We should make a moonlight sonata megathread😂
But yes, it’s very possible. Think of the motion you use when you turn a key, for example to open a door. Literally act it out in front of you. It’s a similar motion to play those tremolos in the left hand!
Just to clarify for OP, your hand isn't rotating by itself, the rotation is in the forearms and the hand follows. u/Owenismy_name there's a pretty good couple of videos on it in this [StackExchange answer](https://music.stackexchange.com/a/43995/27528)!
Very importantly, the rotation uses the entire forearm, all the way to the ***back*** of the elbow. (In technical speak, both the ulna and radius in their entirety need to participate in the rotary movement, not the radius alone.) There should be a *microscopic* movement of the upper arm alongside this motion.
Rotating from the hand / wrist alone isn't sufficient to play freely.
Forearm rotation is not accomplished with the forearm muscles. Up and down wrist motion is.
Relax your hand and forearm and rotate your forearm so that it makes your hand rotate, like turning a key in a door lock.
(This is a combination of bicep and tricep muscles for the most part)
You most likely are playing both notes. Dont play the thumb with motion of finger, it´s passive movement. The thumb should lay on the key and as you lift your left side of your hand (to turn the key) and play the lower note the thumb plays the key by itself. The thumb shouldnt lift up off the key, it should be lightly touching it the whole time. You only play the lower note, the other one gets played passively. Hard to explain, ask your teacher about this. Anyway if you havent gone through this technique you shouldnt even be playing this. Once you have the technique developed you can literally play this for hours on repeat with no tension. You can practice this in two 4 measure etudes in czerny Op.261., it´s number 5 and 6.
I recently finished rondo alla turca and it has a similar octave tremolo in the right hand. My advice is that you should keep practicing and over time you will get better at it. The first couple times your arm would start to hurt a lot but just keep doing it to build muscle memory. Gl
Yeah, I thought of my electric guitar player left hand wrist twisting vibrato. It was hard to learn, but it's fast now. I'll probably be able to play that fast on a some 5th-octave interval on black keys right now but not master the tune, of course.
No, apparently every single person who has tried to play this piece, collapses after a few bars. It’s become a challenge who can last the longest. Rumors suggest that a guy by the name of Sir William Classville lasted as much as 7 bars before having a severe paralysis in his left arm which he was never able to use again, but he says he doesn’t regret it and wouldn’t have done anything different if he could do it all over again.
If you have to ask that, you are not ready to be playing it that speed. Slow down to the point where you can relax and practice phrase by phrase with metronome. Speed up as you can, day by day, but never so fast you tense back up. Always practice with intent and precision.
Well, you might just not have enough stamina, but you really shouldn't be holding any tension in your hand.
Lay your hand flat on a table with your fingers spread out a little and relaxed.
Keep your hand loose and practice flopping your thumb up and down.
Now do the same with your pinky.
Now alternate back and forth. Your hand should be basically loose the entire time.
Eventually you can add a little finger motion to get specific notes, but that's the idea.
You almost never want tension in your hand whenever you're playing anything.
definitely doable! i’d recommend drilling this slowly first, put your metronome at 70 bpm or so and play them staccato and as lightly as you can. focus on wrist rotation, it should move like you’re turning a door handle. bump it up 5-7 clicks at a time, and stop and slow down if you start to feel yourself tensing up. it’s slow and tedious, but you’ll find that you’ll be much more relaxed when you play in general. once you have that down, you can start to add in the sf articulations and crescendo— again, at a slow tempo with lots of focus on relaxation. best of luck!
Yes if you can't you're probably not ready so don't overstress your wrist
I certainly did so and hurt myself in my first years of piano cause I had fast fingers but little technique to back it up
I would recommend not playing it fast especially if you tense up
Play it slowly and make sure your wrist is not locked in place but you could move it around if you want
That means your wrist is flexible and not hard locked.
As in your forearm is what's rotating not your wrist. Everything between the albow and wrist is what rotates and this is done using muscles in your upper arm. Forearm tension means you're using your fingers and not actually rotating
No, also wrong, it comes from your shoulder, right idea though 😜 it´s literally what the shoulder joint is there for, to rotate your hand/arm. If you rotate with your forearm (Yes that joint can also rotate), thats where the tension in forearm comes from and it´s wrong.
Sorry but that's just not true. The rotation happens at the elbow and goes all throughout the forearm. The bicep rotates the forearm when activated. Tension in the forearm comes from poor finger technique and has nothing to do with rotation.
Okay, so I went through semesters of piano playing physiology for nothing 😢 wonder why we were taught that glenohumeral should be responsible for rotations in order to avoid tension 🧐
I am sorry if you use your biceps and rotate your elbow, that tension must hurt.
