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This concerto has a few bits where the left hand is doing sets of 4 triplets, and the right hand is playing straight 4/4 time. Does anyone have any hints on how to best practice this to make it feel less confusing?

I am currently trying to key in on the first note of each left hand triplet, in order to make it feel more like 4/4 time. Any other hints? Slowing down only makes it harder to keep the two hand playing correctly, at least right now anyway. I've also tried rigourous hands separate practice to try and get each hand on auto pilot. This isn't working, all though I sense this is the right way.

This section is one where hands separate practice benefited me. You could also try tapping exercises, where you tap out the triplet figure with your left hand against your left knee, and the 4/4 figures with your right hand against your right knee. That helps to separate the ryhthm from the notes so you can focus on the feel of the 3 against 4 parts.

You can count up to 12 in the tapping exercice, and the left hand, which will be playing a triplet, will hit the 1st, 5th, 9th and 1st again...
The right hand will tap in the 1st (so exactly with the left hand, and unfortunately only in this occasion up to the next 1st), 4th, 7th, 10th and then 1st, so on.

So it will be like:
1 . . 4 . . 7 . . 0 . .
1 . . . 5 . . . 9 . . .

I wrote 0 instead of 10 to maintain the grid alligned. At first, you start counting with your voice, and then you try to count silently, so on, you'll try to speed up and count these 12 beats faster. Do a lot, different days, try later to start the beats in your leg without counting to see what it happens... And one time you'll just master it.

I'm not sure I follow you Bernardo. We're dealing with a 4 against 3 here, so its not a case of the notes aligning with different accents. The notes in the 4 against 3 will not align (except for the first one).

I do think the tapping's a good idea. Start slow and work it up. 4 against 3 is one of those things that can be a pain to get, but once you get it it will start to feel natural.

Yes, I know just which measures we're talking about. Fortunately this situation doesn't come up too often in Beethoven (momentarily in the sonatas Op. 10 #1 & 3 and Op. 79), but unlike 2 against 3 (say in the 1st concerto), slow practise doesn't really work.

My advice is to practise hands separately up to speed, then alternate playing the first note of the right hand against the left hand triplets, then the first note of the left hand against the right hand 16ths. Eventually, when you're comfortable, start "slipping in" the extra notes.

Perhaps easier said than done, but Beethoven does help out because: (a) the tempo is fairly quick and (b) the first and third beats are marked "sf" in the left hand, thus implying alle breve- which is how many pianists approach this movement. But be careful with taking this too far: Beethoven intended four beats per measure and alle breve in some editions is a misprint.

Actually, Bernardo's system is one way of working out the exact timing between three against four.

The common denominator of 3 and 4 is 12; therefore, divide each beat into a total of 12 equal micro-beats. The hand playing the triplet will play on beats
1, 4, 7, 10 - (and 1 for the beginning of the next group)
and the hand playing four notes to the beat will play on
1, 5, 9 - and (1 for the beginning of the next group)
Only on the first "real" beat in each hand do the notes actually come together.

Some teachers claim that doing this - as painstakingly picky as it might seem - is the "real" way to understanding the feel of three against four. Others like to go on the "auto-pilot" system, strongly feeling each beat where the notes of the opposing groups come together and then fitting in three notes to the beat in one hand and four notes to the beat in the other.

Regards,

To each his own, I suppose- but whatever works. Just keep in mind, however, that the "painstakingly picky" system advocated by some teachers won't work (or at least not be worth the time) with the more complicated cross rhythms of Chopin, let alone Scriabin.

Yeah, it came to me last night. I got confused thinking he meant to divide the measure into 12 sections instead of dividing the beat into 12 sections. My bad...

While this is of course mathematically correct, I personally fall more into the "auto-pilot" category. 4 against 3 is just something you have to "feel".

Yeah, David got my idea, actually not mine, but of some exercice's book, like Beringer.
I don't like much the idea of autopiloting in such a well known case like 4x3. I'll tell why.
At first, I heard I should just do it with separate hands and then put them all together. They said: Fantaisie-impromptu is so quick that no one will notice… Try to go automatically without thinking too much about it. It’s going to be ok…
I thought that this was a really poor idea. After giving it a shot, I slowed down a little and tried to isolate the left and right hands in my mind, and that sounded ok, in the tempo, the notes spread out correctly. But when you play, it's hard to even eat a piece of chocolate. I find myself many times with a cookie in my mouth for about 5 minutes because I just forget it was there, as I couldn’t deviate my mind a lot of what I was doing, that is, playing.
To correct this, I recorded the slow 4 x 3 performance to hear it without playing at the same time, but I wasn’t sure, I couldn’t tell for sure that was wrong. It was weird thought. I knew that beside the first note, no other will be played together in the beat, but I wasn’t sure where exactly that should be played.
To be sure that simple 4 x 3 performance was good or not, I recorder then hands together, but in different channels, and for my surprise, my left hand was just doing kind of a swing salsa rhythm to finish “a tempo” with the triplet in the right hand so it could begin a new beat together. I was shocked, and so I went to the other method.
Otherwise, if you face something like 14 against 3 (at Chopin’s nocturne op.9 no.3), sure you won’t divide a single beat by it’s smallest common denominator, that would be 42! In this case, you’re auto piloting. Same thing in many weird cases, like Ravel 4 against 5, this would be 20 micro steps in one beat!

Well, that’s it!
I hope that was helpful.

Bernardo

The subdividing by 12 thing is actually pretty clever, and lends itself well to how I learn things. I've been haveing a similar experience as bernardo, except it has been the right hand that has been doing wierd things to "keep up".

Thanks for the ideas, now off to the piano!