Arabesque Confuses Me...

[Ruro]

Hey people, I realised the Chopin Nocturne was way outta my league :/ That challenge was just TOO much, so i gracefuly backed down... ^_^

Now I'm learning Arabesque by Burgmuller, and progressing quite well I thought for a few hours work >_< But I noticed something on the sheet music that baffled me, from Bars 24 to 26 it displays a Treble Clef to indicate right hand plays (I presume this judging from it's use in Fur Elise).
(https://www.pitt.edu/~deben/8Arabesq.pdf - for the sheet music)

I don't understand why, because the fingering displayed is applied for the use of the left hand, and even if you changed to accomodate for the right hand... it also wants you to play notes on the right as signalled above :/

Basicaly, whilst playing the piece, it seems utterly pointless to try and suddenly dedicate the right hand to playing both areas, when it's already going smoothly keeping the hands on the same tracks >_< Unless I missed something? I know I have, just not a clue what...

If someone could kindly point out... I am forever in thy debt ^_^

[bearzinthehood]

Use the left hand to play those notes.  They put a treble cleff there only to avoid using ledger lines.

[aerlinndan]

Bearz is right. Try not to always associate "treble clef" with right hand and "bass clef" with left hand. You'll find in even more advanced repertoire that not even the top and bottom staves correspond to the right and left hands respectively. It all depends on what piece you're playing. In this case, you use the left hand to play those notes but you read them in treble clef.

[Ruro]

Ah! Okay, so when you say: "you read them in treble clef", that's interpretting the lines as F,A,C,E instead of A,C,E,G? Interesting... I'll take a look at the piece later and try and figure out the point in that aswell

Thanks for your time!

[Ruro]

I realise I'm double posting, but it saves me double threading!

I have just been working on this piece right now, and I'm doing something majorly wrong, because now if I twist my left arm so the bottom faces upwards, there is much pain :/

I'm pretty sure I'm not tensing, and this is the first piece I'm learning that involves chords on the left hand, let alone constantly throughout >_< I think I do keep the wrist up above the keyboard more then I should, but I was wondering if anyone could perhaps pin point this sorta thing down to a common mistake? The pain is basicaly just above/in the wrist joint >_< My Right hand and arm are doing okie kokie, but they aren't exactly dealing with chords...

Thanks again!

EDIT: Going back to this site: https://members.aol.com/mccc8888/chapter1_2.htm
Perhaps I'm not involving my arms and shoulders enough... but I'm working on a keyboard that isn't touch sensetive... and power isn't a requirement at the moment >_< Unless your still prone to injury allowing your wrist to do all the work?

[xvimbi]

I have just been working on this piece right now, and I'm doing something majorly wrong, because now if I twist my left arm so the bottom faces upwards, there is much pain :/

I'm pretty sure I'm not tensing, and this is the first piece I'm learning that involves chords on the left hand, let alone constantly throughout >_< I think I do keep the wrist up above the keyboard more then I should, but I was wondering if anyone could perhaps pin point this sorta thing down to a common mistake? The pain is basicaly just above/in the wrist joint >_< My Right hand and arm are doing okie kokie, but they aren't exactly dealing with chords...

Thanks again!

EDIT: Going back to this site: https://members.aol.com/mccc8888/chapter1_2.htm
Perhaps I'm not involving my arms and shoulders enough... but I'm working on a keyboard that isn't touch sensetive... and power isn't a requirement at the moment >_< Unless your still prone to injury allowing your wrist to do all the work?

If this is your first piece that involves a lot of chords in the left hand, tension is in fact likely the culprit. There are several issues that you need to be aware of:

- Is your hand span wide enough, and can the space between your fingers be stretched enough to play these chords comfortably?

- You must avoid thumb-orientation. You can do this only if you play well in between the black keys. Thumb-orientation with a tensed hand will give you all kinds of problems in the wrist, particularly around the little bony protrusions on the thumb and pinky sides of the wrist.

