Welcome to the Piano World Piano Forums Over 3 million posts about pianos, digital pianos, and all types of keyboard instruments. Over 100,000 members from around the world.
Join the World's Largest Community of Piano Lovers
(it's free)
It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
It's actually not as hard as it looks. You just have to turn your fingers out so they glide better, and then hold your hand firm so you don't switch intervals.
If he's using his thumb, that's significantly harder. I wouldn't use that fingering for a full chord. 235 is easier.
Every day we are afforded a new chance. The problem with life is not that you run out of chances. In the end, what you run out of are days.
It doesn't sound to me like a glissando. The tempo seems much to even and each chord sounds deliberately pressed. Also, his hand seems to be ever-so-slightly moving up and down.
Looks to me like his fingers that are sticking out are shaking because of the impact of the side of the keys while doing the glissando. There's no excess tension there.
It's definitely a glissando. When you play them slow enough and evenly enough, it does sound like each key is being deliberately pressed. It's basically an "effect", for lack of a better term. Trouble is, we're so used to hearing what I'll call the "rock 'n roll" glissando, which is extremely fast and you can't discern individual notes, that we're predisposed to thinking that's the only type of glissando out there.
Kuan- Richter does what with his hands?? Any chance you can find a video of it? I think I'd really like to see that! Are we talking total palm up, wrist up, fingers up, or is it more of a vertical wrist (thumb up, pinky down), and then a sort of "cupping" of the hand to get multiple fingers onto the keys? The former is very intriguing because I've never seen that done. The latter is a little closer to what I suggested in my original post.
Every day we are afforded a new chance. The problem with life is not that you run out of chances. In the end, what you run out of are days.
He plays with his palms up, so he takes the glissando using 3-2 (with his right hand! not 2-3). I've tried this while playing around with this section and it's quite comfortable for the glissandi going up. Try it out!
Last edited by Kuanpiano; 06/25/1307:56 PM.
Working on: Chopin - Nocturne op. 48 no.1 Debussy - Images Book II
Ah, okay. That's similar to what I do, but I don't think I ever turned the hand over so far for a multi-note glissando. I might have to try it, though.
(For some reason, I had this image in my mind of his wrist "up" -- take the normal playing position, and turn the hand over palm up. Somehow thought he was playing "upside down" )
When I do glissandos, I usually use the back of my 3rd finger alone and/or 34, on the nail. On the way down, thumb nail. Helps prevent injury/cuts/bleeding on sharp-edged keys. First figured it out on an old player upright with thin ivory keys that had edges like razors.
Every day we are afforded a new chance. The problem with life is not that you run out of chances. In the end, what you run out of are days.
For me the nail slides much better, that's why rotating the hand upside down works nice.
I had a piece of Rameau that asked for octave glissando at the end. There the upside down trick doesn't work because the fingers need to point in the opposite direction. Only way to do it seemed to curl the thumb with nail down and I could never get enough control that way. So I ended up playing out the glissando with two hands...
)
![[Linked Image]](https://www.pianoworld.com/Uploads/files/RedDotMedalSmall.jpg)