Need help with some fast chords.

[senanserat]

Hello!

I was wondering is someone could help me with the following: Measure 137, RH.
 

Those ninths chords after the broken ones. Now I CAN reach them, but the piece demands that I play it at ♩=200. I know I am supposed to play it slow to practice and I am, but when trying to speed up I cannot seem to be able to hit it clean, I am using the following fingering : 1-2-3-5

Lifting 4 up helped me but the 5 finger almost always ends up tranishing the chord by hitting D. I don't have huge hands I can reach a ninth comfortably but because of the raised key there I have to stretch a bit more, and its getting on my nerves. That is page 6 out of 6. And if I manage to master it I will finally have accomplised something I have wanted for ages and perhaps the strongest cause that got me into piano.

I hope this information suffices and I am eager to see what feedback I get.
Thanks a lot in advance!

[1piano4joe]

Hi Senanserat,

Dropping notes may help you here.

Play the R.H. note (d#) before the chord and then only the top note (e) of the chord only. Do this until your playing clean.

Then do top note and bottom note only (d & e with 1 & 5).
Then do (g# & e with 2 & 5).
Finally, do (b & e with 3 & 5).

Can you play all these dyads cleanly?
Or is one of them causing a problem?
How does your hand feel?
Ideally, it should feel comfortable in all of these since your only playing a "2 note chord" and not a four note chord.

Try to maintain this comfort while adding a 3rd note to the chord. Try (d,g#, e with 1,2 &5) then (d,b,e with 1,3,5) then (g#,b,e with 2,3,5). Is it still clean? Does it still feel comfortable?

Now try, the full four note chord (d,g#,b,e with 1,2,3,5). It's possible that the 200 BPM tempo is still unclean but maybe you see light at the end of the tunnel. If your making progress with this then repeat this procedure a day or two later and you should make even more progress.

I hope I helped you, Joe.

[senanserat]

Joe,

Thanks a lot for taking time to help me! I am really grateful. Now, your advice was sound and just in 20 minutes of pure practicing (mostly the firts part D & E) I have managed to improve my succes ratio a lot. My main problem was that the fifth finger always dirtied the sound by slipping on the D, but it has slowly begin to dimish.

I assume my hand will also stretch a nit more thus allowing me to have a more natural position.

If I may, so I don't have to start another thread, for this chord:

LF: G#B-D#  would 5-3-1 be preferred over 4-2-1? In regards to speed which would help me save those microseconds that in the end add uP?

Also the same for this chord: B-D#-F# I use 5-2-1.

Thanks a lot in advance!

[1piano4joe]

Hi Senanserat,

Your welcome.  I'm glad this worked for you. I had a chance to try this out for myself today and I had success with it as well. I discovered tilting my right hand outwards toward the right also helped a great deal. In this position my index finger (#2) was perfectly parallel with the g#.

I don't see the g#,b,d# in the score in your original post. It would be better to see where your coming from and going to both before and after this chord. If your coming off some lower notes requiring your left hand to shift then using 4,2,1 is a slightly smaller shift which could be faster.

Also, I prefer to use my left ring finger (#4) on the black keys for chords like this which is generally (but by no means always) done for octaves. In addition, my hand stays slightly more open so if your coming off left hand octaves or going to them it's less of a contraction than 5,3,1 is and then less of an expansion back to an octave of either 5,1 (or 4,1).  

As for the b,d#,f# fingering of 5,2,1 you have me wondering if you have the right notes? If so, this is a root position B major chord. This can of course be fingered the following ten ways:

1. 5,4,3
2. 5,4,2 (seen as part of a root position four note chord) like C,F and G major or d,a and e minor.
3. 5,4,1
4. 5,3,2 (seen as part of a root position four note chord) like D,A,E and B major.
5. 5,3,1 (most common)
6. 5,2,1
7. 4,3,2
8. 4,3,1
9. 4,2,1 (very common)
10. 3,2,1 (seen as part of a 2nd inversion left hand four note chord)

Most of these are ridiculous of course but are food for thought as well as reference.

I would use either 4,2,1 or 5,3,1.  It really shouldn't make much difference. And more importantly you would ideally want to be able to do this either way.

Hope I didn't confuse you, Joe.

(BTW the original chord is a E 7th chord which is e,g#,b and d. There is no 9th present which would of course be f#.)

[senanserat]

Hi Joe,

I haven't been able to go throught your post in details because its late already here so I will do it in the morning, I hope that what I said about the notes wasn't so ... newbie said that it confused you but if it did I will take note of it to avoid naming the chords wrongly in the future (english in not my main lang. hard to tell uh? >.<)

What I mean was this:



Mainly the left hand in this case. Asap the previous part (in image one ends) this starts and I was wondering about left hand mostly because the b-d#-f# chord (In my country we use Do, re mi, fa, sol, la si.) is kinda awkward for the left hand thus why I was swondering if my fingering was correct.  As you can see I am coming off a octave B.

Again I will go in details about your post tomorrow when I can practice without disturbing ^.^

Thanks a lot in advance you have been most helpful