Questions on Easy Schumann

[asyncopated]

Hi, 

Essentially I have a question about playing bits of Kinderszenen.  However, I'll furnish you with a little background first so that any advice rendered will be pertinent.   Essentially, I'm a late starter -- 28 this year and started with the piano last july (9 months ago).  I've played the keyboard (yamaha) for 5 years when younger, but the feel is completely different and played the guitar (classical) since I was 13.  I also sing -- Lieder and choral pieces ( bach, rachmaninov etc.) and don't have problems with note reading.

I've gotten myself a good teacher, but don't get all my questions answered during lessons because I forget to ask, or due to the lack of time.  Besides, it's interesting to hear different of opinions. 

Right now I'm on to learning three or four pieces from Kinderzsenen (I requested for romatic repetoir).   

I'm working on Ritter vom Steckenpferd (Kinght of the Hobby Horse), Vom fremdem Landern und Menschen ( About foreign lands and foreign people) and Traumerei (Dreamings),  and am enjoying them tremendously. However, I'm also starting to encounter problems, that don't seem to appear with baroque repetoir that I played previously (Bach's inventions and Haydn sonatas).

The way which I learnt Ritter vom Stechkenpferd (on my teacher’s advice) was to break it down into bits and practice each of the technical parts separately, finally putting it all together. I do find this technique extremely effective and can now play the piece fluidly at a reasonable (pretty fast) tempo.  However,  when playing the piece repeatedly, my right hand seems to tense up and starts hurting after a while and my left hand gets involuntarily more and more sloppy.  I obviously have the wrong technique with this piece.   I know should learn to relax more and was reading about using gravity, instead of pressing down on the keys, but i don't really understand how to go about making sure that my technique gets corrected as soon as possible. 

I've also notice, after hearing a good recording (Clifford Curzon) that apart from the other bits of fantastic technique to do with voicing, his manages to get a crystal clear right hand going.  I've tried to achieve a clearer tone and found that one way that works is to "claw in" when playing.  However, I can't do that very quickly and am not sure it is the correct finger action.   Any suggestions? 
 
As for Vom fremdem Landern und Menschen, I've managed to also play this piece smoothly but am trying to refine the sound that I'm producing.  One thing I'm trying is to obey a the rest in middle of each bar on the base voice in the first three phrases by flutter pedaling (shallow, quick pedaling).  This is so that the first and last sections sound unpretentious, in contrast to the mid section which shines when I carry the sustenuto through.  It's fine when I play at a slow speed, but the pedaling gets smeared out when i increase the speed.  Also, I tend to make an awful noise when I release the pedal which is kind of irritating. 

Lastly, I've started learning Traumerei, and seem to have problems with hand positions.  I've been working (non very consistently) on the piece for three weeks now, and the hand positions don't even seem to be intuitive yet.  Perhaps it's because I am playing the piece slowly playing attention to touch and voice rather than notes, and my mind get put into sight reading mode everytime I play.   Somehow my muscle memory (wrong word, familiarity with hand positions is more correct) is not developing as quickly as for other pieces that I've learnt so far.  Do you know any reasons why this may be the case, and how to overcome this.

I'm not sure if all my questions and comments make sense to you but thank you for any help given !

al.

[asyncopated]

oops

[rafant]

A former teacher of mine used to say that piano teachers in general run away from Schumann's music, I guess due to its complexity. Kinderszenen doesn't seems exactly so easy music as its title would suggest.

Let me congratulate you for learning simultaneously 3 pieces from the same work. I can't imagine myself doing the same. But I wouldn't advise to rely too much on muscle memory, maybe the easy way, but it's treacherous.

[asyncopated]

Hi Rafant,

Thanks! After having played a couple of his piece, perhaps I can see why your former piano teacher shuns his music.  Here are a list of reasons, why not to teach Schumann -- perhaps not album for the young, but kinderszenen and his more complicated works.

1. Music is emotionally complicated (require a certain level of maturity or in this case, requires you to through maturity out the window, which is hard to do).
2. Voices (usually unequal) weaving in and out.
3. Textural qualities usually require a keen ear.  Otherwise it everything sounds like 'Fur Elise' with the sustenuto perpeturally depressed.
4. Uncorfortable hand positions. (Bad technique starts to show!)
5. Requires a greater command of the space infront of you.
6. Uncomfortable jumps and high speeds (Need for accuracy).
7. Schumann went mad (not that he wasn't so throughout his life).

For the moment, I'll stop here but the list goes on...

However, here is why you should start with some schumann (particularly, something like kinderszenen)

1. The complexity and emotional requirements means that the music is much more subtle.  It tends to be very poignant and less in your face.  Many of the pieces in kinderszenen are introspective, and have a completely different quaility to baroque and classical era music, which is (arguably) more intellectual and structural.  It also means that (again arguably) there is more room for interpretation and expression.