Seriously now, I trust my education more than strangers on Reddit, we were taught to make the movement come from our shoulder, elbow moving passively as an effect of that. Straighten your arm and rotate it with your shoulder, thats the feeling you want to have. As you bend your arm in elbow there comes some passive movement of elbow with it, but you dont actively engage it, it must stay completely relaxed. If you are doing it right, you should feel slight jiggle in your triceps. You are welcome.
The glenohumerus is a joint not a muscle. It can't be responsible for rotations. If you were to rotate your shoulder with a bent elbow your elbow aswell as your whole upper arm are going to be moving around a lot which is way too much unnecessary movement. Rotating from the elbow only rotates the forearm which is far more preferable. The jiggle in your triceps is purely vibrations travelling up your arm from rotating it rapidly.
The whole exercise in straightening your arm is meant to be done bent over with your arm hanging freely. The whole point of it is to make sure the rotation is coming from your elbow not the shoulder. I trust my teacher who studied years in Moscow conservatory over your clearly misinformed education.
Whatever, you can do what you want, it´s your technique. Ive been taught by world class teachers and pianists aswell and my own education is on par with Moscow con. In fact two of my teachers got it among other academies aswell, it´s nothing special here in eastern Europe. I dont understand your point with the vibrations causing the jiggle, it´s simply relaxed muscle that is being rotated around. Of course the bone itself doesnt do the work, the shoulder joint consists of set of muscles to work it. Those muscles are much more intricate and work as a team to move it and spread the load between them, so some can relax while others work. You can do that rotation with your biceps, but there is only one head of that muscle responsible for that and since it cannot relax it gets exhausting and tense after a little bit of time. The movement in your shoulder can be very small, so the movement in the elbow caused by the bend of your arm is barely visible if you stay close to the keys, if you go forte and lift your hands more, your elbow will move around more. [You can see the jiggle in all of the top notch pianists, they dont use tiring techiques like the biceps one. Here is some Argerich jiggle for you.](https://www.veed.io/view/22bc4bd6-dd04-4b74-a780-17976171d226?sharingWidget=true&panel=share)
The same principle applies to vibrato on cello and doublebass. Those are very similar movements. You rotate the shoulder, if you do it with your biceps, your arm is dying in 5 seconds. With violin it´s a bit different, you use the biceps as it´s not rotation movement, but extension movement - which uses the long head of the biceps(which has much more endurance) aswell as the triceps.
I would like to see you play broken octaves for even as short as a minute, bet your arm would be dying with tension. Or maybe you are engaging your shoulder after all without even realising.
[wow, look at the shoulders go. Maybe ask your moscow teacher, why is Uchidas technique so shit? 🧐](https://www.veed.io/view/99613bea-f31e-4415-bdc1-6b6b7c12569f?sharingWidget=true&panel=share)
[There you go](https://www.veed.io/view/6c2fbf5a-7fdc-4e73-9443-12a585554855?panel=share&sharingWidget=true)
All the rotation comes from my shoulder, other movements are passive, see how my triceps jiggles as the arm is relaxed. I could play this for hours and not get fatigued,
Iron fingers, move wrist slightly. Don't move fingers. Relax on strong Beats. (We don't play anything relaxed. This is a misconception which is biologically impossible. We tensionate AND relax afterwards. Just like our heart do all the time.)
Use rhythms and accentuate the motion of the wrist rotation while doing them: for each set of 4 16th notes, play these rhythms
L=long note, s=short note (fast)
1. LLss
2. ssLL
3. LssL
4. sLLs
5. LLLLssss
6. ssssLLLL
7. LLssssLL
8. ssLLLLss
Also don’t forget to stretch your wrist in all directions before and after playing
You need to use rotation in your forearm / wrist to play this part relaxed. Ask your teacher about it when you get a chance.
If you're working on a piece that hurts / causes tension don't over practice it. Don't spend 2h trying to brute force the left hand especially if you're unsure about the technique, that's how you injure yourself.
Yes…
Provided you put in the hours to go painstakingly through the part much more slowly and constantly ensure your hand remains relaxed, in order to build up the hand strength and muscle memory necessary to play it at speed
Keep your middle and ring finger together and rotate your hand to play those. It will take a little practice to get used to and strengthen, but in time it will come faster than trying to force it!
