Piano Forum

I have been playing this piece for quite some time now, and I feel as though the last step that is preventing me from playing this piece well is the tension that I feel each time I strike the pattern with the two consecutive octaves. I sometimes go in and out with being relaxed and then eventuyally tense up again. I can't really grasp what I am missing here, but maybe some others have had a similar problem. I have tried to understand the relaxation concept more, but I literally can't "touch" on it yet. The legato phrasing is something I am good at, but trying to flop my hands around to hit octaves is something completely different. I want to say that I have successfully completed a Chopin Etude and I don't want to back away from this one without giving it my all.

You may be trying to play the octaves as a virtuoso flourish but without phrasing.  Make sure you have exquisite phrasing and that you don't play every note equally heavy, it will be impossible to play, and sound bad besides.

One way to imagine octaves is this: when the octaves go down, the elbow makes tiny counter-clockwise motions to propel the arm in a tiny arc from one note to the next.  When the octaves go up, the elbow makes tiny clockwise motions.  In other words, never play octaves in a straight line on a straight plane; octaves require 3-dimensional playing.

And they require practice.  Practice just the outer voice, but use the fingering you would use in the performance, and make sure it is equally beautifully phrased.  Practice only the inner voice, probably just a thumb repeated, but make sure it is beautiful.  It is important to use the same fingering you will use for the performance.  Another method is to alternate: in a run of octaves, play the outer note on each odd one, and the inner note on each even one.

Cortot advocated when practicing octaves playing each one twice, in rapid-fire succession, probably to invoke Lhevinne's description of "shock absorbers" and also to encourage immediate relaxation.

This octave passage you're referring to in particular can also be practiced from an octave higher, adding more notes to make it more hard.  That way the normal seems easier.

Practice in alternating octaves.

There are many many other ways to practice.  Please don't feel that this route is closed to you, or that there is something specific you must do.  All you have to do is work hard enough that the octaves are as comfortable as playing other passages.  This takes being creative, and being patient.

Walter Ramsey


Walter Ramsey