Help-Technique-Chromatic Glissando

[49410enrique]

Good Day all, hope everyone is having a great holiday season. I have another question on some of my solo rep that i'm working over the break, like the scriabin question, i don't have a way to get guidance on this from my teacher until the spring classes begin in Jan, so hopefully someone with experience with this can give me some feedback so i don't practice incorrectly and learn this wrong.

I am uploading only a single image page of the measure in question, i hope since it's not the full score I am allowed to post here since the piece in it's entirety is copyrighted. I am also posting a youtube link and will specify the time marker to the measure in question.

measure 7 from the top, the chromatic glissando. this is my first encounter with this animal (i've come across the normal glissando and less common but not as rare 'black note' glissando but never chromatic). How this is accomplished? Two fingers, digits 1(pointer not thumb) and 2 (middle) palm facing the low register ? also it looks like the LH has the melody durring the slide down the keyboard  how do i deal with the issue of the arms crossing and not hitting each other without interupting the glissando? also tips on where it ends i.e. what note  it actually stops, does it even matter? thanks and sorry if i only served to complicated what should be a simple matter.

time stamp should, skip to about 3:50 or so it'll come in a few seconds later. also it sounds like it begins on the c flat right?

[ajspiano]

I'm not going to comment on how to play a chromatic one, I have plenty of ideas but I can't say if any of them are 'correct' technically.

However - how often are you going to be playing a chromatic glissando? so how important is it that the technique is perfect? if one of your ideas works then it works. Techniques for this are probably also going to be fairly contrasting and not that difficult to adjust if you decide you like one way better..   just a few thoughts.

That aside, the recording sounds like black notes only to me at first listen.

EDIT:
I was also able to dig up this idea..

Bb, A - 4th finger,
Ab, G - 3rd finger
Gb, F - 2nd finger
E - thumb
Eb, D - 3rd finger
Db, C - 2nd finger
B - thumb

fingerings remain the same whatever note you start on..

I havent tried it so I'm not going to vouch for it at all..  i guess you'd have to 'slide' off each black key, and it would no doubt take a bit of practice to get it even/fluent.

[moby1]

From the recording, it sounds to me like he/she is doing a glissando on the black keys.  That's probably all this means. 

[49410enrique]

thanks for the info! i guess i should clarify, i wasn't looking for a 'textbook' correct way in that form, what i meant is that i am having trouble getting this out and right now the technical challenge is stopping me from being able to play the passage musically, like one of my previous professors used to tell me, 'we make technical decisions for musical reasons not the other way around' so i am trying to find the best way to attempt the  gesture in a way that allows the music and emotion to flow not sound like choppy messed up garbage which is what my tries at it so far have gotten me. also usually the best technique is the one that requires the least effort and allows the hands and body to remain in the most natural tension free positions, what i've tried so far screams tension so again my way right now is 'incorrect'

my apologies if the post confused folks on what im after, i will certainly unpack it with my instructor but i was trying to come back to spring term this worked out at half tempo and memorized with all the basic musical gestures down (basic phrasign, voicing, dynamics, etc).

as to how often we woud encounter a 'chromatic glissando'? i guess that's why this is a good learning piece for me, i have never had to do one, i don't know how so learning the best way for me to execute it is one more tool for me to have should i need it again in the future when i am no longer in lessons.

thanks again for the help and i welcome others to weigh in on this.

i thought about doing it just black notes too but several pianists much more accomplished and better than i have told me it is chromatic as in all the notes not just the blacks. hmm... right now i'm up in the air 50 50 vs black keys vs all.

[moby1]

In the context of the previous measures, which are all pentatonic, a pentatonic glissando makes sense here.  I really doubt the composer intended a truly "chromatic" glissando.  And again, the recording is a pentatonic glissando, not chromatic.

[ajspiano]

. also usually the best technique is the one that requires the least effort and allows the hands and body to remain in the most natural tension free positions, what i've tried so far screams tension so again my way right now is 'incorrect'

This is pretty much what I was going for with the "textbook technically correct" idea..  not that its ever really found/described very well in a text book, particularly in this case.

I would probably play is as a black note one to get the piece together..  but then I'm fairly against being bound to the score and the composers original intention. Also, you can always refine it later.

[49410enrique]

@ moby1 and ajs piano, thanks for weighing in on this both of your advice sounds pretty spot on and more i listen to the recording and like moby1 did, actually look at what's happening tonally, the black notes only seems to make the most sense musically, it would be easy to make adjustments later if necessary but the more i play with it in mymind and ear this sounds the most correct.

[quantum]

Try using the palm of your hand, fingers pointed in the general direction of travel without touching the keys.  You can angle your hand in such a manner that the palm touches both white and black keys.  There is no need to obsess that every key is struck and that pitches progress in the orderly manner with which we associate a chromatic scale.  Think: wipe the fog off the glass.  

