Evenness

[MarkAllison]

Hi,

One thing that I cannot seem to work out how to cure is my uneven scales and scale passages in pieces. When playing the RH of Mozart's Sonata No.16 K545 bars 5-10 I cannot seem to be able to play the scale passages evenly.

Is there a cure for this? I have a similar problem when playing scales at speed, but doesn't seem to be so much of a problem when scales are played slowly, but occasionally pops up when playing slowly too.

Thanks,
Mark.

[jacobspauly]

I would recommend playing scales and your scale passages as slow as it takes with a metronome and then gradually bring up the tempo, one click at a time. If you go slow enough, there should be a tempo where your notes are even so just start wherever that is. It might take some time, but you should eventually get them up to speed.

Hope this helps,
Paul

[richard w]

I think every aspiring pianist must have had this problem at one stage or another. I suppose the first step is to try to analyse what is causing the unevenness.

Is it at the points where you pass the thumb under the fingers (ascending), or the fingers over the thumb (descending)? If so, work on making that movement slick.

If your unevenness cannot be specifically connected to these hand movements it may well be that you have tension in your thumb causing your fingers to play unevenly. Hold your thumb below the second knuckle - basically that is the side of your hand. Relax your hand and move the thumb from side to side. Now tense your hand and feel the difference. When you play fast passages there is a tendency for this part of your hand to become tense, so keep it as loose as you can under play, and as soon as it begins to tense up again, stop and try again. Start slowly, where it should be easy to have a completely relaxed hand, and gradually build up the speed.

Check these two points first, but when you have eliminated any unwanted tension in your hand you might find that practising passages such as this in different rhythms will help to improve evenness. Try playing it using a dotted rhythm, then reverse the dotted rhythm, so the dots kind of move along one note. You can try just about any rhythm that will fit the passage, or any combination of rhythms. Focus on getting the rhythm exactly right. Again gradually increase speed. I ascribe this method to me mastering Schubert's E flat Impromptu when I was more of a beginner.


Good luck.



Richard.




PS Wow! 25 posts - I've become a junior member.

[jlh]

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,4648.msg44842.html#msg44842

[Brian Healey]

Sometimes when the fourth or fifth finger is weak, the other fingers will overcompensate, or the weak finger will "try too hard". That is, if your fourth finger is weak, it may have a tendency to strike early because it's trying too hard to match the sound of the other fingers. Usually the fourth finger is the culprit here. Maybe practice just dropping your fourth finger by itself on a key over and over again.

Also, doing a five-finger drop exercise goes nicely with working on scales. Put your hands on the keyboard, really on any notes you want, then concentrate on dropping each finger effortlessly on the keys. The keyword is effortlessly. Pretend that someone tied a string on each finger and is lifting it up, without any effort from you. Then that person cuts the string and the finger drops through the key using it's own weight, with absolutely no effort on your part. This is a great exercise, I still do this all the time. Go 1-2-3-4-5 and back on one hand and do the other. Speed is of no concern with this exercise, just concentrate on the effortlessness of each finger drop. I think doing this exercise consistantly will help your eveness, along with both your tone and overall muscle relaxtion while playing.

[galonia]

The rhythm practice helps, so does practising staccato.

For the weaker 4th and 5th fingers, I relax my arm and let the weight fall more into the keys to compensate - never use force because that causes tension in the arms.  Gravity is your friend!

[Rockitman]

I'll bet your uneveness is at the points where the thumb crosses under.  Yes?
I too experience this problem with RH ascending scales.  I never knew about Thumb Over until I came on this forum.  Essentially, Thumb Over is the prescribed technique for fast scales.   I still don't quite understand how to achieve Thumb Over,  too me it seems basically like a jump,  but from what I've been told, this is the key to playing fast scales evenly.   There are threads on Thumb Over (TO), but I've yet to learn it.  I guess what would help the most is to actually see somebody do it. 

[claudio]

hi mark,

i face similar problems like you when playing that piece. i am also learning it just
now. however, i do not have problems when my thumb crosses under but with
clearly articulating fingers 3,4,5. i don't seem able to control them so everything
gets totally blured and i even miss some notes. my guess is that i try to play them
to fast. maybe you should set the total speed of you playing to a metronom level
that allows you a comfortable and even playing of these 6 bars.

[MatthewClarke]

Hello,
 
Evenness is a rhythmic thing, you must use your EAR and your MIND, and let your mind tell each finger WHEN to make a tone.
A tone is a down action, this is the only time you make sound at the piano, so if you feel the resistance of the key before playing the key down, then your mind will want to hear a certain volume note and using the sense of resistance you can accurately play the tone your ear wants to hear, but then we have WHEN to play the tone, and that is all under rhythm and EVENNESS and is totally to do with the coordination between your ear and mind and finger, you just have to say WHEN you want to hear the note and tell your finger to do so. (grin) Then when you want to come off the note you simply locate your arm weight to the next note, and the key will lift your finger up for you, you don't have to lift it.
 
This is what I do and I have no problem with evenness.
Bye for now.
...from Matt.