Any advice for 3 against 4 practice?

[Green_Tea]

Heh, playing the FI and I can't seem to master this 3 notes against 4 notes thing. My piano teacher suggested some ideas, but I thought I might want to look around for practicing ideas...  Help?

[pianomann1984]

If ur practicing slowly then you can subdivide - at which point it becomes a pretty groovy synchopation - loadsa fun!  At the speed of the FI though, I think you just need to feel minims/halfnotes untill it feels natural - simply trying to fit the notes in - it's always a bit of a scramble, but that's all part of the feeling of the piece (Though that doesnt mean it should ever feel out of control!).  I first had to confront this problem in Takemitsu's les yeux clos II (All pianists should study this piece - it's great!), but that's in an incredibly slow context.  Try simply tapping 3's in one hand and 4's in the other on your knees untill you notice any patterns.

[thierry13]

I would say : DON'T GET THE 3/4 feeling. NEVER do the hands together for practice. Do them separetly, and THEN when both hands are ok, just concentrate to get each RH time at the same time as the LH time. If you get time to time, with practice, you will get the flow and it will sound really good. I don't think you must hear the synchopation. I think it should flow. Just try this. That's how I got it to work. Don't worry for the whole phrase, just worry to get the first time even, and if you've REALLY mastered each hand separetly, you will get it quickly. Actually, this piece bothered me to the moment I tought like this. Since this moment I don't find it more tricky than any other chopin intermediate piece.

[vera]

I have devised an exercise for this as follows:
The hand, that plays the three notes plays a broken chord like ceg higher c and down gec. The other hand gfedcdefg. (the four) Aim to move the hands in contrary motion, when putting them together. But, with a metronome you do an zig/zag exercise first, each hand in turn their own pattern as described a couple of times, and going from the one hand to the other, continuously with the metronome. After the speed of each hand feels comfortable, you start to do the odd two to four beats together, the contrary motion helps as little fingers or thumbs will come together.
You revert to separate zig/zag playing as soon as things start to feel shaky. And then plunge into the together playing when feeling right again. All the time the metronome will support the ongoing beat, do not interrupt that beat, you have to keep playing.
Change the note patterns occasionally to avoid going crazy.
I find this works very well, also try something similar for fast two vs three. Although the rhythm behind that is easy, of course. If you practise the dotted rhythm behind 3/4 time, it slows you down too much, and in the end that does not help you to play it faster, and with fast 2/3 that does not help either. This kind of thing is easier learnt starting from an intermediate speed or even fairly fast. As you slow down it gets harder. Leave off the metronome as you gain security.
I hope this was clear enough, it is difficult to explain in words and without notescript.

[marialice]

My little excercise :
Practice away from the piano (I did a lot of this at school during boring lessons). Tap one rhythm with your right hand, then the other rhythm with your left hand (not together yet). Then do all the combinations (left hand 4 followed by left hand 3, LH 3 - LH 4, RH 4 - RH 3, RH 3 - RH 4, LH 4 - RH 4,  RH 4 - LH 4, LH 3 - RH 4, LH 4 - RH 3, RH 3 - LH 4, RH 4 - LH 3). Switch between these at semi-random intervals, but keep the beat steady. This shouldn't be too difficult. Then all there is left is to stop switching hands, but instead let a hand join while the other continues what it was doing.

[xvimbi]

Here is what I do/did to get these things mastered: I would say, ALWAYS do hands together (after all, this is the crux). Use 12th as the common denominator, i.e. for 3 vs. 4, every 3-beat gets four 12th notes, every 4-beat gets three 12th notes. Make a drawing with 12 strokes for each rhythm and mark all strokes where each hand plays, and mark those where both hands play at the same time. get a feeling for how far apart two consecutive notes between both hands are. Memorize this pattern visually, then aurally, that is, have your computer play the correct rhythm for you and listen carefully. Once you know how it should sound, it is surprisingly easy to reproduce. I found that these two things helped me the most. Start with 2 against 3, if you want. Like pianoman1984 said, it can feel pretty groovy. Once you are done with this, start tapping different rhythms with your feet. Good drummers can play four different rhythms at the same time.

[Derek]

Here is 3 against 4. Imagine a bar moving horizontally across these at a steady pace. Then assign one of these rows to one hand, and another row to the other hand. Tap this pattern out til you know the "order" your hands trade off at. Eventually you will be able to iron this out into smooth 3 against 4.

