Why is this sequence such a challenge?

[Happy girl]

This exercise is from the Palmer Hughes Recital Book 3 - page 14- JUST A SONG AT TWILIGHT

What I seem unable to master, (& I have been practising & going back to it for weeks now) is the treble chord sequence. Subsequent treble sequences in the book create no challenge so it is puzzling to me where the blockage is. I recognise that my reading capacity is not up to playing at speed. but I can’t even manage a coherent effort as I need to read every note.

I can usually find a logical sequence to a new piece which helps enormously, but I somehow can’t fathom this.

With which method would a teacher ask a student to practice an exercise which, in essence, appears to be too difficult for the student, but is in fact part of a structured piece of learning which theoretically should be achievable without too much huffing &
puffing?

I did hesitate to submit this post; I suspect the answer is practice, practice & more practice, but without guidance & advice, the danger could be to keep practicing the same routine of mistakes

 

[goldtopia]

Its not really as difficult as it looks. The answer is to practice it slowly as you are doing and it will be mastered in a short time. Its a slow tune anyway which would make it easier. It looks like its from a good instruction book as it makes you look at the note values.

 

[MothersR]

Hi

I suspect part of the problem here is that the rhythm appears to be being maintained predominantly in the right hand and the left is doing some other complementary movement. Typically we novices do this the other way around. I suspect that's why there's tenuto marks in the bass to ensure you play the correct values. On the face of it the piece does seem quite straightforward but the first three and the last three bars are the usual way around for rhythm and accompaniment whereas all the in between bars have this reversed. Channelling my teacher I'd say practice both hands independently and slowly before bringing them together just to get it into your fingers a little easier.

keep going it'll click and you'll wonder what all the fuss was about.

Bob

 

[Soulsaver]

Yep - I find bits that appear easy and prove irrationally difficult and can bog me down for weeks on a piece - doesn't fit a pattern in our mind map or something - but they deffo occur... and how frustrating. In addition to Bob's suggestions, if still struggling, I'm inclined say leave it to sink in for a week or so and then go back to it.
But you may have tried that; also it's not what my teach would do either - he'd keep me on it and give me something else as well!

 

[george garside]

I agree with Bill about practicing tricky bits slowly and if necessary separate to playing the full tune.

However as this thread is under the heading of 'British Folk Music' I would make the point that whilst its fine to follow the dots precisely, if that's what floats your boat, it is the norm in the folk/trad genre to use dots merely to provide an outline of a tune which is then added to be careful listening and experimenting to put your own stamp on it.

This can entail replacing written right hand chords with single notes or maybe different chords, changing the length of notes, paying particular attention to phrasing and dynamics,'' playing the gaps'' and all sorts of subtleties that cannot be indicated by dots. The dots posted are not necessarily the or indeed a 'correct' way of playing it being simply one persons arrangement thereof.

George

 

[Soulsaver]

If you plan to be able to read music & play it, as my teach would say, learn to play what's written first.. Then, when you can play what's written, you can play it how you like. It's worth persevering because you'll come across the same/similar arrangements again.
But if it gets too frustrating, move on - you'll grow. Make a note to come back, in a few months if necessary, and I'll bet you can play it ... little-to-no problemo.

 

[fjsys]

Just to echo and add to what has been said.

What I would do approaching that sequence is to practice the left hand until I could put it on auto-pilot, then add the right hand slowly.
The second thing that I would do is to practice the jumps such as the 124 to 135 until I could do them without missing. Remembering to analyze them in your mind. I often say to myself "OK the 124 with the 4 sharp to the 135 with the 3 sharp my 1 ends up where my 2 was and my 3 ends up where my 4 was and my 5 should fall naturally on the b" and do this with each change.
The last thing that I would do (however my teacher would like it to be the first thing) is to count it out loud as I was playing. My teacher feels that there is something about yelling the 1 and 2, 3 to the room that helps. While I am not entirely sure I buy into his theory, i have to admit sometimes it works.

Another note on bass fingering, personally I would put my 2nd on the first G in the bass run, unless I was playing next A in the bass row with my second rather than in the counter. Are you hitting the A in the counter with your 5th or 4th. That is quite the reach/jump to do 3-4 on that first sequence.