I would agree with above posters that a black key glissando is very suitable in the context of the music.  

If you are finding it is getting in the way of forming sense of structure and interpretation of the whole piece, just place a generic glissando in its place for the moment.  You can even omit the gliss pitches at that point while performing the physical gesture with your hand over the keys.  As the rest of the piece forms it will give you ideas on how to better fit that glissando in.

[49410enrique]

Try using the palm of your hand, fingers pointed in the general direction of travel without touching the keys.  You can angle your hand in such a manner that the palm touches both white and black keys.  There is no need to obsess that every key is struck and that pitches progress in the orderly manner with which we associate a chromatic scale.  Think: wipe the fog off the glass. 

I would agree with above posters that a black key glissando is very suitable in the context of the music. 

If you are finding it is getting in the way of forming sense of structure and interpretation of the whole piece, just place a generic glissando in its place for the moment.  You can even omit the gliss pitches at that point while performing the physical gesture with your hand over the keys.  As the rest of the piece forms it will give you ideas on how to better fit that glissando in.

sweet! yeah i'm gonna write that down and take it w me to the practice room tomorrow!

[autodidact]

also tips on where it ends i.e. what note  it actually stops, does it even matter?

The glissando symbol ends on the G-line, so I would say end it at Gb.

[werq34ac]

I've actually tried to invent a chromatic glissando before.. actually with a little success.

Basically I gliissandos on the white keys with my thumb and the black keys with my index finger. Not exactly a pleasant experience, and doesnt exactly sound chromatic due to lack of evenness, but at least its something right? I"m sure if done precisely, one can achieve a chromatic glissando with this technique. Thoughts?

Though in the context of the music (actually based off what everyone else has said) you should do a black key glissando

[49410enrique]

ok so follow up questions as i try to get to the bottom of this, althought it sounds ok with the black keys only,  wouldn't a true chromatic gliss. as suggested above (really thanks for the great description of 'wipe the fog off the mirro/glass'!! ) work in a tension-resolution relationship with the pentatonic octuplets that immediately follow, sort of like a strong dissonant chrod resolving to true or implied tonic?

also, if a true black key pentatonic gliss was specifically called for, how would that be notated? i think figuring this out will sort of help with backing into confirming the right answer of true chromatic vs a black key gliss. right?

edit. i am coming to the conclusion that a true quick crhomatic glissando is called for even thought a black note one sounds ok.

see hinson's book except attached on the Godowsky transcription of the Paraphrase de Concert of Valse. Op 18 (Chopin).  He states that the 2nd finger is on black keys and the fourth on white keys.

i've read discussions about other performacnes of the shimomura work where pianists have called out the many performers who play only black notes vs true chromatic.

[49410enrique]

found the Godowsky Transcription. see page 6 measure 8 and his note at the bottom of the page. although he actually writes it out i think it's just a choice of conventions here since shimomura calls for a much quicker one over a single beat vs an entire measure

[fftransform]

Aside from contemporary repertoire, the only piece that comes to mind that uses such a glissando is Debussy's Feux d'Artifice, but you use both hands for that.  I would suggest RH2-3 palm down (i.e. not the backs of your fingers), 3 on the white keys and 2 on the black keys.  Be sure not to strike a minor 2nd when you start it; play the first note in the glissando as a grace to the 2nd, and then slide.  Also end on a single note.  There is no way to tell where it should end; I think you'll just have to use your ears.  This is not something that has a "proper technique," so don't worry about it.

But the recording you posted is just a gliss on the black keys.


Here is an example of a "chromatic glissando," as you call it:

Skip to 2:55.

I seriously doubt anyone is getting "called out" on the way they perform the glissando in that piece, despite what somebody said.  There isn't a group of real pianists paying attention to those playing video game music.

[49410enrique]

Aside from contemporary repertoire, the only piece that comes to mind that uses such a glissando is Debussy's Feux d'Artifice, but you use both hands for that.  I would suggest RH2-3 palm down (i.e. not the backs of your fingers), 3 on the white keys and 2 on the black keys.  Be sure not to strike a minor 2nd when you start it; play the first note in the glissando as a grace to the 2nd, and then slide.  Also end on a single note.  There is no way to tell where it should end; I think you'll just have to use your ears.  This is not something that has a "proper technique," so don't worry about it.

But the recording you posted is just a gliss on the black keys.


Here is an example of a "chromatic glissando," as you call it:

Skip to 2:55.

I seriously doubt anyone is getting "called out" on the way they perform the glissando in that piece, despite what somebody said.  There isn't a group of real pianists paying attention to those playing video game music.

this is fantastic. thanks!!