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Topic: how to play octaves with less tension - Rachmaninoff prelude in G minor  (Read 5725 times)

Offline colour

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I'm just beginning the wonderful adventure of Rachmaninoff's prelude in G minor.

By way of background - I stopped playing for 25 years, took it up again over the summer and took my Grade 8 before Christmas. I feel that musically I have come on hugely since I gave up as a teen.
However, technical aspects have likely suffered from so long a gap.

I have small hands, but so does my teacher who assures me this shouldn't make a difference when tackling large pieces.

I'd love some pointers on how to keep a relaxed wrist and forearm while tackling this very involved piece. By the middle of section A I am already feeling stress in my left arm and wrist. I clearly need to address this.....any advice much appreciated.

Offline cabbynum

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Hi there, isn't rachmaninoff fun?

Those octaves are really fun. To help with octaves with less tension a good thing to do in the begining is play the passage slowly and lift the hand into the air after we're and completely relax everything immediately after releasing the keys. Do this a lot. Octaves are a lot of fun for me so my warm up always includes all scales in octaves and then arpeggios and then some other fun stuff.

I suggest doing scales in octaves with the same approach I mentioned. Make sure your shoulders are relaxed, I used to wear mine as ear rings if I played really fast octav passages for a long time.

So lift the hand and immediately release the tension.
Then do that same exercise a bit faster.
Then a bit faster
And when you speed up don't lift your hand quite as high.

On that passage I hate that it wasn't written both hands doing octaves so I cheat and make the other one an octave as well. If you have anymore questions shoot me a Pm, I'm full of octave exercises.
Just here to lurk and cringe at my old posts now.

Offline nyiregyhazi

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I'm just beginning the wonderful adventure of Rachmaninoff's prelude in G minor.

By way of background - I stopped playing for 25 years, took it up again over the summer and took my Grade 8 before Christmas. I feel that musically I have come on hugely since I gave up as a teen.
However, technical aspects have likely suffered from so long a gap.

I have small hands, but so does my teacher who assures me this shouldn't make a difference when tackling large pieces.

I'd love some pointers on how to keep a relaxed wrist and forearm while tackling this very involved piece. By the middle of section A I am already feeling stress in my left arm and wrist. I clearly need to address this.....any advice much appreciated.


https://pianoscience.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/introduction-to-three-core-posts-on.html

See the middle of the above post. Virtually everyone makes the same mistake and thinks about the wrist itself- without considering interrelated issues elsewhere in the mechanism. There are two essential elements to a free wrist- rolling a touch forwards and over the top (so the wrist is not actively getting moved down, demanding tension to stop it collapsing) and a sense of expansion in the hand. Whatever you might try, nothing can compensate for the absence of these actions other than generic tensions in the forearm and wrist. The post explains in more detail exactly why these are essential elements and how to involve them.

Offline gvans

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Offline colour

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Many thanks for your replies.
Am working through the advice. Also the long article.

many thanks again,
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