Question: Chord Attack / Grouping

[sephethus]

I've read Chang's book and Bernhard's posts about getting speed.  However, the description of how to do this is a little confusing. Are there any videos demonstrating this approach in a variety of pieces?

For instance, how would I approach this when it's not arpeggiated, such as the last quarter of Bach's Prelude no. 2 in C minor?

[oxy60]

Never forget we play a percussion instrument. If the composer writes the chord to sound at once, then we must try to sound it at once.

Maybe we can't reach all the notes. Still try to get as many as possible to strike together.

[landru]

I think what you should concentrate on is doing the chord attack practice for every hand position that is relatively stationary. For instance if a piece starts with your right hand in one position, say with the thumb at middle C and you don't move your hand for a measure - then the chord attack is done using all the notes in that measure. It doesn't matter that it isn't an arpeggio - you just need to get the hand used to playing the notes.

When I practice using this method I usually play all the notes in the position in the same rhythm as the piece. For instance if the piece had C D F A G in one measure, I would play the cluster of notes CDFAG five times in the same notated rhythm as the piece.

But the other thing to practice is the transition between hand positions - this is the real limit on how fast you ultimately play the piece. So make sure that you also practice getting your whole hand quickly in between positions - this you can also do in tempo with the chord attack - just play the chord once for every changed hand position in the tempo as the finished piece.

[oxy60]

That is good advice, landru. I do your technique a lot but I must be careful to not slur the pivot note but strike it again if it is notated that way. It's a lazy habit that haunts me from the past.

[sephethus]

Thanks I'll try that.

[sephethus]

Yeah that didn't work, I'm still confused. Without a demonstration or video about what Chang is trying to describe "parallel sets" and "chord attacks", even the "gravity drop" stuff, it's really hard to know whether I'm doing it right. I don't even feel like I'm doing it right.

Apparently the "parallel set" exercises are good for trills too, which I'm finding myself sucking at right now.

He's just not very good at describing it, it's kind of like an IKEA instruction manual. Either that or it's just not easy to describe specific motions with words.

Looks like I may need to hire a classical teacher in addition to jazz.