The Fantasie Impromptu and fast playing

[Gaz_1]

Hi erm im looking for abit of advice really from past experiences with this piece. I am around grande 7-8 standard but sometimes struggle with fast playing once i have played a piece to much. My fingers just don't coorindate sometimes. I wondered if anyone has had this and can recommend anything. Also i have jus begun to look at the Fantaise Impromptu by Chopin. Can anyone reccomend any tips on matering this piece and how you didi it but also how long it took you?

Thanks very much please reply!

[thalbergmad]

I am a great believer in persistance pays off. If my fingers won't co-ordinate to play a particular passage, i simply practice until they do. It is written that the great Richter once played 2 bars for 10 hours.

[nanabush]

Happens to me too, after a while playing one part, I just get sloppier then play really badly, then end up having to re-learn the entire section for my benefit.  If you wanna play FI properly, dont learn one little part then just keep playing it really fast, which might end up happening if you give up after a certain point and keep playing up till there as fast as you can...

[viking]

This also happend to me years back.  The best way to contradict it is with slow and dry practice.  I'm sure all the teachers out there say it, but it cannot be stressed enough.  If you try playing a song too fast before you know it perfect, it will detroy the song.  Practice EXTREMELY slow, and gradually move up the tempo, only when there are NO mitakes.  FI should be practiced hands seperately. 
SAM

[quantum]

Try thinking about the notes your are playing rather than going by muscle memory alone.  Think how to shape, direction of the phrase and harmonic progression. 

Lots of slow practice!  But it has to be slow practice with a purpose.  Don't let your muscles go to work and your brain shut off just because it is boring.  Examine every little detail of how your hands and fingers move. 

[viking]

But it has to be slow practice with a purpose.  Don't let your muscles go to work and your brain shut off just because it is boring.

Exactly!

[rachmad]

When you say "but sometimes struggle with fast playing once i have played a piece to much." - I believe this is saying something about the learning process and what stage you are at with the piece in question and/or some connection with the level of your piano technique. I have these suggestions:

1: Playing separate hands, in this case the problem is often the RH - play the entire passage in alternately syncopated fashion,  ie: Da, di-Da, di-Da etc. Then Da-di, Da-di, Da-di etc. Start slow and very precise, then faster and constantly repeating. When you get the hang of it then alternate the two types and also randomly decide to vary the times you play the one syncopation or the other. Sometimes deliberately vary the accenting. When you can freely and without inner arwkward compulsion - play both ways and at a reasonalbe turn of speed, then you will often find that you can then play the passage "straight" and evenly and fast.

Try playing the offending passages in the highest register, co-ordination will then be easier lower down.

If you have access to a computer or are just handy with a pencil, write or print out the passages in a few different keys and play them.

If the problem happens only at set places, often to do with slightly more difficult note/finger positions like issues around black/white notes, then isolate the few notes and make it a technical exercise and move up and down a few semitones etc. If necessary divide the uneven part down to just two notes or three and treat each as an exercise, and progressively move through the passage.

Play the passage with more flattened fingers legato, then staccato, then with fingers curved like hammers, staccato then legato. Find the best finger profile and works the best. Try putting an "impulse on each note, then try treating the groups as one phrase"


For every time you play the piece at full speed, play it ten times at a slower speed.

But not only this, play the piece Largo and with feeling and rubato (tempo), and different kinds and places of crescendo etc etc , be creative with it, sing with it.

Play it on a different piano (This can make a big difference, heavier or ligher touch, what you have may not suit your playing style)

Develop a constant background of scales and appeggios to get your fingers used to more rapid playing as a baseline.

Work *very* hard at concentrating on making your fingers stay even.

Put the other hand in a computer sequencer, or have a friend play the other hand, and play along, try playing with no pedal at all, if the uneveness is to do with the thumb or 4th and 5th fingers, practice motiffs all over the piano as a standard daily exercise.

Seek out and talk to as many piano teachers as you can and address to them the specific problem in context with the music, if possible get them to demonstrate what they do to address this vexing issue.

Try playing immediately after sleep when no other thing has occupied your mind. Go straight to the piano be creative and think and try the things above outlined. DO NOT play it at a speed that your fingers become uneven. When the warning does come, then buy yourself some flowers and laugh. Play more expressively . A piece can sound fulfulling, even fast, if you create the illusion of it, try at times a very exaggrated rubato and vastly different kinds of sound dynamics, make it whisper, then shout, but not always in the same places or the same way!. Often, play with your eyes closed, other times look at your hands as you play, from different angles.

Try a lower and then a higher chair.

I am sure your speed, and any uneveness will begin to dissolve when you work through a few of the above suggestions:-)

Do all these things and anything that you find works for you, to develop more consciousness of what you are doing.

All the best.

[kilini]

Wow, rachmad. You're Bernhard II.

[Autumndark]

I know a lot of people recommend learning this piece hands separately . . .
My advice: NEVER try it hands separately.  If you don't get the rhythm from day 1, it will be WAY too hard to put it together later.
When you're starting to learn this, you should play it very slowly, and, as I said, always hands together.  The rhythm is very awkward at first, but as you go faster, it smooths out.  Ignore the middle section until you can play the outer sections moderately fast, and don't underestimate the last sort of "coda" section (where the rhythm evens out--for me, that was the hardest section of the piece).  The middle is pretty easy -- I learned and memorized it in a couple of days and was able to work on it at leisure, but the outer section took me two-three weeks to get up to a moderate tempo and then memorize.  And then of course, a few months to mature and work out all the kinks.
It goes FAST.  But that shouldn't be a deterrant.  After all, if you work at anything slowly for long enough, eventually speed is just practice.

[shingo]

I know the above poster is probably no longer active but does anyone else not reccomend HS practice for this? I am starting this piece next week and, as with any new piece, was intending HS slow tempo for a deacent sized chuck (three/four lines) untill they are ready to be put together and gradually sped up.
Thanks in advance

[gerry]

Personally - I don't recommend spending too much time HS with this piece. Some separate right-hand work at the outset to solidfy fingering, etc. but because of the nature of the 6 against 8 pattern I'd recommend getting the two hands together as soon as possible in order to gain facility and begiin working on making this piece flow. I found the most challenge was in measures 17-21 and the coda or agitato where you have to accent the second note instead of the first note as in measures 13 - 16 - I really had to play both hands together in order to master this pattern. This piece is not only a really great show piece but invaluable as a technical study.  Good luck.

[shingo]

Yeah, having only just staretd I can already see that HT is the best once you know what is in each hand. I am finding the rhythm difficult so far, and I am not 100% sure I have it correct.

edit: I think I may have it now...

[gerry]

Really slow, steady HT practice with emphasis on the rhythmic juxtapositions to start.
The trick is to get that left hand flowing in an even and steady pattern with emphasis on the first beat (5th finger as the rhythmic anchor) of each measure while letting the right hand just soar above it -  while it may seem daunting at first, it's amazing how the rhythm juxtapositions sort of take care of themselves as you progress. Hope some of this makes sense - good luck - it really rewarding piece to master (and fund to play).

[shingo]

I see what you mean about the juxtapositions taking care of themselves, it kind of just clicks (that is if I have it correct) into place. I have only been taking it slow, the first repeated section before second line bar 3 or somthing. But still it is a start, now the rythym is there I am hoping the rest of this page should be somewhat easier as it is like applying the formula now.

[jinfiesto]

Yeah... I don't recommend learning this hands alone either... You have to get the polyrythms right or it sounds like crap. Make sure you work out all of the polyrythms.