Left hand leaps... how to deal with them ?

[drooxy]

Hi everyone,

I am currently working on a piece where the left hand keeps making big leaps (bass/chord/bass/chord/...) all piece long.

I start to be pretty comfortable with these jumps and I believe I do use arm weight to realize them but I would really like to have some kind of reassuring about that...

So could someone describe what these leaps should look/feel like and how to work/improve/master them ?

Many thanks in advance !

Drooxy

[Motrax]

The best way to go about this in my opinion is to place your hand on the keys before you play each chord. Rather than just bringing your hand fully down onto the keyboard, hover a moment before you press the chords. This will give you much more control over your sound, and will also help you be more accurate.

And as usual, if you're having trouble hitting the keys, practice seperate hands and slowly.  

[janice]

And as usual, if you're having trouble hitting the keys, practice seperate hands and slowly.  

I have been doing MUCH more playing with hands separate while learning a piece since I started coming to this forum.  It will do wonders!!

[Clare]

A lecturer at my uni has a trick for practicing big jumps (though I haven't tried this yet to see if it's any good) - practice the jumpy bits one octave further than you need to. So, like, if you have to jump to a high C in the piece, practice jumping to the C above it. Then, hopefully, going the actual distance will be a breeze.

Motrax is totally right - the hand always has to be there over the chord before playing it.

[dj]

another thing that would help is knowing the finger position for each octave/chord. this way all you will have to think about is where to put your hand on the keyboard, instead of worrying about where each individual finger will go

[drooxy]

Thanks everybody for your input...

The best way to go about this in my opinion is to place your hand on the keys before you play each chord.

Paying particular attention to Motrax point, I realized that I did place my hand before playing...    but not systematically...!  

By working on that point, my left hand is getting more accurate indeed (in terms of placement but also of quality of sound).

Thanks for pointing out - and reminding me - that point !

Cheers,
Drooxy

I did not try to make the leaps even bigger as you suggest Clare, but that also can be interested to try...

[drooxy]

I have found the following "trick" to force my left hand to be ALWAYS in place before actually playing (LH going bass-chord-chord / bass-chord-chord / etc. on a 3/4 tempo):

I count:

 1         ET         2         ET         3          ET         1       etc.
 |          |          |          |           |           |          |
and do:  
 |          |          |          |           |           |          |
play     place     play      place      play      place     play
bass     hand    chord     hand     chord      bass     bass

Seems to be fun and also very effective ! At least for me !

What do you think ?

Cheers,
Drooxy

         

[Motrax]

This is a very good idea, actually! I'll be sure to use it next time I have big leaps. Thanks!

[djbrak]

I was having the same problem with Chopin Waltzes and my teacher told me that on the left hand you can tilt the palm up (not all the way up), just enough so that you can see the keys a little better as you touch and go. Oom pah pah, oom pah pah, oom pah pah...aaaah I feel like dancing...hehehe

[lagin]

I just learned this cool left hand leap idea at a piano workshop.  After you leap, I find that if you pause and get centered you run the risk of losing time and the flowing sound that comes from a smooth transaction from one thing into another.  Try this:  Go from whatever note(s) you are on first and slowly move and land on the next note(s), but when landing on this next part, whatever finger (often the pinky) is closest to the bass end of the keyboard should be the only finger you land with--even if there are more notes.  When you get good at this, practice landing the leap with the next finger as well--so like the pinky and the third if we're talking about a chord.  Keep increasing the number of fingers as you are able until eventually you can easily make the leap landing squarely with all the necessary notes.  This way you avoid hovering and lining up, which might work for now, but in the more advanced grades you sometimes just don't have the time.  On a piece I'm working on right now I used to line up and then drop in a left hand leap and I struggled and struggled with getting it up to tempo.  When I tried this idea of falling right into it, I found I actually had to move my hand slower because without that extra pausing time I was too fast!  It's worth a try anyway.

[aquariuswb]

Best method: be Art Tatum :-)

[Brian Healey]

Everybody has given great advice, so I'll only add that you should be careful not to let your hand arc too much during the leap. Many people lift their hand way off the keyboard and move it in a semi-circular path between the bass note and the chord (and vice-versa). Doing that means your hand will have to travel farther between notes than it needs to, meaning you won't be able to play very fast, you will fatigue quicker, and you won't be as accurate. The more you move in a straight line (basically, the more you reduce your movement), the better off you will be. It has been said that some of the old stride masters like James P. Johnson and Willie "The Lion" Smith would balance a quarter on the top of their left hand while playing an incredibly fast stride piece, as a sort of "show-off trick."


