It hurts when I gliss :)

[Bob]

What a title, eh? 

I've heard your should glissando and use the velocity of the movement to sound the keys.  You should only press down lightly on the keys.

However, this still is a little painful.  I'm not playing on a hard keyboard either.  I still feel it on the nailbed.

Any solutions or ideas on this?

[pianonut]

nail polish?  (clear, ok.  and just on the nail you use)

[pianonut]

am in a silly mood tonight (as if you can't tell) but was completely serious about the clear polish.

do people ever turn their hand completely around (palm down - fingers facing bass) and glissando up on the skin?

[Bob]

What's nail polish going to do?  Isn't that too thin?


Maybe it would work to coat the nail though, or wear a bandaid maybe...

[pianonut]

how about 10 coats? 

[Teddybear]

It's supposed to hurt.   Well, that's what my teacher has said about glissando and Liszt.

Umm, I'm sorry. My present English vocabulary doesn't allow me to explain what I do. Glissando used to hurt like hell, but now it's a lot more pleasant because I.. uh.. my hand used to go like this  I->  but now it goes like this  /->

T

[Jacey1973]

Well sorry but doing glissandi has never been pain free - at least when i started practising it (i started a Ravel piece a few months ago), now i have a permament scab/lump on my right index finger just on the bone below my nail.

This is what you have to look forward to - oh plus a couple of months of pain/bleeding on keys (normally you don't notice this for a couple of minutes then get a shock when you see blood everywhere)/skin falling off etc etc :-)

[Jacey1973]

It's supposed to hurt.   Well, that's what my teacher has said about glissando and Liszt.

Umm, I'm sorry. My present English vocabulary doesn't allow me to explain what I do. Glissando used to hurt like hell, but now it's a lot more pleasant because I.. uh.. my hand used to go like this  I->  but now it goes like this  /->

T

Hmmm i may need to re think my technique...

[chopintod]

Hmmm i may need to re think my technique...

LOL! Haha, Jenni, yes I think you might need to rethink your technique.  Blood gushing out of your fingers normally is a sign that you've done something wrong!  Though glissandos (glissandi?) do hurt.

If anyone knows a good solution, post it!  And, does anyone else do that /-> thing? Maybe he means the fingers are slanted?

Good luck Bob.

Terry

[ranakor]

you don't want nail polish but nail harderner (like malvala scientific) your nails will break in 2 before they bend but i doubt it would hurt throught the nail if you put some often

[donjuan]

Come on, you cant use nail polish or hardener for the rest of your life.  When I came across glissando passages in Liszt's Faust Waltz, I found it easier if I use fingers 3 and 4 and angle them so they are almost perpendicular to their direction over the keys.  This way, I use less flesh and more nail.  However, if the nails are pointed in such a way, the glissando is choppy and awkward.  So, over a period of a few weeks, I gradually lessened the angle until a callous developed on the fingers involved.
donjuan

[ranakor]

actually i'm not too sure what's wrong about using nail hardener all your life (it's not like polish you don't put it everyday it's like 3X a month at 1st & less when your fingers get harder, also it's not as a liquid it comes as a stick & takes a whooping 20second per hand at most or 1 minut total if you include drying time)

& i'm planning to use it for a while since i used to have pretty weak nails before & play classical guitar & it's a pain when they break , i'm really not annoyed at that thought so don't discard it before trying!

[chopintod]

Has anyone tried Mozart's -La Tartine Beurrée-?  It's his musical joke...the right hand is played by one finger throughout.   Considering that it's mostly glissandos, I'm beginning to think Mozart had a somewhat sadistic sense of humor...

Check it out here:

https://www.music-scores.com/mozart/composer.php?pageNum_composer=5&totalRows_composer=89

Scroll down to find -La Tartine Beurree-, and enjoy!  <----evil grin

[SirSteinway]

I've never been able to glissando without pain! But, it won't stop me...

[lagin]

do people ever turn their hand completely around (palm down - fingers facing bass) and glissando up on the skin?

i do

[pianonut]

how about all of the above?  nail hardner, don juan's approach, and (if your nails start hurting turn your hand over) play with the pads of your third and fourth finger.  i suppose you can make a glissando go further with don juan's approach - because the twist of the hand is needed for the skin approach when you get over an octave above middle c.  also, i suppose it is not as hard of a surface, and give uneveness to the notes in the glissando.

[Barbosa-piano]

          I believe that glissandos are part of a very odd side of piano technique, directly painful . I often use the nail of my middle finger, finding it more effective, except in fast passages as the ones in Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto, and many other works by him. I have dwelt on rare glissandos, such as the third and octave glissandos. I avoid to play the third glissandos, found in the Rakoczy March by Lizst. The octave glissandos are odd ones, such as the ones in Brahms Variations on Paganini or the one in Mephisto Waltz, for the left hand. Well the pianos in that time range have a much lighter action, making the deal easier (with the exception of Liszt's modern action piano of Erard). I've once read about a pianist who used his wallet in a demanding glissando in one of Beethoven's works, if I recall. In the book Piano Notes, Charles Rosen said that the glissando gets much more sactisfactory, if you put some sort of oil on the pins in the keybed, after removing the wood in front of the keys.
            Well, I believe we have to find the easiest and most technically reliable way for achieving a good glissando, whatever the case may be.
                                                    Mario Barbosa  

[lostinidlewonder]

I think a lot of the problems people face with pain with glissando is that their fingers are too stiff. The fingers should have just enough resistance against the keys, not solid and stiff. It should fit with all piano playing that everything is done with the relaxed hand, so even when glissing ensure the fingers are supple, not concrete straight.

