Performance Strategies: Liszt's Paganini Etude #3: La Campanella

[piano1mn]

I'm learning this right now. Got any tips?   :oPeople who want to learn this: LEARN FROM THE EXPERIENCED! Thanks!
I have difficulty mainly only on 2:50-3:03(YouTube video timing).
THANKS AGAIN!

[caryljamesthompson]

I too, would like to hear tips from the experienced on this piece...Just started looking at this piece after watching Kissin perform it.

[danhuyle]

Simple.

Learn from a piano teacher who has MASTERED the piece and there you have it.

[pianoman53]

Simple.

Learn from a piano teacher who has MASTERED the piece and there you have it.

Duuuude! Come on, it's really not that easy.... Think just a bit further, eh? According to your advice, one has to either find a teacher who has mastered every piece you want to play, or have a kazillion teacher.

In short:

1. Find out exactly what the problem is (is it that it's fast, is it that it's uncomfortable... etc.)
2. Find out how that can be fixed (more fingers, less fingers... etc.)
3. Practice.

obviously this is not very complete, but it's generally how I do it, and it works very well for me.

[piano1mn]

That would not be helpful. Competition.

[danhuyle]

What difficulty are you experiencing with the part at 2:50-3:03 from that specific video?

It could be something like
you feel a strain in the arm as you play it.
you have trouble projecting the melody
your right hand isn't long enough to do fingering 1343

I've played this myself so... yeah. I can answer most questions in regards to this particular piece.

Even if you had a teacher with flawless technique, they CANNOT do the work for you.

[pianist1976]

I have difficulty mainly only on 2:50-3:03(YouTube video timing).

That passage is quite difficult because it's too much easy to accumulate tension. So IMHO the way to overcome is by releasing the tension and trying not to put more strain than what it is needed. My approach (others may vary) is doing a wrist and arm rotation releasing the tension of the thumb immediately after it has played. You may also seek for the fingering that fits best to the form of your hand. For instance, I use for some figures 1353 and alternate with 1343 and 1454. If even with these techniques it still causes strain, you may consider getting some notes with the left hand on some bars. This will give you a few worthy seconds to help you to recover from the strain and finish the piece.

Almost forgot it: slow motion practicing being focused on everything that is happening (sound, movements, physical sensations...) is indispensable on this kind of passages.

[piano1mn]

I do what pianist1976 says, but it is still difficult, because of the fingering and my right hand is not long enough., and the rhythm does not satisfy me when I do 1454 or 1343 on b above b above c# above b.
Maybe I'll not try to connect the 1 to the 4 or 3. That might help...
I did it for 15 seconds not slowly. I'll practice slowly later and post how it went.

[danhuyle]

I've used fingers 1343 and I stay with it. If you're straining your arm, you're not using the right technique. You change pedal on beat 1 and 4 so ummmm...yeah

I'm wondering - what fingering did you do to get the trill passage (the passage before this part you're having trouble with). I used fingers 4&5, that's too slow. I like 3&5, much better.

How about look at someone doing it LIVE like a great pianist?

[piano1mn]

For the trill I do 12121212 at first when there are no octaves, but when the octaves come, I o 4545454545454
  over
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

   . But thanks anyway! I'll try what you told me!

[piano1mn]

I'll write about my hand. It can stretch from 1-5 from f#-g#. over an octave. Any suggestions now?

[danhuyle]

Yes, that's the same size as my right hand.

Buckle down on fingers 1343, and if you're feeling the strain, you're using the wrong technique.
This fingering is by far THE fastest. If you can apply the correct technique at a slow tempo with a good interpretation of the melody, then that's when you start increasing the speed.

With the trill passage, have a go at fingers 35353535, over 454545454545, with the octaves. finger 35 is my preference, but if you like 45, then that's fine too.

Even Yundi Li uses this fingering.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

That's gonna take some time.

What I do is use my arm as much as possible so your fingers don't get tired.

It's kinda hard to explain, but you can roll the 454 kinda

[piano1mn]

You mean what people do in Czerny?

[piano1mn]

This topic is for all areas of the La Campanella!

[piano1mn]

Oh. SO no one wants to learn it.

[ajspiano]

Wait hold on..

You post a question about la campanella stating you have difficulties with it..

THEN

2 days later, you post a thread asking for repertoire suggestions for an "advanced" pianist where you say you CAN play la campanella. In which you argue that you are advanced based on this repertoire, that you admit here you CAN'T play.

Can you play any of the other repertoire you named in that thread.. ?

 

[piano1mn]

Yes, AJ. I'm sure that is your rapping name.   Yes, I can play it, I just have a bit of diffuculty while playing on the place I mentioned. Thank you. m 87-93.

[ajspiano]

Yes, AJ. I'm sure that is your rapping name.   Yes, I can play it, I just have a bit of diffuculty while playing on the place I mentioned. Thank you. m 87-93.

AJ is my initials. My rapping name is "liszta brahymes".

And for the record, if you can essentially play a work, but you still have difficulty in places it doesn't count so well towards repertoire that accurately represents your technical level. You can't truly develop a musical interpretation of a work that contains technical problems for you. I did not mean to insinuate you could not play any of the notes in la campanella.

[pianoman53]

And for the record, if you can essentially play a work, but you still have difficulty in places it doesn't count so well towards repertoire that accurately represents your technical level. You can't truly develop a musical interpretation of a work that contains technical problems for you. I did not mean to insinuate you could not play any of the notes in la campanella.

Well, that's a bit...
There can always be places where the performer feels "Crap, I hope I have a good day today, so that this part works well".
If one is a concert pianist, those spots are hopefully fewer. But as a student, you can't play everything perfect, and have complete control of everything. It would either take too much time, or your pieces would be too easy. A bachelor is only 4 years, and to nail every single piece to Zimerman-perfection, the students would have maybe 4 pieces, in total.

There are also tons of pieces where you just wont get it perfect the first time you play it. None of the Chopin studies I've played have been very good in the first attempt, but then very good the second.

And why should something have to be technically perfect before one can "Truly develop a musical interpretation"? For me, it doesn't make any sense...

[ajspiano]

Well obviously its not so black and white as my post suggests, but technique is what is used to facilitate a musical execution, if a passage is not comfortable its musical potential is limited.

I am also somewhat dubious about the posters idea of "i can play it" comparitively to my own. Atleast so far as goes a "what should i learn next type question" - He asserts himself as being somewhat advanced in a way that we have seen so many others do only to discover that it just wasnt so. Wasn't it you that asked him to provide a video in the other thread?

I query it because in the other thread other repertoire was mentioned with no real mention as to whether they have similarly challenging parts, and we have no real idea about the quality of his interpretive abilities to better suggest an appropriate work for study.

[piano1mn]

If you want me to edit a early elementary piece and see if you can find out how to interpret it I would be quite unimpressed. And I can never play Chopin's Studies very good at only 2nd try (except for his easiest one)