Peace,
Bri

[pianoannie]

Hmmm...I suppose different things work for different people.  But just to give you some more options, I'll share some of my ideas.  I'll tell you right off that these tips are exactly the opposite of what others have said!
   My teacher absolutely forbids me from doing the "place your fingers first" thing that so many others suggested.  That pause will not only slow you down, but also force you to push the keys down with your fingers, rather than letting your arm weight drop smoothly into the keys.  Tone will suffer.
   One thing that has been a great training exercise for me is this: practice the moves with an exaggerated arc.  Someone told me to try this, because it helps the arm muscles memorize what the distance feels like.  I was pretty skeptical, but so determined to improve my ability to play by feel, that I gave it a try.  It really did help me!!  Now, I'm not saying that you continue to play with extremely exaggerated arcs.  But I do like to arc somewhat.  A teacher once asked me "Which can land more precisely: an airplane or a helicopter?  Your hand can land more precisely coming down from an arc than making a rather flat straight move."
   Finally, another way to develop your sense of feel:  practice octaves, one hand at a time.  Start at C's, played with fingers 1 and 5 of course, but concentrate on how the other 3 fingers feel: do any sit on black keys, or on cracks between 2 white keys, or ?  Do this with every octave (start with the white keys, add blacks later).  You'll discover that your fingertips feel something different at each set of octave notes.  You can also do this with 5th intervals, to further develop your sense of feel.

[Brian Healey]

One advantage to the straight-line, "non-arcing" movement is that your fingertips can graze the tops of the keys and find the right spot quicker. I found that to be the case anyway, but just you said, different things work for different people.

However, no matter what approach you take to get comfortable with the movement, I think that the straight-line method is what you should ultimately be going for. Sure, the "helicopter" can land more precisely up to a certain tempo, but if you try to play fast, your helicopter will be all over the place. A stride style left hand is also supposed to sound light and spritely, so keeping the fingers close to the keys prevents the left hand from sounding clunky and overbearing. When you lift your hand high, it's harder to get that sound because you're fighting gravity, and in the end it takes more effort because you'll be trying to slow down your hand's velocity as it lands. Try to find a video of a master stride player, it looks like their left hand is barely leaving the keys.

Peace,
Bri

[pianoannie]

Yeah Bri, some of what you're saying makes sense.  Some teachers give the impression that their particular technique for something is universal, but as the old saying goes, sometimes there's "more than one way to skin a cat." (egad that's such an awful saying--where in the world did it come from?!)
   Anyway, I will try out "grazing the tops of the keys" tomorrow and see how it goes.  My teacher prefers the arcs, but she's pretty cool about allowing my personal preferences (so long as they aren't too far-out).  And I like learning various ways of doing things, so I can give my own students options.

[Ed Marlo]

The last section of Rach's Prelude in C # Minor is a good exercise for all this jumping around, with both hands making some considerable leaps.  Of course, this doesn't really help your situation at all, I just need to subtly share my misery/joy/excitement/despair.

[ted]

I have to go back a long way to a point where I had trouble with this. I have played stride, ragtime and swing since I was a kid and I never consciously think about what I do.

One practice trick you could try is to keep the same chord at the top, start the bottom octave (or note or tenth) up close and, keeping up to tempo, put the lower beat increasingly further down in scalewise or chromatic steps - like Waller does in "Minor Drag" except exaggerated. After much playing of this nature you'll begin to feel pretty comfortable with the comparatively mild demands of most music.

As I recall that's what I used to do, but I'm stretching the memory ! Curiously, I find single notes more trouble than either octaves or tenths. I find the solid bass of Waller's "Gladyse" much easier than the skipping section of Feux Follets, even though the latter is ostensibly much lighter and easier. In the same way I always substitute octaves and tenths for single notes in Scott Joplin and James Scott - not in order to make it more difficult but to make it easier.

[anda]

i practice the leaps (lh or rh) with my eyes closed - first very slow, then increase tempo gradually. if i can get them right (always right) at about 3/4 tempo, i'll be just fine in tempo adding visual control.