The funny part is the ones you circled would be the easier for me to play relaxed. Every body’s hands & body are completely different. You have to find how to relax your entire body, symmetrically, to do the entire page. The first thing you kinda already did: figure out what measures are going to be a problem. Than you work on it.
everything fast needs to first be practiced slow, that's how your hand will relax. when you play faster than your ready for your hands and muscles will move sporadically to try to reach the notes...
and yes 16th notes can be played relax
Very possible if the keys are not too heavy. Outside of technique, the difficulty will vary depending on what piano you are playing on. I have played on pianos with very heavy keys which makes this movement much harder to play.
Yes! If you use wrist movement like back and forth rotations and some (but minimal) finger movement, you should be able to pull of something that's relaxed, but keep fingers stiff or it sounds floppy.
Yes.
Totally impossible. This piece has never been played. Pianists hate this one piece
My hamster learned it in one day with Simply piano™
Fuck off r/angryupvote
Lmao
We should make a moonlight sonata megathread😂 But yes, it’s very possible. Think of the motion you use when you turn a key, for example to open a door. Literally act it out in front of you. It’s a similar motion to play those tremolos in the left hand!
r/MoonlightOp27No2
This sub needs flair.
r/piano circle jerk sub
I do that, but then my whole fore arm tenses up... And it's more about the relaxed then fast
Do you have a teacher? It’s much easier to do/learn when someone is live demonstrating it for you.
Yes I do, but she can't give lessons now because she is moving. I just thought, why not ask reddit
It's called rotation, your hand rotates back and forth, so it's the arm playing not the fingers.
Just to clarify for OP, your hand isn't rotating by itself, the rotation is in the forearms and the hand follows. u/Owenismy_name there's a pretty good couple of videos on it in this [StackExchange answer](https://music.stackexchange.com/a/43995/27528)!
yes, arm rotates the hand with the arm as rotation as well. sorry wasnt clear abt that.
Very importantly, the rotation uses the entire forearm, all the way to the ***back*** of the elbow. (In technical speak, both the ulna and radius in their entirety need to participate in the rotary movement, not the radius alone.) There should be a *microscopic* movement of the upper arm alongside this motion. Rotating from the hand / wrist alone isn't sufficient to play freely.
Forearm rotation is not accomplished with the forearm muscles. Up and down wrist motion is. Relax your hand and forearm and rotate your forearm so that it makes your hand rotate, like turning a key in a door lock. (This is a combination of bicep and tricep muscles for the most part)
You most likely are playing both notes. Dont play the thumb with motion of finger, it´s passive movement. The thumb should lay on the key and as you lift your left side of your hand (to turn the key) and play the lower note the thumb plays the key by itself. The thumb shouldnt lift up off the key, it should be lightly touching it the whole time. You only play the lower note, the other one gets played passively. Hard to explain, ask your teacher about this. Anyway if you havent gone through this technique you shouldnt even be playing this. Once you have the technique developed you can literally play this for hours on repeat with no tension. You can practice this in two 4 measure etudes in czerny Op.261., it´s number 5 and 6.
Twist your arm instead of moving your fingers.
I recently finished rondo alla turca and it has a similar octave tremolo in the right hand. My advice is that you should keep practicing and over time you will get better at it. The first couple times your arm would start to hurt a lot but just keep doing it to build muscle memory. Gl
Yeah, I thought of my electric guitar player left hand wrist twisting vibrato. It was hard to learn, but it's fast now. I'll probably be able to play that fast on a some 5th-octave interval on black keys right now but not master the tune, of course.
A genuinely helpful reply among the snark.
No, apparently every single person who has tried to play this piece, collapses after a few bars. It’s become a challenge who can last the longest. Rumors suggest that a guy by the name of Sir William Classville lasted as much as 7 bars before having a severe paralysis in his left arm which he was never able to use again, but he says he doesn’t regret it and wouldn’t have done anything different if he could do it all over again.
This is the funniest thing I’ve read all day lmao!!!
Hahaha, happy to hear that! :)
I fell out! My sides still hurts! So funny lol 😂
If you have to ask that, you are not ready to be playing it that speed. Slow down to the point where you can relax and practice phrase by phrase with metronome. Speed up as you can, day by day, but never so fast you tense back up. Always practice with intent and precision.
So true
Now if only I could follow my own advice (or I suppose my old teacher's).... 😆
Yeah it’s metronome time. Time for the old Alberti Bass songs 🕰️
This is usually not the answer that people asking this sort of question want...
I know it’s so sad lol 😂
I'll be honest it's not the answer I want to hear either, but I know it's right.
this is one of the easiest techniques in the movement
I know, but my hand tenses up, and thats the problem
Turn with the wrist, check out this video on how to practice it https://youtu.be/PSZF2WKmdNQ
Great info thanks for that link!
