parallel sixths

[leonbloy]

A begineer, self-learning here. I have difficulties with this piece from Heller Op45 12 with (easy, I guess) parallel sixths. I assume they are to be played legato; I have long fingers, and I tend to place the hand  at a different angles to play 1-4 and 2-5, moving the wrist laterally as I alternate between those fingerings; which seems excessive motion... If I try to keep the wrist still, then my fingers tend to play the white keys in the "black zone" (to avoid an excessive finger curving), but I feel that make playing the piece more difficult (black keys get on the way). I guess I must find my own compromise, but I wonder if there are any standard tips?

[nystul]

Here's an idea.  Try playing the four notes as a chord and see where things fall.  Well, I guess this is why pieces with massive block chords tend to have a lot of sharps and flats.  And here I thought they chose to write all those flats just to make it impossible for newbies to sightread.  But seriously though, the distance between the edge of the white keys and the edge of the black keys should give you just enough room to solve this problem without this constant hand shift.

[keyb0ardfweak]

I sugest you to play it rotating your wrist instead of doind lateral movements, try to make a circle, well, you may not be able to do a perfect circle with your wrist while playing.. an oval is more the shape you will get while moving your wrist..

then.. you will notice your hand more free with less tension, tension is only used when you drop your fingers to the keys, then you have to relax.. this takes time to practice and to perfect.. the only way to get rid of tension is practicing slowly with this rotation of the wrist, this way your brain captures the movement and after 300 repeats (or less depending on your hability) the movement is acquired and it will come out automatically

[leonbloy]

Nice tips, thanks

[werq34ac]

In my opinion, as long as you are not tensing up, and it sounds the way you want it to sound, there's really nothing that stops you from doing what you are doing.

However, getting it to sound the way you want it to sound, if your wrists are choppy, the sounds is choppy. Pay VERY CLOSE ATTENTION to the sound you are producing and whether it sounds as smooth as you would like it to be. If not? PRACTICE