Help!: Need learning strategy for piece for LH!!!

[super_ardua]

Hi,

In Godowsky Study 5 (Chopin Op.10 No.3 adapted for LH alone) I can do the movements without too much difficulty (ie. If I take a bar and memorise it, I can play it ok.).  Not many of the methods I use for two hands work for this - there is only the left hand,  so there is no HS practice.

If I practice half a bar at a time it doesn't help  because half the time is spent patching the sections together,  yet if I take it a bar at a time I get information overload.

Please help, I am making excruciatingly slow progress!!

[super_ardua]

This is my strategy I have been using for the past few days:

Take a bar.

Find sections like it.

Repeat the bar slowly seven times.

Play the similar sections a few times.

Take another bar.

The problem though is that it is taking ages to learn this piece and I can't see where I am going wrong! I have practiced the first four bars,  which means I have got eight bars of the piece done,  after practicing half a week!!

Or does this  piece tae ages to learn anyway, regardless of strategy?

[cziffra777]

It sounds like you aren't ready for the piece. I think anyone at a level where they could play any of the Godowsky transcriptions wouldn't be asking the questions you've asked.

[super_ardua]

Not really,  the problem isn't technical,  it's just remembering what fingering is allocated to which bar.

[chromatickler]

Not really,  the problem isn't technical,  it's just remembering what fingering is allocated to which bar.

disregarding voicing, then the technical difficulty of this piece is comparable to fur elise.

[super_ardua]

disregarding voicing, then the technical difficulty of this piece is comparable to fur elise.

Could we stop trying to insult eachother and start being helpful??

[super_ardua]

disregarding voicing, then the technical difficulty of this piece is comparable to fur elise.

If you include giving each voice its own character its like a Bach fugue, but a bit harder.

Just put it this way: if I can do it, I can do it.  I chose this piece to do;  I wouldn't chose something to do unless I have utmost confidence that I can do it well.  I am not these type of people who turn up on this forum and say : "I've completed Fur Elise,  let me do the Liszt Sonata".

This forum does not have the bandwidth to waste over whether I can do it or not.  If you have come here just to be nasty to me you can go somewhere else.  Your trash is not needed.

[chromatickler]

I have one question for you: Do you play it very fast?

[shasta]

Left hand only --- doesn't matter.  You can still practice the piece "hands separately" --- i.e. "voice separately."  By this I mean dissecting the melody and other voices from the harmony within your left hand.

First, though, I would block the piece together into chords and practicing playing it as chords without worrying about the moving transitions between them.  This will give you a rough feel for hand shape and direction, and will establish set fingerings at regular intervals.

Next, I would practice "voice separately."  This is important to do regardless of what other strategies you use to go about learning this piece, because the melody needs to sing out over the rest anyway.  Isolate it and focus on creating a beautiful voicing.  If the melody is mostly played by the LH thumb, then one practice session might be spent placing your hand/fingers in all the appropriate note/chord positions, but then only playing the thumb voice.

The same thing should be done for the inner voices --- you might find that these parts are intertwined and passed along between the melody and harmony, thus there may be more than one way to "sing" this part.

[super_ardua]

I have one question for you: Do you play it very fast?

I have one answer for you:  To play it very fast would be disrespectful to the piece and would make it sound horrible.  Better 60 per quaver

[super_ardua]

Left hand only --- doesn't matter.  You can still practice the piece "hands separately" --- i.e. "voice separately."  By this I mean dissecting the melody and other voices from the harmony within your left hand.

First, though, I would block the piece together into chords and practicing playing it as chords without worrying about the moving transitions between them.  This will give you a rough feel for hand shape and direction, and will establish set fingerings at regular intervals.

Next, I would practice "voice separately."  This is important to do regardless of what other strategies you use to go about learning this piece, because the melody needs to sing out over the rest anyway.  Isolate it and focus on creating a beautiful voicing.  If the melody is mostly played by the LH thumb, then one practice session might be spent placing your hand/fingers in all the appropriate note/chord positions, but then only playing the thumb voice.

The same thing should be done for the inner voices --- you might find that these parts are intertwined and passed along between the melody and harmony, thus there may be more than one way to "sing" this part.

Thanks.

What I have had been doing to make each of these voices sing is to play it extremly slowly and tap my thumb/2nd finger with my RH whenever it plays the upper voices.

I'll try the voice separately method when I have time

[chromatickler]

I have one answer for you:  To play it very fast would be disrespectful to the piece and would make it sound horrible.  Better 60 per quaver

You were one correct answer away from entry into Da SDC. Unfortunately you blew it.