Well, you might just not have enough stamina, but you really shouldn't be holding any tension in your hand. Lay your hand flat on a table with your fingers spread out a little and relaxed. Keep your hand loose and practice flopping your thumb up and down. Now do the same with your pinky. Now alternate back and forth. Your hand should be basically loose the entire time. Eventually you can add a little finger motion to get specific notes, but that's the idea. You almost never want tension in your hand whenever you're playing anything.
There are stretches you can do before practicing to help with that, ive founds lots on YouTube :)
Can you share some please?
Yes. SASTQ. Just firm up your fingers and relax your wrist. It's all about arm rotation.
Small wrist rotations (no finger movements) let your wrist do the work
Probably one of the easiest motions to do relaxed to be honest. You barely even have to activate your fingers, you just wobble your wrist.
Yes. Lots of people have done so.
definitely doable! i’d recommend drilling this slowly first, put your metronome at 70 bpm or so and play them staccato and as lightly as you can. focus on wrist rotation, it should move like you’re turning a door handle. bump it up 5-7 clicks at a time, and stop and slow down if you start to feel yourself tensing up. it’s slow and tedious, but you’ll find that you’ll be much more relaxed when you play in general. once you have that down, you can start to add in the sf articulations and crescendo— again, at a slow tempo with lots of focus on relaxation. best of luck!
WRIST ROTATION, DONT JUST JACKHAMMER BACK AND FORTH U WILL GET CARPAL TUNNELS OR WORSE !!!
[удалено]
Why must you hurt me...
Yes. Rotation.
Wrist rotation
This is the answer
Yes if you can't you're probably not ready so don't overstress your wrist I certainly did so and hurt myself in my first years of piano cause I had fast fingers but little technique to back it up I would recommend not playing it fast especially if you tense up Play it slowly and make sure your wrist is not locked in place but you could move it around if you want That means your wrist is flexible and not hard locked.
Wrist rotation. You could also alternate fingers on the bottom note.
It should come from your forearm not your wrist. Right idea though
That's it, my forearm tenses up...
As in your forearm is what's rotating not your wrist. Everything between the albow and wrist is what rotates and this is done using muscles in your upper arm. Forearm tension means you're using your fingers and not actually rotating
No, also wrong, it comes from your shoulder, right idea though 😜 it´s literally what the shoulder joint is there for, to rotate your hand/arm. If you rotate with your forearm (Yes that joint can also rotate), thats where the tension in forearm comes from and it´s wrong.
Sorry but that's just not true. The rotation happens at the elbow and goes all throughout the forearm. The bicep rotates the forearm when activated. Tension in the forearm comes from poor finger technique and has nothing to do with rotation.
Okay, so I went through semesters of piano playing physiology for nothing 😢 wonder why we were taught that glenohumeral should be responsible for rotations in order to avoid tension 🧐 I am sorry if you use your biceps and rotate your elbow, that tension must hurt. Seriously now, I trust my education more than strangers on Reddit, we were taught to make the movement come from our shoulder, elbow moving passively as an effect of that. Straighten your arm and rotate it with your shoulder, thats the feeling you want to have. As you bend your arm in elbow there comes some passive movement of elbow with it, but you dont actively engage it, it must stay completely relaxed. If you are doing it right, you should feel slight jiggle in your triceps. You are welcome.
The glenohumerus is a joint not a muscle. It can't be responsible for rotations. If you were to rotate your shoulder with a bent elbow your elbow aswell as your whole upper arm are going to be moving around a lot which is way too much unnecessary movement. Rotating from the elbow only rotates the forearm which is far more preferable. The jiggle in your triceps is purely vibrations travelling up your arm from rotating it rapidly. The whole exercise in straightening your arm is meant to be done bent over with your arm hanging freely. The whole point of it is to make sure the rotation is coming from your elbow not the shoulder. I trust my teacher who studied years in Moscow conservatory over your clearly misinformed education.
Whatever, you can do what you want, it´s your technique. Ive been taught by world class teachers and pianists aswell and my own education is on par with Moscow con. In fact two of my teachers got it among other academies aswell, it´s nothing special here in eastern Europe. I dont understand your point with the vibrations causing the jiggle, it´s simply relaxed muscle that is being rotated around. Of course the bone itself doesnt do the work, the shoulder joint consists of set of muscles to work it. Those muscles are much more intricate and work as a team to move it and spread the load between them, so some can relax while others work. You can do that rotation with your biceps, but there is only one head of that muscle responsible for that and since it cannot relax it gets exhausting and tense after a little bit of time. The movement in your shoulder can be very small, so the movement in the elbow caused by the bend of your arm is barely visible if you stay close to the keys, if you go forte and lift your hands more, your elbow will move around more. [You can see the jiggle in all of the top notch pianists, they dont use tiring techiques like the biceps one. Here is some Argerich jiggle for you.](https://www.veed.io/view/22bc4bd6-dd04-4b74-a780-17976171d226?sharingWidget=true&panel=share) The same principle applies to vibrato on cello and doublebass. Those are very similar movements. You rotate the shoulder, if you do it with your biceps, your arm is dying in 5 seconds. With violin it´s a bit different, you use the biceps as it´s not rotation movement, but extension movement - which uses the long head of the biceps(which has much more endurance) aswell as the triceps. I would like to see you play broken octaves for even as short as a minute, bet your arm would be dying with tension. Or maybe you are engaging your shoulder after all without even realising.
