Trouble playing right and left hand in sync in Bach’s Prelude in C Minor

[whocloud]

Hello everyone! I’ve been working on Bach’s Prelude in C Minor since the end of last month, and can play the right hand part at a fast speed. However, my left hand lags behind & struggles to catch up in sync sometimes, and many times my left forearm feels tense and stiff when I’m playing. I’m wondering if:

1) if there are any strategies to play both parts fast
2) how to prevent my left arm from getting tense

What I’ve tried so far is using a metronome, but whenever I try to pick up the speed, my hands always fall out of speed. Thank you for your time!

[lelle]

I can only give generalized advice since I can't see you play and don't know the specifics of what you know and don't know when it comes to technique.

First of all, the fact that your left hand lags behind and struggles to sync with the right hand is likely caused by it being tense and stiff. The basics of playing fast with ease is that your hands and arms need to be relaxed, supple and efficient when you play. You'll also need to practise at whatever tempo you can play them exactly in sync and be patient until you've gained more relaxation and control and can do it faster. If your right hand part is easier to play and doesn't feel tense and stiff you're therefore more likely to be more relaxed in your right hand/arm than your left.

The frustratingly simple but not always easy to implement answer to the question "how do I prevent my arm from getting tense" is don't do whatever you are doing to tense it. Get to know how your arm feels when it's relaxed, let your hand and arm feel the same when you place it on the piano. Catch yourself whenever you do something that makes it feel more tense, and try again, until you can preserve the feeling of being very relaxed even as you play stuff. You'll need to start out with slow practise and small fragments, and be patient. Finding a teacher who can help you in person is probably the best option.

[doctonewheel]

So I just learned this piece (I am working on the Fugue now) and I had a similar issue for a while. My teacher helped me by making me do 2 things. Play is very slowly to ensure the 2 hands are together and use a metronome. She made sure that I did not increase the speed until I could do it perfectly at the starting bpm. If she noticed that things were getting a little sloppy, we reduced the speed. Since this is one of the few pieces by Bach with a suggested timing for one section (prestissimo at the end), I checked and many people play this at varying rates (https://bachwelltemperedclavier.org/pf-c-minor.html). The important thing is to have enough of a difference in tempo between the beginning and the prestissimo section. If you start too fast, there is no where to go to create the difference in tempo.

[lelle]

So I just learned this piece (I am working on the Fugue now) and I had a similar issue for a while. My teacher helped me by making me do 2 things. Play is very slowly to ensure the 2 hands are together and use a metronome. She made sure that I did not increase the speed until I could do it perfectly at the starting bpm. If she noticed that things were getting a little sloppy, we reduced the speed. Since this is one of the few pieces by Bach with a suggested timing for one section (prestissimo at the end), I checked and many people play this at varying rates (https://bachwelltemperedclavier.org/pf-c-minor.html). The important thing is to have enough of a difference in tempo between the beginning and the prestissimo section. If you start too fast, there is no where to go to create the difference in tempo.

Good advice. Sometimes we don't care to practise playing what we play perfectly and then, somehow, get surprised when we can't play it perfectly later. Like, hello?  (I'm guilty of this as well)