Of course, it isn't neccessary to be able to consciously produce cross rhythms and know where all the intersections and interactions are, but....like any external discipline, it can't hurt. When I learned Fantasy Impromptu, I learned with both hands together til I got a feel for it.

|       |       |       }         
|     |     |     |     }

the } are where the next beat starts, and each | is a beat. the top row is 3 beats and the bottom row is 4 beats (all in the same measure)

Whats really fun is to learn this way of playing 3 against 4 and playing the Fantasy Impromptu at a ridiculously slow pace and still get all the beats right.

Of course its very much up for debate whether such activity is really useful musically. I think its fun to take music apart into little bits and pieces like this...when I was little I enjoyed taking apart mechanical things. I wonder if that aptitude is manifesting itself in music now?

[pianomann1984]

Of course its very much up for debate whether such activity is really useful musically.

I think your method is sound, and, in fact is the very way I have set about figuring out many complex rhythms in various pieces - subdivision is the only way that you can garruntee that you are accurately reproducing rhythms correctly.  Also, I don't think the musical debate is truly relevent as this is a problem of a purely technical nature.  One might argue that the issue of rubato might further complicate things, but literrally, rubato is the taking and giving back of time in music, and not simply screwing around with the metre, so in order to address the musical issue, we must first have a really secure rhythmic sense.  Good post - I think you describe the methods admirably (certainly better than I did!)

[sonatainfsharp]

Think of the big beat (where the notes line up). Don't break it down mathmatically; it becomes too unmusical. Get the big beat down and "feel" the rest.

[Dazzer]

don't start with two hands

work with one hand, sing the other part. so say RH is playing 4, Lh is playing 3, play the LH in 3, but think/sing of the RH

I find it easier to think even numbers too. you'll find you can fit triplets in easier, rather than duplets.

also, i'd reccommend you start with 3 2 first, and not 3 4

[chopinisque]

I just realised that it sounds like... 1 23 1 23, with the 23 close to each other...

[robertp]

Here's my 3/4 cents  .

I've always found the mathematical approach the most helpful. And for a slightly unusual polyrhythm, working it out first where I'm not using the actual notes of the piece but something really simple, like scale notes.

If you happen to do a physical activity with a steady pace, I've found that can be very useful in making the beats physical and into your bones. I happen to run a fair amount, so I'll have my paces be, say, the rhythm of the 3 and hum the notes of the 4 (or if no one is around to think I'm a really crazy runner, I'll tap them on my side). I've found this works extremely well for me.

I've also found one thing to avoid. If you identify a polyrhythm bar or two as "hard" and practice the hell out of it until it's up to tempo -- if you've not kept up with the rest of the piece integration is really hard. I.e. you're practicing the music leading up to it at a slower tempo, then bang, you zip through the polyrhythm, then back to the slower tempo. It's a *real* bother to get the tempo integrated. Learn from my mistake! There's a MacDowell piece that still gives me problems because of this.

[sznitzeln]

When playing fast you just feel the "big beat" , and smear the notes out...
But if you want to do this rythm in a slower piece this is my way of learning:
Clap with one hand on your knee, and say things with your mouth...
You can say "Bi - Ba - Boo" , and feel strongly the Bi .... when this is "automatic"
start claping 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ... or do it the other way, or clap with 2 hands... whatever you like.
Another method: feel the strong beat, clap 1 , 2 , 3 , then change to 1,2,3,4, then change back , etc... left claps 1,2,3, right claps 4 beats. then try to do them togheter... but slowly

[pianomann1984]

Here's an interesting twist on a theme.  How would you do it if the feeling was reversed and you have to fit the 3 into the 4?  The feeling is really quite different!

[drumstix576]

My percussion teacher had a very interesting suggestion as to how to learn this:  He said to look at the resulting rhythm, and think the phrase "pass the *** butter".  (the resulting rhythm is . 8th - 16th - 8th - 8th - 16th - . 8th)  I don't know if it will help, since it's explained online and not in person...but it worked quite well for me. 

EDIT:  Sorry, didn't know it would filter out that bit...sounds like "pass the gosh-darn butter".  But it's far more fun the other way 

[pianomann1984]

*Creases up with laughter!*  That is surprisingly effective!!!