said.  No harm experimenting.

I had a hell of a lot of trouble playing this piece at first--it took a lot of patience, but the end result is well worth it.

Haha... thanks, tell me about it.  I will keep pushing on. More or less worked my way to the calmato section.  Tis a long way yet, but I'll get there.

[asyncopated]

Just an update.  I've found this website which might be useful.  It describes the touch I'm trying to develop.  I'm still very far from it, but it might give a better idea.


https://djupdal.org/karstein/debussy/pianist/p05.shtml

[a1]

  To blur the left hand arppegio is not so good and
    i think the right way is to control as soft as possible.
    ( my opinion only )

[gyzzzmo]

At first, Claire the lune is pretty hard to play very nicely, especially since everybody knows the piece.
Secondly, what might help, is to listen to to cd's of claire the lune very carefully and get INSPIRED (so dont copy, but get inspired).

[a1]

  I very agree with you gyzzzmo .It is important to listen to
    Clair de Lune CD. Many of them play differ . Like the arpeggio chord
    or arpeggiation and the rubato in the first page. But i just cann't
   understand which sound better ?

[ccnokes]

I am learning some Debussy these days as well, so your post caught my eye.

I think this is what you need:

Easy, at least easy to play the notes, otherwise always everything is difficult, which is not the point:

Le Petit Negre
Les Pas sur la Neige
La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin
Jimbo's Lullaby
The Serenade of the Doll
The little shepherd

Pretty easy still:
Arabesque 1
Bruyeres
Minstrels
Reverie
Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum
Golliwogg's Cakewalk
The snowflakes are dancing

A little more difficult
Danse
Suite Bergamasque, prelude
Suite Bergamasque, Clair de lune
Arabesque 2

And yet a little more
La serenade interroumpie
la puerta del vino
Suite bergamasque, passepied
Etude pour le huit doigts
La Cathedrale engloutie

and the hard and loud
Pour le piano
L'isle joyeuse
Feux d'artifice
General lavine

and pretty hard
Images I
Estampes

and bordering on impossible
Images II

I am leaving stuff out, but I would say unless you love their sound, stay way from them.  Pick something you don't know from the first group.  Footsteps on the snow probably the most arid of the group.

Good luck.

Arabesque 1 pretty easy? Easier than Clair de Lune? Hardly.  I didn't think it would be too much of problem either until I realized that 3 over 2 is pretty hard to get straight and flowing.  Also on certain passages in the right hand you need to soften some notes and bring out others -- which isn't superhard but still creates extra challenge. Clair de Lune isn't easy but doesn't have the technical and interpretive challenges as does Arabesque. 

Kind of on a tangent here but I counldn't let that one slide.....

[a1]

  Hem, Arabesque 1 most difficult part i think is the sound and
    style of Arab..............since many people have not visited Arab Saudi.