Left Hand Accompaniment technique

[pianosarah]

Hi all,

I am looking for some advice on technique.

I am currently practising Field Nocturne No. 1 in E flat major and having problems with the balance of tone between the left hand and right hand. Specifically, I have am the following problems and wondered if you had any good practising tips:

- Quite a few of the shapes in the left hand begin with a jump of around a 10th. Because the left hand is quite fast (not hugely fast, but some nice flow behind it) I am finding that I play the first note a bit 'bangy' or sometimes not at all when trying to reach it in time. At the moment, it  I have practised this in a few ways, but when I start to play up to speed the banging or missing starts to creep back in. In general the left hand doesn't have an even rhythm behind it - with the bass note taking longer to play.

- Has anyone found any good articles / videos or got any good tips for pedalling. I have never been properly taught how to use the sustain pedal, and understand the basics of a quick up-down etc, but am finding that it would be nice to go back to basics with it. Also some of the bars say to just hold the pedal down the whole bar, but halfway through the bar there is a turn in the right hand that just becomes muddy if the pedal is held fully down, so I tend to lift it halfway during the turn. Is that a good technique?

- With the balancing, I can make the right hand have a singing melody that sings out over the left hand, but when I start to play up to speed, the left hand becomes louder, and I have to make the right hand melody louder to compensate. Then I end up playing at more of a mf volume. Has anyone got any good tips for this.

Thanks so much in advance!
Sarah

[outin]

I'm not a teacher but I have been learning another Field Nocturne nr. 5 B flat and have had quite similar issues. What has worked for me is a lot of practice of the left hand alone so that it becomes automatic and doing this slowly enough. Stressing over the jumps often causes me to bang on the notes.

Pedalling I do by ear, the markings on my score don't always sound good or are incomplete. If you prefer the sound with half pedalling, then why not.

I also had the same problem with getting the right hand melody right, especially since my piano is really loud on the bass. My teacher always says play according to the piano and conditions, p doesn't have to be quiet, it's all relative. Besides Field was playing on a fortepiano, different from the modern ones.