- The piece you have chosen is very fast. Perhaps a slower piece would be more suitable (e.g. Chopin Prelude No. 4). Of course, you can play this piece very slowly too, but it won't sound that great. You may be forcing yourself to go too fast too early.

- Tension. Remember that you should relax all muscles that don't need to be engaged. Easier siad than done. How do you know which muscles should be engaged and which ones should not? Good question. Try to get a feeling for every single chord by very slowly playing it repeatedly with a bobbing wrist. Keep your fingertips on the keys. If you can't, lift them off the keys just a little bit, just as much as necessary. Start with a completely relaxed hand, i.e. slightly curved fingers. You can do this on a table as well. The goal is to have a completely relaxed hand while maintaining that slight curvature. Keep bobbing your wrist until you are well aware of your relaxed hand. Now, consciously apply more pressure to a single finger. Go through all the fingers, always bobbing the wrist up and down. Watch out for collapsing joints. Apply the pressure only just before you lower your wrist. As soon as you lift the wrist up again, remove the pressure. Do this as long as  necessary to understand the feeling of relaxed and tensed fingers. Now, try to apply extra pressure to two fingers at a time. Go through all the combinations. Use both hands simultaneously - you will need to play chords with both hands. Then expand to three fingers. It is very difficult to reliably tell which fingers have the extra pressure when you do this on a tabletop. Finally, go to the piano and repeat this exercise. Can you reliably play a chord evenly? All this is just aimed at learning how to direct force to a certain fingertip, but not to the others. Now, start involving your forearm a little bit, i.e. you can lift off the hand a bit. Ideally, you would not have to, but this is difficult at the beginning, so give it some time. Stop as soon as you feel the slightest tension and wait a little while before continuing. Until you are absolutely convinced of the opposite, count on the fact that you are not relaxed enough. You'd be surprised how often one thinks that one is relaxed when in fact the opposite is true.

I am sure you will find after a few days of doing this that you can in fact become much more relaxed than you now think. You will probably find that you now have tension both across the hand as well as into the forearms.

That's all for the moment.

[Ruro]

Ah, thankyou xvimbi ^_^ You always offers such detailed posts on this forum, and once again you exceed yourself! My thanks!

I have just put this to test... and I think I realised a bad habit that is causing this :/
I sit to close to the keyboard, and the notes I play throughout are quite close to each other.

Me Sitting Close = Bending arms into funny positions because my elbows can't go in front of me.

I noticed there is a constant strain on me holding my left arm in an odd position to access the keys to perform the proper hand positions, elsewise I would have to tip my whole hand and fingers to access the keys without tension :/
I moved away from it, and it's... slightly different to playing up close, so I had best work on it *slaps himself* Now I understand the importance of a teacher :/

Chord distance on this piece isn't a problem, the speed of it... might be a problem, since I just noticed how bad I am at playing the C Major Scale at high speed, my fingers just do it on there own and naturally speed up the notes played by 4 and 5, which drop themselves any old time, need a bit more control! I think it's also related to the Tendons not being connected to them? Makes it slightly more difficult... which I read somewhere today :/

And the whole tension thing... I keep trying to correct myself when I notice it... eventually I will get over this piece without a broken arm or summit ^_^ But taking your advice, I will constantly presume for now I'm tensing

Thanks again xvimbi and everyone else! ^_^

[bearzinthehood]

Chord distance on this piece isn't a problem, the speed of it... might be a problem, since I just noticed how bad I am at playing the C Major Scale at high speed, my fingers just do it on there own and naturally speed up the notes played by 4 and 5, which drop themselves any old time, need a bit more control! I think it's also related to the Tendons not being connected to them? Makes it slightly more difficult... which I read somewhere today :/

Problems with evenness (and accuracy for that matter) oftentimes resolve themselves if you practice the passage slowly but with rhythmic variations, that is, you play it first DA di DA di DA di and then di DA di DA di DA.

[Ruro]

Thankyou for that BearzintheHood ^_^ I'll uh.. put the Da Di Da-ing to the test!

