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Topic: Rachmaninovs Elegy  (Read 8842 times)

Offline andrea7

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Rachmaninovs Elegy
on: July 12, 2010, 11:45:53 AM
Hi! I fell in love with this piece, but i can´t find sheet music with fingering, it takes a long time for me to find good fingering, does anybody have sheets with fingering? Thanks =)
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Offline faulty_damper

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Re: Rachmaninovs Elegy
Reply #1 on: July 16, 2010, 04:19:34 AM
This answer may sound counterintuitive to what you are asking but it needs serious consideration.  If you do not know how to finger this piece, the easiest and fastest solution to figuring it out is to use any fingering.  Let me repeat that in caps: USE ANY FINGERING.

Trying to figure out good fingering will inevitably lead you to using bad fingering.  The time you spent trying to figure it out would have been wasted.  And worse, you will practice and ingrain poor fingering thinking it is the best until it becomes difficult to alter.

Instead, use any fingering.  If you do this what you will inevitably do during practice, often without even realizing it, is you will change any inefficient fingering to better ones to best suit the needs of the piece.

As an added benefit, you will learn the piece much faster.

Offline kitty on the keys

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Re: Rachmaninovs Elegy
Reply #2 on: July 16, 2010, 12:12:51 PM
Hi....beautiful piece! I have the Alfred edition for this set of pieces. But I agree, find a fingering that works for YOU.....remember Rach... had a very large hand so his fingering may not work for you. Enjoy your journey with this piece.....no one plays this piece the same way....which is great!

Kitty on the Keys
Kitty on the Keys
James Lee

Offline faulty_damper

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Re: Rachmaninovs Elegy
Reply #3 on: July 16, 2010, 10:57:28 PM
By not focusing on fingering you will unconsciously learn something that is more important: flexibility.

Flexibility is the ability to make the best of a situation with what you possess.  This positively affects your learning rate.  Two pianists of similar ability, one who attempts to figure out the best fingering and another who uses any fingering, will have drastically different outcomes.  The one who uses any fingering will be able to play the piece while the other is still figuring out the best fingering.

Flexibility is a learned skill set.  This cannot be learned by focusing on it because it is a generalized intelligence.  When you focus on something, it is longer general; it becomes specific.  The more specific it is the less it can be generalized.

You mentioned it takes you a long time to find good fingering.  You might actually be playing the piece right now if you were to use any fingering.  Instead, you are still trying to figure it out.  Do yourself a favor and play it already. :)

Offline hansscherff

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Re: Rachmaninovs Elegy
Reply #4 on: August 04, 2010, 03:00:50 PM
Interesting post, faulty_damper. Lately i have been getting faster and faster in learning new pieces and a lot of it is contributable to what you say i think. It also improves sight-reading. The one thing to keep in mind which is one of my weak points is that with 'any' fingering you often have tiny errors or slips in legato, while with the 'best' fingering this is easier to avoid.

So yeah start off with any fingering, but keep on working towards your best fingering. I don't do that often enough, but then again i only play for my own pleasure and i prefer 5 pieces at 90% above 1 at 100% ;)

Hans

Offline gyzzzmo

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Re: Rachmaninovs Elegy
Reply #5 on: August 04, 2010, 03:33:27 PM
Nice theory, but it can just as much lead to inflexibility since people start to use 1-2-3 fingering only wich keeps 4-5 untrained and weak.
For 'Elegy' it probably works fine as with many of Rachmaninov's pieces because of his type of compositions. But for many other composers like Chopin, Bach, Schubert etc it is counter-productive and harmful for the technique on long term.
1+1=11

Offline nanabush

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Re: Rachmaninovs Elegy
Reply #6 on: August 04, 2010, 04:09:01 PM
Uhm...

I think that if you actually spend time finding a good fingering (which means sometimes writing 2 or 3 possibilities, then finding out later which suits you best) would be quicker than using random fingering, no?  Wouldn't it be better if she took her time and tried some possibilities out, and found which was best, rather than changing it up every single time?
Interested in discussing:

-Prokofiev Toccata
-Scriabin Sonata 2

Offline faulty_damper

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Re: Rachmaninovs Elegy
Reply #7 on: August 05, 2010, 05:53:02 AM
No, different fingerings wouldn't be used each time.  The fingering that is used will be the same until it is changed.  When it does change, either for more comfort or is more effective, that is the indicator that learning has occurred.

This is a very important step in learning how to finger that most students rarely practice because teachers instruct students to find good fingering immediately for a passage and write it in their music.  This fingering becomes ingrained and cannot be changed; it becomes specific for the piece.

In a piece like the Elegy, it happens to be an effective learning piece for the fingering strategy that I am proposing.  Each hand plays separate musical components: a melody and accompaniment.  Each hand can be practiced separately using this strategy.  The repetitive nature of the accompaniment lends itself to be practiced by cycling.  It's through this cycling that the body will eventually be able to feel what works and what doesn't.  If it works, the fingering stays the same.  If it doesn't, the fingering will change.  Comfort will usually dictate this change, not by intellectual reasoning.

Quote
Wouldn't it be better if she took her time and tried some possibilities out, and found which was best
She has already tried some of the possibilities out.  She wouldn't be able to play any correct note without having done so.

