Playing pieces in an easier key

[tinyhands]

I have recently been trying to play simplier pieces that I played years ago but working in really bringing out a beautiful tone and really trying to polish them to a high standard. All is going well and I feel I am understanding and approaching pieces completely differently than I did nearly 30 odd years ago when I first learned them ( I am an adult returner with an over 20 year break) I have a question and wondered what people’s thoughts were on playing well known pieces that have been transposed for a simplier key. Two pieces I have easier versions of  ( as well as the original ) are Beethoven Pathetique 2nd Mov ( transposed to g major) and Chopin Chopin l’Adieu ( transposed to f major) obviously I am aware these lose something in the tone when transposed and reduced notes but my question is do you think it is worth my while learning these pieces to really work on my dynamics phrasing touch etc or should I wait a while to tackle the original version ( for the record I am about ABRSM early grade 7) so could be looking at these pieces in the not too distant future anyway. Do you you think if I learned transposed versions it would then confuse me if I went in to play the original versions.?

[nastassja]

Hi! If you are ABRSM grade 7, you should be (or soon be) able to play these pieces in the original key. I think you would benefit from learning them in the right key at first. It will probably require more efforts in the beginning, but it will also make learning easier in the long run, no matter the key.

Otherwise, you could spend many years trying to play everything in C major or minor, but usually the transcriptions in an "easier key" also include modifications (simplified chords) which, in my opinion, do not sound great (as for temperament, our modern pianos are different from Beethoven's anyway, so no matter the key we play in, I don't think the effect would be the same). Changing keys also means changing fingerings, so you would have to do twice the work if you decide to play the piece in the original key someday. Another thing is that some keys look quite ugly on paper, yet they fit in the hands better than we would expect.

To sum it up... if you had no previous piano experience and it would be the only way you could play these pieces, I would say go for the transcription, but otherwise, I don't think there is a point.

[ted]

Although my example is hardly typical, I have had cause to thank my teachers for pushing me into a state where one key is as good as another, physically and musically. The piano is, in its nature, cyclically symmetrical with respect to twelve positions, and any attempt to make some of them more important than others has to be a creative handicap in the long run. In any case, the difficulties are exaggerated, just improvise through all positions as a regular discipline until the whole thing falls into place naturally.

[keypeg]

A thought about "easier keys". Pianistically, keys with more black notes might be easier to play.  What I'm thinking you might want to look at, as a returner, are holes in your original training in regard to the key signatures themselves.  Often these are neglected, or presented as theory in a complicated seeming way so that they seem daunting and hard.  A whole new world might open up to you! (Writing from experience, btw.)

[tinyhands]

Thank you all for taking time to reply. I suppose as a returner with such a long break I was probably thinking of the ‘don’t run before I can walk’ principle, and was thinking I should simplify things so I can really brush up on technique. I suppose I sort of thought that pieces that weren’t as complex would give me time to focus on technique issues I may have lost over the years from not playing. What I find interesting is that I revisited a Satie piece  that I must have played over 30 years ago and today I looked at it with much more ‘mature eyes’  I don’t remember ever understanding or ‘hearing’ the piece or actually thinking about how I wanted it to sound when I was a young person, but that’s the wisdom of getting older I suppose.  Another interesting thing to me is I am loving relearning the Bach 2 part inventions..I HATED these as a child....now I love them ! I now hear so much in them and love the voices weaving in and out...years ago I thought  they were dry and boring. yes maybe you are right ...with a bit of hard work again , I should be able to play some lovely pieces in the original keys, and it’s good to challenge myself. Plus in the meantime there are some lovely pieces to explore about grade 5 and 6 standard anyway. Funny how as a child it all seemed much easier! 

[timothy42b]

As keypeg and ted said, I think there is an advantage in being comfortable in all keys. 

You could pick the key signature that gives you the most trouble, and spend time on pieces in that key until it becomes your easiest, then move on to the next.

Or you could use chance to decide every day.  Roll a die (singular of dice, nothing to do with mortality.)  That will give you a number from 1 to 12.  (When you roll a die, there is a number on top, and a number facing you.  If the number facing is odd, use the number on top.  If it is even, add 6.) Number your keys from 1 - 12. 

Occasionally someone at church has to fill in playing hymns for some service.  And often she asks me to transpose them to a different key.  Sometimes the key they're in seems easier to me!  But she learned them many decades ago, and whatever key they were in then has stuck. 

[keypeg]

What I learned, through a pretty good teacher whom I was lucky enough to connect with by pure chance, is to rethink how I perceived key signatures, and how I approached and saw many things.  I had first studied keys as music theory, and had this "stuff" memorized which I had to "recall" in a little chant, like "F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, find those black keys, program my brain into them, and then start to play while hearing a B major scale in my head.  Things of that nature.

I've been learning different approaches and mixing & matching things.  For example, these three major keys all have the same thing in common: B, Db (or C#), Gb (or F#) major.  They use all 5 black keys plus two whites  - always one of the whites that touch each other (B,C and E,F possibly with their enharmonic spellings - C# major will have a B#, which is still the same white key as the C of Db major).  Typically your thumbs will always go on the white keys, so in those two places, and the thumbs of both hands will do this at the same time.  You can also create a visual "map" by mashing down all the keys that will be played for that key signature. .......... In contrast, for a C major scale you could cross your thumb at any wrong point because there are no black keys making it a Captain Obvious of choices, as with those three.

Thus, the "scary looking keys with those many sharps or flats" actually become the easiest, if you view it way different.

Chords is another.  In major triads you have your whites (C, G, F), Oreos (bl wh bl) Db, Eb, Ab, Reverse Oreos (D, E, A), one all-black (F# = Gb) and "two odds" (B and Bb which reverse bl wh wh or wh bl bl).  From there you can get minors by toggling the middle note (move one to the left), augmented by shifting either the top or bottom note from major, or dim7 by lowering a note from the minor and adding another m3.  This gives you another perspective.

Finally; I learned to play the diatonic seven chords of all 12 major keys (so I(maj7), iim7, iiim7, IV(maj7), V7, vi7, vii "half dim"  (I hope I haven't misnamed any), but NOT through any learned theory, memorizing anything, or anything that is intellectual.  Instead it was by having this map of black and white keys in my mind's eye, and simply skipping over every 2nd note like a game of hopscotch.  I had, at one time, done all this as music theory, intellectually.  It was hard work.  This was literally child's play.   Later I did the same along a common sequence going along these degrees: 1, 3, 6, 2, 5, 1 (then added 4, 1 to cover all chords).  This made the major keys more solid.

I had never thought of seeing keys (as in major/minor) this way, from that angle.

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With minor you have the problem of choice of scales: harmonic, melodic, etc.  Either you go the "relative minor" route -- from C major to Am and start "raising" degrees 6 & 7 (the 6th and 7th note in your map); or you start with the major, lower the 3rd (giving you what we learn as "ascending melodic minor") and then lowering 6&7.  This can also be a very physical-visual thing, rather than always going at it intellectually.  We sort of want to merge the intellectual and the written theoretical.  We don't want to always be "racking our brains to remember" memorized stuff.

Anyway, that's the change I've been going through for some time. That and other things.

[j_tour]

You know, it's not such a crazy idea.

I don't bother to transpose through-composed music, but there's a pretty well known idea in jazz to spend...however long it takes (maybe months, even), just playing everything in one key.

So, Db, do all your "tricks" and your passage work and your harmonies in that key.  Then rinse and repeat.

I find it challenging, more from a mental point of view, to get a better look at each key from the perspective of the keyboard.

Yes, I struggle with putting stuff that was obviously created in Eb into E, but somehow I think that's part of the game.