Although on a more serious, frustrating and utterly insane note, there is something wrong with me :/ My first piece Fur Elise (Short Version mind) involves left hand pretty much everywhere. Petit Reunion... the left hand is in the middle generally (in contradiction to what I will soon say) without the use of chords though, and Arabesque, well, left hand is chords constantly in the middle really :/

I think I just discovered both my arms can rotate inwards (left arm rotate clockwise and vice versa for the other) BUT not the same amount!?!? My Right arm/wrist seems to be able to keep my fingers practicly vertical whilst playing in a natural position... but I don't think my left can!? It's awfuly complicated, I just came from my keyboard to tell you this, and as I place my fingers on my desk my arm can't help but strain (trying to rotate) to keep my fingers vertically aligned! And my hand is about an octave down from Middle C, where as my right arm just takes the **** outta it and has no problem :/

I could be looking to in-depth and not realising the simplicity of the obvious cause, but I honestly don't know how I can play fast changing chords EVER with the only solution to eliminating the strain being: Play with your fingers at 45 Degrees on the keys :/ Which sounds insane!

Unless the cause for this is because my I am right handed and just generally has more experience from the other pieces? But if that's true, why didn't my other arm suffer this problem?

Or I'm totaly wrong... please enlighten me! Hence in saying all this, I think my keyboard distance wasn't the solution after all :/ Keeping my left wrist level with the keyboard keys just increases the stress, the right side has no problem with it. My elbows are pretty much level with the Keys too... I'm stupid, I just can't work this out :/

[techlogik]

Burgmuller has alot of great pieces that are musical, but excellent for beginner.

Having played only 9 months myself, taking lessons for maybe 6 of those, I have been playing Burgmuller from the beginning.

I still am trying to play several of the pieces you mentioned smoothly, and I can't do it yet.

Innocence is a good one to work on, has some chord changes that require fairly quick changes at speed.  La Candeur is another one which is similar in nature for chords and movements of the hand.

As mentioned by others, treble clef when it appears on the bass line means you play those notes with the left hand.  Remember, above Middle C, because that is where the Grand Staff meets and hands are divided generally.  Burgmuller has several pieces, like the ones above, that ask for this.

Some other suggestions about relaxation others have made are good, and you have been reading over Chang's book.  Pick out the important stuff of his work, like relaxation, and eventually learning thumb over, and other theories he presents.  You can easily get lost in "science" and the main points with his work, it is a bit wordy for me.

I would also slow the pieces way down and clearly hit all the notes and slowly build speed and work out the technique for movements while doing this hands seperately, then get working towards hand together.  There is not one perfect way for you to bring your hands up, position fingers, bring hand back down.  It takes a long time, especially if you are older like myself, to build speed and accuracy.  It is something you have to wire your brain to do and learn via muscle memory.

I can move faster than full speed with Arabesque, not smooth and as clear as I would like, but working out technique, hand movements etc..while building speed would help.

I guess this is where somebody who understands good hands movements and things to practice to help with this issues you are having can be useful, finding a good teacher isn't easy though that knows these learning methods.

I think you might be exaggerating your forearm rotation according to you last post.  Anotehr thing to do, get video of very good painist that show their hands, forearms etc..well.  I don't think you will pick up on alot of forearm movement, it is subtle, but can be beneficial when used properly.   So that test you tried at your keyboard might not be a very good representation of what actually happens and is required to play piano, somebody correct me if I am wrong on that, I am sure you will knowing this board.

I also started on a keyboard, you may have a yamaha that plays the music you are referring to?  This is what I had, it is good to hear it that way and watch the notes and use that with the written music.  But you also need to have a good basic music theory knowledge to understand what you are looking at.

I eventually got a piano and the keyboard sits in the garage now.  I would say you can't get good muscle/finger strength from a keyboard and transfer that to a piano, the feel is definitely different.  But my father who has played strickly keyboard since he was young, can sit on a piano and play fine, so I think if you plan to just play piano, and can afford a descent used upright even and have the space, it is more motivating.

Sorry a bit lengthy of a response, but I tried to address several posts here you had.