The beauty of this strategy is that it lets you make music much faster than someone who is still fingering it out.  A passage can have numerous ways to finger that the combinations can become too much.  Some fingers work better than others but then there are fingerings that feel the same.  What do you do when they feel the same?  You become stuck at a choice between choosing between 2.54cm or 1 inch.  This indecision is what leads to finger-block: the inability to choose a fingering because both seem identical.  This leads to more analyzing which leads to more finger-block.

I mention this strategy from personal experience.  I used to suffer from finger-block, always trying to find the "perfect" fingering.  When I found that perfect fingering, I practiced it until I realized that it wasn't the most comfortable or effective way to play it.  Then I had to change it.  Weeks later, the pieces still were not learned because I was still figuring out the fingering!  The worst part is realizing that there is no such thing as perfect fingering.  There are ways to make "bad" fingering perfectly usable that have little to do with which finger depresses which key.

Offline faulty_damper

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Re: Rachmaninovs Elegy
Reply #8 on: August 05, 2010, 06:06:02 AM
Nice theory, but it can just as much lead to inflexibility since people start to use 1-2-3 fingering only wich keeps 4-5 untrained and weak.
For 'Elegy' it probably works fine as with many of Rachmaninov's pieces because of his type of compositions. But for many other composers like Chopin, Bach, Schubert etc it is counter-productive and harmful for the technique on long term.

There is nothing wrong with only using fingers 1 2 3.  If they are able to make music with just those fingers then they don't need to use 4 and 5.

I must disagree that this strategy would be ineffective, especially regarding Chopin's compositions.  His technique was unique and part of the reason was because he learned how to play be feel, not by rules.  Think of his etudes: groundbreaking at the time because no one could play them.  Except for Liszt.  Both Liszt and Chopin had one thing in common: They learned how to play without any teacher.  (Czerny was not the one who taught Liszt how to play.  He already knew how to play.  Czerny just made it more difficult for him.)

The underlying reason for this strategy is body exploration.  To play the piano well, one must explore how the body moves to achieve the best desired effect.  Chopin and Liszt learned by exploring.  This is why Chopin played the way he did, wrote music the way he did, and why Liszt was the only other pianist who could play Chopin's music.

Offline gyzzzmo

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Re: Rachmaninovs Elegy
Reply #9 on: August 05, 2010, 06:44:52 AM
There is nothing wrong with only using fingers 1 2 3.  If they are able to make music with just those fingers then they don't need to use 4 and 5.

I must disagree that this strategy would be ineffective, especially regarding Chopin's compositions.  His technique was unique and part of the reason was because he learned how to play be feel, not by rules.  Think of his etudes: groundbreaking at the time because no one could play them.  Except for Liszt.  Both Liszt and Chopin had one thing in common: They learned how to play without any teacher.  (Czerny was not the one who taught Liszt how to play.  He already knew how to play.  Czerny just made it more difficult for him.)

The underlying reason for this strategy is body exploration.  To play the piano well, one must explore how the body moves to achieve the best desired effect.  Chopin and Liszt learned by exploring.  This is why Chopin played the way he did, wrote music the way he did, and why Liszt was the only other pianist who could play Chopin's music.

Sorry, but this is all rather nonsense.
Fingering has nothing to do with rules, and good fingering and good control of all fingers is a requirement for somebody to express that 'play by feel'. And loads of people can't play pieces properly because of an undeveloped 4th and 5th finger and left hand.
And about Liszt, he had lots of teachers and Czerny made him play etudes 24/7, wich i would definitely call teaching as well. Plus it is nonsense that Liszt was the only other pianist who could play Chopin, they were just the most famous pianists of that time.
1+1=11

Offline faulty_damper

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Re: Rachmaninovs Elegy
Reply #10 on: August 05, 2010, 10:57:30 PM
Yes, you are correct that being able to use all parts of the hand is necessary for maximum ability but this assumes they are beyond what they are currently playing.  If they have no need to go beyond what they are currently playing, there is no need for further development.  Not everyone needs a Ferrari in their garage if they are only using their car to go to work.  In fact, having a Ferrari is expensive, just like having a superlative technique but not ever needing to use the full potential; the maintenance costs will kill you.  Not everyone wants to play Rachmaninov's concerti or Liszt's rhapsodies.  Most are content with popular arrangements of songs.

And about Liszt, he didn't have a teacher when he was young, just like Chopin.  Both Chopin and Liszt were criticized for their poor technique.  Famous pianists offered to give them lessons to correct their flawed technique, the same 'flawed' techniques that are used today.  Chopin declined.  Liszt accepted.  Who were those famous virtuosi who claimed Chopin's Op.10 etudes were impossible when they were published?  Why were these same etudes dedicated to Liszt?  What was Chopin's reaction when he heard Liszt play them?  In fact, Chopin's first hearing of these etudes, beside from his own playing, came from Liszt.  Chopin's was indeed impressed, he was the only other pianist at the time who could play those etudes because none of the other virtuosi could.

Offline gyzzzmo

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Re: Rachmaninovs Elegy
Reply #11 on: August 06, 2010, 06:20:43 AM
@faulty
You must be a rather bad teacher if you dont at least try getting your students that 'Ferrari'. You seem to find it okay that your students have a big technical gap that prevents them to master any intermediate piece.

And both Liszt and Chopin did have teachers when they were young.

Last, do you really believe nobody else except Liszt could play Chopin's etudes, while there were plenty of other virtuosi in that time, and like hundredthousands can play them now?
1+1=11
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