HTH
Ben

 

[Happy girl]

Thank you, I have tried the suggestions mentioned with the exception of the ad lib bit, simply because it does float my boat to play as written; I will just have to leave it for a while as Soulsaver suggests.

I have no problem with the left hand melody; I use my little finger as much as possible because it is incorporated into the bass scale fingering & therefore quite easy.

As a novice I am puzzled at the way one is advised to practice until the piece becomes automatic. I wonder if this method has any relation to, or differs from, learning a piece parrot fashion?

 

[Anyanka]

I'd use a completely different practise strategy to those suggested previously - perhaps it suits you too. The analytical approach does not work for me, so I'd have to work on getting the feel for the whole piece. I'd not play complete chords to start with but only 2 out of the 3 notes, using the correct fingering though. It means having to keep less information in your head, and the third finger should be easy to add in later: it might even 'fall into place' automatically after a while.

re 'practising until it becomes automatic' - in my practice, this means that the fingers automatically go to the right place, which is not the same as playing like an automaton (or parrot fashion), i.e. without feeling. Au contraire, one can only play with proper expression once the conscious effort is no longer necessary.

 

[Happy girl]

Thank you Anyanka, sounds like good method; I can see this working for me.

 

[george garside]

As Anyanka has said ,definitely not Parrot fashion. I also agree with initialy playing 2 rather than 3 notes of the chords or maybe just the highest note to begin with then 2 - then 3.

To me becoming familier with, learning ( or whatever) a tune is a completely different process to learning to play the instrument well.

A tune is properly 'learned' when it is firmly implanted in the long term memory sufficiently well to be able to sing, hum or whistle it.

learning to play an instrument ( any) is when, through very thorough scale practice and other learning techniques eg playing a tune in several different keys on the hoof is achieved.

The latter is just as important to the dot reader as the by earist and many players underperform because they may be brilliant readers or earists but lack the autonomic manual dexterity to get on with what they have stored either in the head or on paper.

Singers on the other hand don't seam to have this problem as most of us know exactly how to operate the gob to get a particular sound out of it!

So the aim should be to either read it or remember it and then get on with playing it without conscious thought as to where the fingers are going or indeed need to go

Perhaps, very much as a generalisation, folk/trad musicans are better at this because it is in many ways the norm to play from memory so they tend to only play tunes they already ''know''. The 'hybrid' players eg those who an read the dots for any tune they already know also tend to have less difficulty in playing -transposing on the hoof i.e dots in C,A or whatever will be read as highers and lowers rather than named notes.

As to learning different scales I recommend this exercise :

Shut eyes - randomly put thumb of any key - then work out the scale for the key starting on the chosen note . In doing this use do re me etcl as with the eyes shut you don't know which 'keynote' you started on anyway. Its surprising how quickly students get the hang of this and it takes away much of the 'fear' of progressing/learning 'new' keys.

george

 

[skyboltone]

As Anyanka has said ,definitely not Parrot fashion. I also agree with initially playing 2 rather than 3 notes of the chords or maybe just the highest note to begin with then 2 - then 3.

I agree with you 99% George. But I wonder why in heck would you want to learn the top note in a chord first? Seems to me, if you're going to be skipping the full handful you ought to play the root. Whatever that might be.

Just thinking out loud you know?

Dan

 

[Glenn]

A simple question Happy Girl, can you play the treble chords separately without the bass?
If you cannot yet do this then playing together is perhaps futile apart from firmlng up the rhythm.

I too have block chord issues at times and one thing I try is to alter the position of my hand.
Sound silly but just trying again with the wrist lowered or at a slightly different angle sometimes helps me from stumbling over certain progressions.

 

[BobM]

But I wonder why in heck would you want to learn the top note in a chord first? Seems to me, if youre going to be skipping the full handful you ought to play the root. Whatever that might be.

Just thinking out loud you know?

Dan

Because chords have guide tones, which are notes in the chord which define it; make it a maj, min, 7th chord etc. A 7th chord will often work with just a 3rd, which makes it major, and the flat 7th.

In this instance the top line is playing the 5th and moving to the 7th (of G7) back to the 5th and then 3rd (of E7) which in conjunction with the melody in the bass is enough the imply the chords.

Happy Girl, Id rest this piece and learn those few RH only chords as an entirely separate task, and when you can play them in your sleep then put it all together.