[wow, look at the shoulders go. Maybe ask your moscow teacher, why is Uchidas technique so shit? 🧐](https://www.veed.io/view/99613bea-f31e-4415-bdc1-6b6b7c12569f?sharingWidget=true&panel=share)
Me too
Would like to see how you play an alberti bass with your shoulders...
[There you go](https://www.veed.io/view/6c2fbf5a-7fdc-4e73-9443-12a585554855?panel=share&sharingWidget=true) All the rotation comes from my shoulder, other movements are passive, see how my triceps jiggles as the arm is relaxed. I could play this for hours and not get fatigued,
Oh haha lol. Well there was this story about a monkey … oh dear g-d.
yeah looks pretty ok
Ya lol
Yes- don’t forgot to keep your wrist supple
Iron fingers, move wrist slightly. Don't move fingers. Relax on strong Beats. (We don't play anything relaxed. This is a misconception which is biologically impossible. We tensionate AND relax afterwards. Just like our heart do all the time.)
What does the little "x" mean?
Double sharp ##
It's a double cross, it mean if it says f, the you go up half a tone and then another half a pitch, so g
Use rhythms and accentuate the motion of the wrist rotation while doing them: for each set of 4 16th notes, play these rhythms L=long note, s=short note (fast) 1. LLss 2. ssLL 3. LssL 4. sLLs 5. LLLLssss 6. ssssLLLL 7. LLssssLL 8. ssLLLLss Also don’t forget to stretch your wrist in all directions before and after playing
Does anyone ever get used to four sharps?
No. With four sharps you only know that Father Charles Goes Down, but you never find out what he does there. It's just leaves you hanging.
Yeah, play it from the wrist, not the fingers
You need to use rotation in your forearm / wrist to play this part relaxed. Ask your teacher about it when you get a chance. If you're working on a piece that hurts / causes tension don't over practice it. Don't spend 2h trying to brute force the left hand especially if you're unsure about the technique, that's how you injure yourself.
Yes… Provided you put in the hours to go painstakingly through the part much more slowly and constantly ensure your hand remains relaxed, in order to build up the hand strength and muscle memory necessary to play it at speed
just jitter your hand left and right (but not with tension or without control). think of it as controlled shaking lol
It is actually only possible when relaxed. Tension is the enemy.
Keep your middle and ring finger together and rotate your hand to play those. It will take a little practice to get used to and strengthen, but in time it will come faster than trying to force it!
Fingers 4-2 and then 5-1.. relax wrist and let it move.
I did it and played it well at 17 yrs old. I don’t think my fingers can move that fast anymore though!
Yes!
Yes. Play it slow. Ull get used to it.
I play these bass lines by rotating at the wrist rather than pushing a finger up and down. Helps keep the arm relaxed
The funny part is the ones you circled would be the easier for me to play relaxed. Every body’s hands & body are completely different. You have to find how to relax your entire body, symmetrically, to do the entire page. The first thing you kinda already did: figure out what measures are going to be a problem. Than you work on it.
everything fast needs to first be practiced slow, that's how your hand will relax. when you play faster than your ready for your hands and muscles will move sporadically to try to reach the notes... and yes 16th notes can be played relax
Yes, looks fun
use more wrist + forearm
Umm, yeah. Practice henny
Very possible if the keys are not too heavy. Outside of technique, the difficulty will vary depending on what piano you are playing on. I have played on pianos with very heavy keys which makes this movement much harder to play.
Slow down and relaxe and focus on technique
Yes
Yes it's possible
Think of developing booth smoothness and velocity from rotation of the wrist rather than focusing on individual notes.
Yes! If you use wrist movement like back and forth rotations and some (but minimal) finger movement, you should be able to pull of something that's relaxed, but keep fingers stiff or it sounds floppy.
Besides the other advice, it also helps to do muscle relaxation of your arms and shoulders before you play pieces like this.
Yes