All I can say, is it takes time, and you have to learn how to apply certain good principles to yourself if you are not working with a good teacher, everyone is different.  I recommend you search for "Bernhard" and his useful posts which are similar to Chang.  Bernhard is more direct to the point with his methods, search the site for his name and you will find alot of good stuff to apply to your learning.

Good luck.

[Ruro]

Wah techlogik! Thanyou for the post ^_^

You have covered alot of the stuff I yakked about, and is useful! The other pieces by Burgmuller you mention are on the Keyboard, and therefore I have scores of them already... so that's lucky!

My arm seems to be fine again, I think just all that tension didn't help when trying to make them chords, although I keep finding I'm tensing my shoulders alot aswell, which is driving me nuts :/ And I can imagine having a Piano would be much sweeter then a keyboard... but until I get a job, which I have worked on getting [no replies ] I will have to live with this >_<

I will try integrate all this information into my playing over time... hopefuly I will be on the road soon and be on my way again ^_^

Thankyou all for posting!

Ruro

[rlefebvr]

It is very important for Arabesque that the right hand is played very steady and crisp. Think of someone banging on a drum. ta ta ta ta....ta ta ta ta. This is what you aim for. This harder as you go faster, but very important.

Same thing for the left hand when the melody switches.

I use a swinging motion of the hand to help with the speed. Sort of a see saw motion, but up and down instead of left to right.

As for Chords, they kill the hand. Period. You have to go slow and build it up. Stop when it hurts. Don't keep playing thinking the pain will go away. Also make sure you use all of the keyboard. Don't be afraid to move your hand up if it fits the build. The idea is to try and keep you hand as straight as possible and stop it from going into weird positions. The hard part about Chords when you start out is learning to relax the hand and that should come naturally with time.

[rlefebvr]

ANother good piece at this stage is Clowns by Kabalesvsky. Very fun to play.

[Chrysalis]

My favourite burgmuller is

opus 100 : 7 : The Limpid Stream

try that one. its fun to play and very easy too.. nothing hard...

[quantum]

Thankyou for that BearzintheHood ^_^ I'll uh.. put the Da Di Da-ing to the test!

Although on a more serious, frustrating and utterly insane note, there is something wrong with me :/ My first piece Fur Elise (Short Version mind) involves left hand pretty much everywhere. Petit Reunion... the left hand is in the middle generally (in contradiction to what I will soon say) without the use of chords though, and Arabesque, well, left hand is chords constantly in the middle really :/

I think I just discovered both my arms can rotate inwards (left arm rotate clockwise and vice versa for the other) BUT not the same amount!?!? My Right arm/wrist seems to be able to keep my fingers practicly vertical whilst playing in a natural position... but I don't think my left can!? It's awfuly complicated, I just came from my keyboard to tell you this, and as I place my fingers on my desk my arm can't help but strain (trying to rotate) to keep my fingers vertically aligned! And my hand is about an octave down from Middle C, where as my right arm just takes the **** outta it and has no problem :/

I could be looking to in-depth and not realising the simplicity of the obvious cause, but I honestly don't know how I can play fast changing chords EVER with the only solution to eliminating the strain being: Play with your fingers at 45 Degrees on the keys :/ Which sounds insane!

Unless the cause for this is because my I am right handed and just generally has more experience from the other pieces? But if that's true, why didn't my other arm suffer this problem?

Or I'm totaly wrong... please enlighten me! Hence in saying all this, I think my keyboard distance wasn't the solution after all :/ Keeping my left wrist level with the keyboard keys just increases the stress, the right side has no problem with it. My elbows are pretty much level with the Keys too... I'm stupid, I just can't work this out :/

Where are your elbows in all of this.  Are they glued to your sides?  You may not notice this when you play, and this may be causeing part of the tension you feel.  Your entire arm should be free to move.  Pay attention to the rest of your arm when you feel the tension in your wrists, you may inadvertently be applying more tension in your upper arm when you are concentrating on relaxing your wrists.