Playing softly, but not melody

[rlefebvr]

https://www3.sympatico.ca/rlefebvr/Valse_Amelie_2_LOW.jpg

Attached file for reference to what I am about to ask.

I am learning La valse D'amelie.

If you look at the sheet you can see that only the top note (melody) is played with any force. All other fingers including the left hand is to be played even and very softly.

This has become a nightmare for me.

Wondering if there is a special technique or exercise or anything  else that could help me get better at this.

Don't get me wrong, I am playing more softly, but it is nowhere near what it should be.

Thanks

Ron

[bernhard]

Yes, there are several ways to go about this problem (which by the way is one of the fundamental problems in piano playing: to develop a nice cantabile).

First understand the problem. This section works like a duet. The top line is the melody and you want to creat the illusion that it is sung. Of course the piano cannot do that because of the notes deacay. But it is easy to imagine playing the two bottom voices (the RH and LH without the top notes) and have someone sig the top notes (or play them in a recorder/flute/violin/etc. – any “continuous sound” instrument). Once you can hear this in your mind, the problem becomes how to create the same effect on the piano – an instrument that does not have the capacity for continuous sound?

So here are the steps to get there:

1.      This is the most important step, and the one most easily overlooked. Everyone tends to skip it or not to give it the necessary importance. But everything follows from it. You must be able to hear in your mind this as a “song” (top voice) with accompaniment. Only when you can hear it so, your fingers will have an ideal to strive towards. It is no good to do that on the piano itself. So get someone to play/sing the top voice with you while you just do the accompaniment. Or you can sing the melody your self as you play only the accompaniment. Do not worry about making the accompaniment very soft at this stage (as you will se this is only one of the many choices to achieve your effect).

2.      Still related to step 1, do something I call “outline”. Ignore the RH accompaniment (the six quavers), and play just the top voice and the LH. This will allow you to hear the melody very clearly without the extra layer provided by the RH. Later on, when you join the rest of the RH, you will have very clear in your mind this simpler aural image, and the fingers will comply to bring it out. Also because you are unemcumbered bu the full complexity of the score you will be able to add a lot of feeling to it, and try different approaches to the melody until you get the co-ordinates you want. So practise this simplified (outlined) score a lot, with a dual purpose: get your ears used to the melodic line and investigation towards your preferred interpretation.

3.      Now do the opposite: drop the melodic line and play only the bass and RH accompaniment. As you do that, “imagine” the melody (or as I said, you can sing it or get someone to play it in a continuous instrument like recorder/flute/violin/etc.). Get really good (technically) at this, so your fingers know what they are doing without hesitations, wrong notes, and the like.

4.      Now alternate between these two simplified versions of the piece: Play just the melody and bass and as you do so “hear” in your mind the RH accompaniment that has been subtracted. Since you are not actually playing it, but hearing it in your mind you can make it perfect! No mistakes! Observe how this mental hearing will at first interfere with your playing of the complementing parts. Part of this kind of mental practice is exactly make you so at ease with the parts that you are playing and the parts you are mentalising that one does not interfere with the other. Oce you are comfortable with this, do the opposite: play the bass and the accompaniment and mentalise the melodic line. Once you can do that, you are ready for the next step.

5.      Now you are going to join the three voices. But before you do that you must realise that there are at least three basic ways to bring out a melody. And you can combine these three ways in different degrees.

a.      Play the melodic note louder, and the accompaniment notes softer. This is the one you are doing right now, and having nightmares about. This is a primitive and crass method to achieve your aim. It will work, but one major problem is that it does not give you much room for dynamic variation: you will have to play the whole section at an uniform volume. You must either achieve the cantabile effect with one of the other methods below, or at least combine this one with the two below. Also keep in mind that to play a note at a low volume you must depress it slowly, not necessarily softer.

b.      Hold the melodic note for longer. So as the other notes decay, you are left with the ringing tone of the melody. In fact the composer tells you to do just that: both the melodic notes and the bass note have longer time values than the RH quavers, and the LH chords. Technically this means that you must play the melodic notes with the little finger, and hold them depressed with the little finger as you play the other RH notes. Practice this by not using any pedal whatsoever (RH only), and you will see that now you can play all the notes at the same volume level, but because you are holding the melodic note, it keeps ringing and the melody is brought out naturally. You may now combine this with the approach in [a] (playing the melodic notes louder and the accompaniment notes softer), and you should see a dramatic difference. It should also allow you to play the accompaniments louder than if you were not doing this. So combining the two approaches will give much more latitude than just using the loud/soft approach. However this must be done without pedal, because if you use the pedal, then every note will ring, not only the melodic notes. Of course, this will be feasible for the RH, but not for the LH, where you must prolong the bass note with the pedal. So hwo are you going to do this? Do not worry, for the moment just ignore the left hand and work on the RH without pedal so that you master the technique to do this “prolonging” of the melodic note without resorting to the pedal.

c.      Play the melodic notes a fraction of a second after the bass note and RH accompaniment. In this way you displace the melodic notes fractionally, so that instead of playing the melody together with the accompaniment, the melody is played with the decay of the accompaniment. This must be precisely timed. Too much distance between melody and accompaniment will sound really bad. (Paderewsky was much criticised for using this device all the time – it was a common way of playing at the beginning of the 20ty century). However if you it just right, no one can actually tell that you are doing it, and a beautiful cantabile develops with all the notes at the (more or less) same volume level. This now allows you to play the section at any dynamic level, since you do not have to keep some notes loud and some notes soft.

Your job now is to work on each of these three methods (melody loud – accompaniment soft / holding the melodic notes / displacing the melodic notes) one at a time until you have mastered the technique necessary to achieve them. Use the simplified versions if you need to.

Finally, you must combine these three methods, so that you are not just doing one of them, but  using all of them and fine tuning their individual contributions to achieve the sound you decided upon when you worked on step 1 (hence its importance: if you don’t know in your mind what you want, your fingers cannot comply).

6.      Finally, I would suggest that you do not do this on the whole piece, but work on small sections of 2-3 bars (that is, work on the phrases). Part of this kind of practice is investigation: you want to vary the variables to see the different effects. You will not be able to do this efficiently if you try to do it on the whole piece. Once you get the precise co-ordinates that give you the sound you want, move on to the next phrase and see if they work. Keep fine tuning in small bits, and soon your body will just know what to do and you can play the whole piece.

I hope this helps.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[illusion]

[...]

So here are the steps to get there:  [...]

I hope this helps.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

It always does, Bernhard... you are truly appreciated.  Thank you for taking the time to post