czerney op299

[drazh]

I started the first lesson of czerney op 299. Is that speed (less than 8 note per second) possible to be achieved? I mean for students

[beethovensonata]

It is quite difficult to achieve that speed.  My teach and I did do them a little slower, but gradually I brought them up to full speed.  My advice, practice them SLOWLY a lot, challenge yourself by dropping certain notes but keep the rhythm, so if you skip two sixteenth notes, then wait an eighth note and continue, see what i mean?  Speeding through these with lots of mistakes TOTALLY ruins the point of these exercises.  They are meant to teach you speed and dexterity, so playing them perfectly and just slightly under tempo is better.  If you are unable to come close to full speed, do Czerny Op 740 "Art of finger dexterity" they are slower and not as hard, and in my opinion are better than Op 299.

[drazh]

great help thank you

[faulty_damper]

You're referring to Op.299 No.1, the study in scales?  If so, the technique of playing scales is not obvious to anyone.  Ignore the study for a moment and focus only on the movements that must be used to achieve speed and connection.

I'll just quote Bernhard and you're going to have to read carefully.

Smooth, pearly, flowing, fast scales (with slow scales you can get away with murder) depend on the co-ordination of four basic movements:

1.   Lateral shift of the hand/forearm
2.   Rotation of the hand.
3.   Slanting the hand in relation to the keyboard.
4.   Backwards and forwards movement of the arm

Brian is right. This is going to take a while, so brace yourself. Also there is no guarantee that you will understand or be able to follow any of this from a written account. This needs demonstration and hands on instruction. It is really easy to do the wrong thing and be convinced that you are doing the right thing.

Before I proceed keep in mind that

a.   Just because your teacher can do it, does not mean that s/he actually understand what s/he is doing. So pay no attention to what s/he says to you. Instead watch like a hawk what s/he does. Egghead is right: ask him/her to do it in slow motion (and observe if her verbal description of what s/he is doing is what s/he is actually doing – if she tells you to bring your thumb under the hand, but she herself does not do it, then she does not really know how s/he does it – s/he is just repeating some traditional teaching).

b.   Have you noticed that in the four basic movements above I have not mentioned fingers, or even the thumb?

c.   Thumb over and thumb under are misnomers. They do not adequately describe what is going on – it is just an abbreviation that people in the know use to avoid lengthy descriptions. Don’t take them literally.

So, are you sitting comfortably?

1.   Lateral shift of the hand/forearm

Start by placing fingers 1-2-3 on C-D-E. Now play these three notes together as a chord. Next, shift your hand laterally to the right so that your fingers 1-2-3-4 are on top of F-G-A-B. Play these four notes as chord. The fingers do not move at all. The arm does all the work by positioning the appropriate fingers in the corresponding keys. Do that all over the keyboard to get a feel for it. Soon you should be able to displace your hand sideways with great precision and accuracy. This will also teach you the scale key pattern, that is, which keys (notes) belong to the scale and which do not. This visual pattern is very important, so use the practice of this movement for that secondary purpose as well.

Now, break the chords (C-D-E) and (F-G-A-B) by “rolling” your hand to the right. Again , you are not really pressing the fingers, but rotating the forearm and using this movement coupled with the arm weight to depress the keys.  Incidentally, you have just slowed down from infinite speed (what could faster than together) to ridiculously fast. However, although playing C-D-E and F-G-A-B fast is easy, moving from E to F and from B to A is another matter altogether. So, the speed of your scale playing will always be limited by how fast you can accurately shift your hand. from the C-D-E position to the F-G-A-B position.

As you can see, there is no thumb movement (under or over), The thumb stays quietly there and the arm repositions it.

The next step is to speed up the shift between E-F and B-C and slow down the fast C-D-E and F-G-A-B groups to the top speed you can manage the shift accurately. And this is one of the paradoxes of piano playing: in order to sound even you must move unevenly. Get used to it. It happens all the time.

So rather than practise the whole scale, it makes sense to practise only the difficult bit: the shift. So, put your 3rd finger on E and press the key. Now shift your hand and press the F with the thumb by using the arm to move the hand to its new position. This is not a jump, but a glide. Your hand should be so close to the keyboard as you move that it touches it lightly. Then do the same with the B-C shift. The temptation at this stage is to put the thumb on the F, the 3rd finger on the E and just switch between them. This is really practising thumb under. You don’t want to do that. Keep the thumb quiet in its normal position and move the arm/forearm/hand.

Now comes a very important step:  as you move from E (3rd finger) to F (thumb), when you press the F, fingers 2-3-4 should already be in place, on top of G-A-B. You want to avoid them landing in any random key, and then having to shift them around to find the G-A-B. Avoid this “finger reaching” by practising the accurate placement of these fingers as you shift from E to F and from B to C. I call this preparation, and without it no one can ever play fast and smoothly.

Now you have mastered the rolling of the hand (CDE and  FGAB) and the hand shifting (EF  and BC). So now start putting it together by playing CDE (123) and shifting the hand to F (1) but do not play GAB (234) yet, just prepare by placing the fingers on the keys accurately and without pressing them. Do the same for FGABC (12341), but do not proceed to DE (23), just prepare by placing the fingers on top of the keys.

Finally, just do the scale at top speed. If you have followed all the steps above and moved to the next only after you were satisfied that you have mastered the step you were in, you should now be playing the scale at unbelievable speeds, evenly and without fatigue – and with never passing the thumb under. (or over – although this handshift is sometimes what people call thumb over).

One problem with this movement is that there is an audible break in the sound when you shift the hand. To achieve a legato sound you either will have to use the pedal in the spots where the hand shifts, or you will need to play at a very fast speed so that by the time the damper returns to the string you have already sounded the next note.

Which is why at slow speeds, many resort to thumb under to achieve a legato sound.

However, this is just one basic movement. The only reason to practise it in isolation is to understand the movement. In real life you are not going to play like this (there is no need to limit oneself unnecessarily). In isolation, this movement requires a huge hand shift. What we need is to combine it with another movement that will allow a physical connection between the relevant keys. And this is our next movement: rotation

[To be continued...]

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,7226.msg72166.html

[drazh]

dear faulty
Do you believe in thumb over?

[faulty_damper]

dear faulty
Do you believe in thumb over?

It depends on what you mean by it.  It's a smooth transition, not a jerky one.  If it's jerky, that's wrong.  All the motions help to achieve a smooth transition from placement to placement.  It looks smooth as well.

[drazh]

thumb over is ok for higher speed 
but in lower tempo good legato is impossible unless with bizzarre hand and elbow movement

[faulty_damper]

Even at lower speed, it's not bizarre.  It looks fluid and easy.  Those same movements are the ones done at higher speed.

[drazh]

in lower speed there should be swinging movement of the elbow which looks bizzarre .
without that a legato is impossible with thumb over .

[faulty_damper]

That elbow swinging out doesn't look bizarre at all.  It's a natural movement.

[pianoman53]

Sudden movements like that are also a safe way to get strange accents, but I'm happy you like them!

[faulty_damper]

It's not a sudden movement. It's a prepared one.  There are no accents if the technique is right.

[drazh]

When played rapidly it  doesn't look natural I'm afraid.

[pianoman53]

Faulty, can you upload a video that shows what you mean? It looks very unnatural to me

[faulty_damper]

When played rapidly it  doesn't look natural I'm afraid.

When played rapidly, use thumb over.