Inverted Mordent problems...

[cjcarrington97]

As you can tell from the title, I have been having particular trouble in executing inverted mordents,  more specifically, from the Bach Prelude BWV 875 in D Minor.
I can do these relatively well in the RH, but for some reason the LH is a lot more spontaneous on whether or not it wants to execute itself properly.
I'm not sure whether it's hesitation or the tension, (considering the piece opens with one right from the start), but they are either a tad too slow, or obnoxiously loud, making it sound like I haven't practised it properly.
Any suggestions on changing fingering etc, are more than welcome.
I have been generally using 121, but for the first mordent tried to change it to 231, however this can be a little risky sometimes, (I'm not sure I'll get the result I hoped for), and it becomes a little awkward for the other two inverted mordents that are in the following bars.

Any help would be very much appreciated; I'm sure there is a simple answer to this, but I really can't work out what the best thing is to do...

[andreslr6]

I was going to suggest 231 actually

The problem comes directly from the way you practice it, if you can't do them always right, if it's always based on "luck", it means you've been practicing them wrong.

It's not bad, it's good you are conscious of your problem, now I must ask, how do you practice them? maybe all you need is to add one more way of practicing them, apply one or two more resources so that you ALWAYS get them right.

Some of the most immediate ways to get them right is to practicing them with fingers raised and slowly, study them as if the first two notes were written as semiquavers (16ths) and the last one as a quaver (8th).

Then practice them with the fingers close to the keyboard, as if you were pulling them up and as if they where glued to the keys. Always relaxed, with no tension.

If you practice with repetition, make sure you repeat them the same way always, no mistakes.

I would like to know when you solve this. Let me know how it goes, and how have you been practicing them.

PS what I said is one of the solutions, not the only one, I hope more people post their suggestions as well.

[cjcarrington97]

Haha, well actually I think you saying 231 made me try and use 231 again and I'm finding that it's much better than 121 to say the least. As a matter of fact, I have become a lot more comfortable with using the 231 and to be honest, when I really sat down and tried to incorporate it into performance, it worked and didn't rely on chance so much. The only real reason why I first rejected 231 was because it was a little awkward for the last 2 inverted trills in the opening bars.

One thing I realised and changed when practising was firstly I was quite heavy on executing the mordents and had a little bit of tension in the hands since as I said, I was lucky if I executed it right. So from this, I now use a lighter hand and find it quite a lot easier now to do these mordents however they are not perfect yet, (it's only day 1).

I probably wont be able to say too much about your ideas since I have only just started using them, but I am actually noticing that it's almost more natural executing the mordents when playing them by doing the 'lift the fingers up' in practice. From this, I am definitely noticing a difference and I will continue to use this method in my practice sessions so thanks for that! 

I haven't really incorporated the 'keeping hands close to the keyboard' method yet, so I cannot say too much on it so far, however when I find there being no purpose of using the lifted fingers approach and there is still a problem with these mordents, then I will definitely use them and try to get back to you on that.

And lastly yes, I have always kept to not making mistakes in repetitions, it would be foolish of me to let them go amiss to be honest.

So I say thank you andresir6, I believe you have opened me up to solution, and hey, on the first, and what will seem, only reply as well!   

[andreslr6]

Thanks for responding, it's good to know you're solving them, remember the key is relaxation and consciousness of what you're doing exactly

The idea behind "staying close to the keyboard" is that you always save movement that at higher speeds will affect your pulse and ability, extra movement that can even provoke unwanted and unnecessary tension.

Staying close to the keyboard will enable you to play at faster tempos and more accurately, it's a matter of ergonomics and effectiveness .