With double note gliss, make sure that the path that fingers sliding on the keyboard makes, overlaps one another (For white+white or black+black notes that is). Whatever you do make sure that the fingers sliding are perpendicular to the keys.

[Teddybear]

I think a lot of the problems people face with pain with glissando is that their fingers are too stiff. The fingers should have just enough resistance against the keys, not solid and stiff. It should fit with all piano playing that everything is done with the relaxed hand, so even when glissing ensure the fingers are supple, not concrete straight.

I agree. Your hand should be relaxed yet responsive. I think 'flexible' would be the appropriate word. With a good angle /-> and moderately relaxed hand I can play many glissandi in a row without experiencing pain.

T

[aajjmb]

i used to get cuts above the nail too then i realised that if u hold ur hang higher (more vertical) andplay softer... with ur nail onlyso that the key never goes higher than the middle of your nail... personally i use my middle finger (bigger nail!!!) neways i havn't hurt myself in a glissando for a couple years now.......how about octave ones:P:P

[anda]

i can't do glissando with my left hand! i know it sounds silly, but that's the truth!
a little story with an idea: last month i had a recital with a chamber music group. one of the works we played required me to do a glissando with my right hand followed immediately by a glissando with my left hand - and i never played these at any rehearsals, i just slided softly my hand at key-level, saying "i'll do it in concert" (i honestly believe nobody should "practice" glissandos). anyway, the day before the concert, general rehearsal, and i play the glissandi, and i cover the keyboard in blood  my left nails #2, #3 and #4 were seriously bleeding. so, i finally did in concert what i should have done from the begining: fist-glissando!

one more thing: about a year ago i've seen something interesting: an asian female pianist (whose fingers are pretty much like mine - like matches) playing "nights in the gardens of spain" had a small black velvet "rag" on the piano which she used for glissandi.

anyay, nail polish doesn't help - it can't protect the delicate area (the cuticles area).

[possom46]

does anyone else do that /-> thing? Maybe he means the fingers are slanted?

I have never been taught how to properly, but I place the finger on the starting key, then tilt and go, when I first tried I kept my hand upright and that's when it hurt badly, now because it's tilted doesn't hurt much at all in fact I don't think it does hurt 

[bernhard]

Use a thimble! (a rubber one will minimise clicks).

(I was inspired by the movie “The piano”, after the woman gets her finger chopped off by the jealous husband).

(And Brendel plays with tape on his fingers).

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[solange]

how about octave ones

lol.......there is a special corner of hell reserved for whoever invented octave glissandos

I was doing some yesterday, and my fingers still feel sore!

[Sergey R]

Well, I don't have a problem with glissandos myself. It used to hurt before when I was very young, but then I have been able to do them for a very long time. Basically I just do 3rd and 4th fingers, slanted about 45 degrees, trying to get the nail to be the majority of what is on the keys.

[Brian Healey]

I think it hurts because you're putting your gliss finger too deep into the keybed. I was taught to just lightly skim the surface with the fingernail. You feel the "vibration" as your nail hits each key, but it is hardly painful. I would suggest that for an upward gliss, you lean your body slightly to the left (or more than slightly depending on where the starting point is), put your middle finger and thumb into a "pinching" shape, and then slide your hand lightly up the keys making sure that the nail on your middle finger is facing in the direction you're going, and at a slight angle. The "pinching" shape simply means that you're putting your thumb behind the middle finger to support it. Also, make it a whole body movement. A gliss is just as much torso as it is arm.

For a downward gliss, do everything in reverse: lean to the right, and use your thumb with the index or middle finger behind it. Like anything else, it takes some focus at first to do it right every time, because the tendency is to dig right into the keys on a gliss. Hope that helps.


Peace,
Bri

[lostinidlewonder]

I wil have to say that some pianos are not meant for Gliss. For instance I tried to Gliss on an Bluthner grand in one peformance and it cut my fingers and left a trail of blood on the keys. I have a student whos piano key action is so stiff that you wouldn't dream of sliding your fingers on that. I have another student who has a new Yamaha concert upright and you can do gliss with your nose it is that light. So for those who say Gliss is impossible make sure you try it on a "soft key" piano, something which doesn't need much energy to push the notes down and definatly not a piano which has sharp edges on the keys.

[lagin]

um?  what is an octave glissando that everyone dreads?  I haven't heard of them before.

[Barbosa-piano]

um? what is an octave glissando that everyone dreads? I haven't heard of them before.

\

 So that you have the notion of what it is, play an octave, and gliss it (drag it) to the other keys ( Left hand usually goes up, and Right hand usually goes down, for practice reasons) Examples: Liszt Mephisto Waltz, Variation 13 on a Theme of Paganini by Brahms, Beethoven's Concerto No.1.
There are also black key glissandos, not so easily negotiable.

[keys]

yeah the waldstein sonata also has an 8va gliss. I find that lots of whining helps, just like with everything else mildly irritating in life. Glissing on the pads of your fingers can be less painfull if the piano is stiff, otherwise you'll probably tear through your cuticles. Mmmm doesn't that sound great? "tear through your cuticles". The enjoyment of music eh?

[Barbosa-piano]

  I don't care about pain when it comes to piano playing, cuticles are useless anyway!  (at least on my point of view...)

[chromatickler]

USE THE THUMB!!!

[laurenlynnette]

the piano you are playing on has a LOT to do with how well you can gliss on it... 

However, with practice, you should be able to find exactly how much pressure and weight you need to apply to only use your NAILBEDS for a nice glissando...  if the glissandos bring your hands Towards your body use THUMB (nailbed).  If the gliss goes Away from your body, use the rest of your fingers...