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Topic: Hungarian Rhapsody 2 help ( again ) strange technique ..  (Read 1335 times)

Offline mjin1

  • Jr. Member
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  • Posts: 39
Hi. Ive been working on this piece for around a year now, and there's not alot left that gives me much trouble.. Everything is near up to speed, it's just a matter of cleaning it up a little for the parts that I haven't practiced as much.. Except this one part.

It's very close after the main theme of the friska, where you are going back and forth very quickly hitting a high C# with 5... Now, the problem is, playing this part at an acceptable speed isn't the hard part, the problem is playing the top C# quietly and still hearing the other part of the right hand. Apparently, according to my teacher, liszt seems to have written this part (Deliberately or not) inbetween where a piano has dampers or not, to I guess demonstrate how much control you have with 5.

So what I'm saying is, the top C# that you have to hit when jumping back and forth rapidly over an octave has to be quiet, yet, it has no dampers, so it's very VERY easy to hit it loudly, and infact alot of performers and recording artists do hit it loudly..

My question is, how in the hell do you go about learning this with any consistency? Ive had moments where I'll just do it totally relaxed and it works perfectly, but other times I cannot get myself to not bang the top key no matter how little my 5 moves.. .....

Is it just alot of slow practice, or is this a technique that just takes years to build up? It seems like you have to be completely relaxed.. like I'll try it just straight from taking a break from the piano, full speed, and it'll be fine. I think it's because I'm relaxed, because I'll try and do it again.. and it'll become less and less quiet the more I play that part.. so I'm guessing my hand is tensing up.

Just so you know, I started taking lessons about this time last year, however I've been playing piano ever since I was like 4. .. not with much consistency until the last couple of years. My teacher says there is no way that I'd be able to have as much success on this piece without having a fair amount of talent, though she says for this specific delicate 5 technique that it takes a number of years to get it that way, though, i'm hoping I can learn it within a couple of months if I practice right.

What do you guys think? Any suggestions?
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