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Piano Street Magazine:
“The Sound Always Comes First” — Andrea Bonatta on Teaching Liszt

Why tone matters more than speed, why reading Goethe matters as much as practising octaves, and how a single insight can transform a performance. Italian pianist and scholar Andrea Bonatta has spent decades exploring the contradictions of Franz Liszt, from performer to man of faith, virtuoso to poet. Here, in conversation with Piano Street at Liszt Utrecht 2026, he shares his vision. Read more

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Topic: tempo (Read 1610 times)

dongsang153

PS Silver Member
Newbie
Posts: 24

tempo

on: February 28, 2005, 10:18:12 PM

i am currently playing schubert's impromptu in eb. i have everything down perfectly at a slow tempo. it's time to start speeding up, and i was wondering what is the best way to do this? thanks!

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xvimbi

PS Silver Member
Sr. Member
Posts: 2439

Re: tempo

Reply #1 on: February 28, 2005, 10:53:48 PM

Play faster!

Seriously, if you did work out the fingering and all the motions correctly, simply speeding up should work. You will hit speed walls only if the technique changes with speed. For example, a legato scale fragment at slow speed will use the thumb-under technique (TU), whereas at high speed, you need to switch to "thumb-over" (i.e. lateral shift of the hand without TU). If you try to speed up with TU, you won't get anywhere.

This is why it is important to work things out initially at full speed (ideally at even faster speeds), then go back to SLOW-MOTION practice (not SLOW practice), where the fast techniques are carried out slowly without switching to slow techniques.