Piano Forum

Hi,

I'm quite new to this forum so let me shortly introduce myself.
I am 47 yrs old and an amateur player since the age of 9. I had several interruptions in these past nearly 40 years and a long time where I just played along and singing some contemporary songs, mainly from Elton John. Before I used to play Ragtime a lot and ended up with the Maple Leaf Rag at the age of 16. A year ago I started playing classic piano music again, difficult to say at which level I am and frankly speaking, I don't really care as I just enjoy playing piano and as I love the challenge.

I'm practicing around 90 minutes a day and made it to a small repertoire of Chopin Nocturnes and Waltzes.

I'm currently practicing op 55 no 1, op 9 no 2, op 64 no 2, op 34 no 1. Absolutely no problems with the long jumps even the ones on op 34 no 1 (of course playing at a lower speed as I am not right there with my technical skills). But many-many problems with short and medium jumps, especially when paired with "two-finger-chords" as they often appear in Chopin's Waltzes. "Oversteering", lack of precision, even memorizing them seems to be a problem. It's kind of frustrating.

I used to practice long jumps a lot, especially during my "Rag times": Lift up and move as fast as possible, then drop at the right time and place, separate the movements between forearm and shoulder to notice which parts of the body participates, then join the movements together, etc. I tried to apply the same practicing technique to the short and medium jumps but it doesn't seem to work so well.

I would really appreciate any hint on how to practice short and medium jumps. It's kind of weird to me, being able to play parts at an obviously higher technical level but at the same time failing at things that should be easier to play.

Thank you a lot in advance
Arno