Hi guys! I'm learning Liebestraum (the third one), and I was going fine until I encountered this long chromatic like passage coming down in 3rds. It's at bar 61, I'm okay playing the right hand but playing the left hand is... not working for me. How would you practice this? My teacher suggested playing each note double.


So... Any suggestions??

Brandon.

Hi Brandon,
I don't have the score near me, so I'm not sure of the exact passage, but I kind of recall it. Your teacher's suggestion of playing each note twice will help. Some other practice techniques are:

- Breaking down the passage into small groups of notes -- for example, you could work on each group of 4 notes separately. Play the first four notes, pause, play the next four notes, pause, etc, until the end of the passage. Once this is feeling easier, make your groups bigger -- play 6 or 8 notes in a row before pausing. Keep doing this until you are able to play the whole passage without stopping.

- Applying different rhythms to the passage. Instead of all equal values, play the passage as half-note quarter quarter. Then change it up -- quarter quarter half-note. Or quarter half-note quarter. As you work up speed, you can think of the rhythms in sixteenths instead of quarters (two sixteenths followed by an eighth, and other variations).

Two important things are:
- SLOW practice -- get it right at a speed you can handle instead of fumbling through the passage at the prescribed speed.
- consistent fingering -- work out the best fingering for the passage and then always practice using the exact same fingering

What do you mean by "each note double"?
LadyChen has understood it to be a condensed version of the old 4-3-2-1 trick, playing four of each note, then three, etc.
My immediate response would be each pair played as a double third (either repeated with each RH note or every alt. RH note). This is a simple minor third chromatic scale perhaps with altered fingering.
If LadyChen's advice isn't helping, you might try amplifying what you mean by "not working for me".

Edit: by a 'simple' minor third chromatic scale I mean an unaltered one!

I think I know because it's a tool that one of my teachers recommended (which I find very helpful) and she used the same term.

It meant striking each note or chord twice.

That was my understanding as well.

It's been a long time since I last played it, but I remember that passage, and how I mastered it (without asking my teacher - it was one of the pieces I learnt to play for myself simply because I liked it). I treated it as a purely technical exercise, like scales, at first accenting all the notes on the beat using a fingering that suited me, then practising just that passage endlessly (while thinking of dinner...) at a slow speed until it was fully ingrained into my muscle memory, when I then speeded it up gradually, and put it together with the RH.

This is the way I approach all similar passages of this nature: others might have methods that work better for them.

Mark C and Lady Chen,
Yep! That's what I went on to say.

A condensed version of the old 4-3-2-1 trick.

Perhaps I should have I have learned it as an extended version of the 'double' trick!

But thank you, never-the-less.

I know! Just adding a vote.

I've actually never heard of the 4-3-2-1 trick. Or.. it's possible that my teacher mentioned it to me when I was a teenager and i failed to "hear" her because it sounded like too much work! lol

Really, we all know what it's like to struggle with a difficult passage. There is a LH scale passage in one my my sonatas that gets me every time. I spent hours using all the techniques mentioned here and others (my husband was ready to throw me and the piano out of the house..), and then went to my lesson and of course messed it up again. And then my teacher says, "You need to break it down into different little rhythms.. blah blah blah" and I tried not to explode with rage and frustration . Oh the joys of this wonderful instrument...

Me neither, and it strikes me as mostly a waste of time (and needlessly complex), compared to just "doubling."

I've sometimes done a tiny bit of "tripling" or "quadrupling" to help making a tough passage extra-secure, but even in those cases "doubling" is most of what I do, and I think in most instances doubling is plenty.

What she said.

This is the most important thing IMO. Resist the urge to play it up to tempo. Always play it at a speed you can do accurately. Always practice it under tempo. The speed will come.

Liszt Consolation 3 ... m63

Sorry chaps ... but must question the doubling of notes to m63 ...
presumably to avoid having to play the full small chord.

Splitting the measure into 8 ... the method works for
F, Db and Bb but comes unstuck at the next “doubling”
which doesn’t line up ... the notes being Gb and Ab.

The thread is about the 3rd of the Liebesträume, not the Consolations.

Thanks currawong ... as usual I've gone off half-cocked ... must check my specs ... duck everybody!!

Here, try mine
~O^O~

Liebestraume no. 3 by Liszt ... measure 61

Minor third chromatic passage (cascade) in both hands (thanks zrtf90) ... but a bit tricky, in that the meshing product of LH and RH hands (looks a bit like my electric hedge clippers ... mind your fingers)

although consistent in pattern, has the RH chiming alternately at a spread of 4.5 and 1 whole tones to the LH ... sadly the only way to get the dratted passage right is to do what the other chaps suggest and slowly build up a separate hand action to eventually mesh the two hands.

http://www.pianoworld.com/Uploads/files/m61liebestraume.JPG

It does seem a waste of time but it is more active than VERY slow playing (which I also use) and helps memorising.

Thank you all! I've tried all the points suggested and gradually found myself playing the passage easier. Good points LadyChen! I always have to fight the tendency to speed up and try to get it quickly, I guess slow practise in this passage will be the best option.

What exactly is the 4-3-2-1 trick?

Maybe when i'm confident enough i'll record my playing and post it here!

Don't worry about it.
BTW it's not a 'trick,' just a method, and IMO not one worth worrying about.

Just do the doubling.

Glad to hear you're making progress and I look forward to hearing a recording some day!

This is quite a difficult passage and takes a lot of practice to get. The LH is playing descending chromatic minor thirds, and the RH descending chromatic major thirds.

I practice this by going both directions hands separately.. IOW, down and up with the left hand, then the right. Then I change the LH to major thirds and the right to minor... IOW, reversing roles, so to speak. And I do short little groups of 4, then five, both up and down. Then on top of this, you should learn to play non-broken chromatic thirds (which is the same fingering as the broken), both major and minor,both hands up and down.

Since the passage starts in an awkward position for the LH, first learn it in a lower register so you get the correct feel and momentum of it.

This thing just takes a lot of time and effort. But once you have it, especially if you practice all the permutations I mention, then if you ever encounter this or something similar in any piece, you really won't have to practice it much.

Liszt LOVED these types of passages, and his works are full of all sorts of complicated chromatic articulated passages.