 2.  It taught me a thing or two about picture music, and how to use voicing in a more sensitive way.  For example for knight on the hobby horse, you can distinctly hear the littie boy in the right hand and the rocking horse in the left!  (If you don't believe me try it out for yourself.  Maybe I'm going insane!)

3.  It trains your ear especially with the use of the pedal, which I have come to realise how deficient my skills are.

4. A  differnt playing techique and set of skills are required, although fundamentally, the hand action ought to be the same as with bach and haydn. This is where I realised that i need to rework my whole technique to be able to get further, and finally understand the need to play with the arm and aim to develop a good fluid (economical) action.  The reason is simple -- so that you are not hurting after play pieces a couple of times.


5.  You start to get an idea of how to use the space infront of you.

6. The music, although technically demanding, is short and comes in bite-sized chunks that you can work on.  I've never felt overwhelmed by the pieces.

7. If you are going mad as well.

In other words, i find that the music is very satisfying.  I think it is appropriate for students with maturity that know a reasonable amount about classical music and are at intermediate level.  As such, if you are interested and are willing to spend time working on some interesting technique, I recommand it! (perhaps against your teacher's wishes.)  However, having learnt the piece in the wrong way and am now trying to correct my technique -- be careful to pick up good habits along the way!

Somehow these pieces are more ameanable to experimentation.  The greenlight to tryout new things is given.  Can't really put my finger on why this is the case. Perhaps because it just has a less rigid structure and so you really need to try out things to find what works for you.  This is also perhaps why teachers are so hesitant to teach this piece.  That they are afriad that you find a "wrong" way of doing things.  Also it means that the student must be independent enough to learn the piece, otherwise, one might not succeed.

The advantage to learning these pieces is that I am starting to learn things in a completely different way.  I'm trying out Mozart's simplest sonata next (K545, all movements). I try not to learn things in a linear way any more.  I am convinced (finally) that it's better to break it down into technical chuncks, practice the relavent technique and slowly build the piece up layer by layer --  as suggested several times on this website.  Prior to learning kinderszen, although I was told to do this, I tend not to have the self discipline to stop half way and though a piece, and i end up learning pieces by reading through from start to end several hundered (?) times, and only isolated parts when I do encounter problems.  Nowadays,  I start with what my teacher tells me or what I think are the most technically demanding motifs, reducing them to exerciese and try to play just small chucks at speed.  In the case of mozart's sonata in C, the tempo is allegro, which is a difficult speed for playing appegios and scales evenly. 

It seem that it's more natural to use this "breaking down into elements and building layer by layer" method with pieces in kinderszenen, than with mozart, because of the "non-linear" nature of the pieces.   Although the method should be just as effective with mozart.  Until I was forced to do it and experienced it for myself, I never quite believed that it works (more effectively).

You are right about muscle memory.  I'll have to stay well away from that. 

Just some thoughts!   

al.




 

[asyncopated]

need to stop doing this

[rafant]

That's a complete summary of the qualities of Schumann's piano music. I find his music intellectually complex, harmonically rich, and emotionally poetic.
My first Schumann's pieces were Melody and First Sorrow, then Mignon and Träumerei. Next I plan to learn No. 2 of Kreisleriana and Arabesque.
Good luck!

[IanT]

Kinderszenen is an interesting collection.  I think that people often assume that it's music for kids (i.e. beginners), but it's really music about kids.  The music is much more complex interpretively than most people realize.  I've got a great video clip of a fairly old Cortot playing the last piece of the collection ('The Poet Speaks').  He appears a million miles away as he plays, plumbing depths that most of us don't even realize exist.  This performance transformed the way I look at the collection.

[wintervind]

Kinderszenen is an interesting collection.  I think that people often assume that it's music for kids (i.e. beginners), but it's really music about kids.  The music is much more complex interpretively than most people realize.  I've got a great video clip of a fairly old Cortot playing the last piece of the collection ('The Poet Speaks').  He appears a million miles away as he plays, plumbing depths that most of us don't even realize exist.  This performance transformed the way I look at the collection.

Agreed. But I would say that they are, to me I suppose, a reflection of childhood through the eyes of an adult.
I also have seen that Cortot short (was that in Art of the piano?) I absolutely changed the way I perform these pieces.

[asyncopated]

Hi Ian,

Would love to have a look at that video!  Could you please provide a reference so that I can dig it out?

Thanks,

al.

[IanT]

Al,

Here's a link:

<https://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004UF01/qid=1110905156/sr=8-4/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i4_xgl15/701-0583628-7900362>

This is a link to amazon.ca but it should give you the information you need to find the DVD or VHS locally.

Ian.