I'm having truoble playing this piece, particularly the 3rd movement. I tried to play this piece a few years ago but I gave up. I'm thinking about giving the song another try. My mainly problem is the beginning, my fingers keep getting tangled up, and I tried my own fingering as well as theirs. Any advice?

I don't have a real advice. All I can say is that the difficulty of the 3rd mvmt is orders of magnitude above the first two movements, so I'd say, if you have the lightest difficulty with the other two movements, you need some more years of practice to cope with the 3rd :p

If you want to impress girls, concentrate your energy on the 1st movement

SR

KrazyPaul-

Do you have a piano teacher? If you have one. he/she can guide you on this issue. It's hard to know if you're ready for it or not without us hearing you!
Perhaps the problem is you are trying to play it too fast without really having the notes in your muscle memory?
I would highly suggest, and I know this is going to be hard, but who said piano was easy?- You need to knock the tempo WAY DOWN, and play it SLOWLY for a couple of weeks. The temptation to fly through it is strong, I know- but just resist, and I bet that many of your problems will clear up.

P.S- just a gentle reminder that when you refer to music that doesn't have words to it (ie, a beethoven sonata), it is called a "piece" instead of a "song". It's easy to get them mixed up, so don't worry! But just letting you know for next time...

When I got to those octaves where you have to trill with your fourth and fifth fingers I knew I was out of my league.

If it is the opening that is giving you trouble then you need to practice broken chords (in the right hand in particular). Play these in all keys and include other chords like dominant 7ths, diminished 7ths, etc. Play them at a tempo that you can manage, i.e. get all the notes and rhythm right and slowly build up the speed. The technical level of the 3rd movement is definately above that of the 1st. It took me quite a few years of development for me to come back and attempt the 3rd movement.

I see. More specifially, when I do get the piece going, I record myself. I often find myself off tempo and going faster than it normally should. I guess because I am leaving out a few notes incidentally trying to maintain the correct tempo.

So i will take your advice and start out slow.

It may be a good idea to do another, easier sonata, then you will come back to this 3rd movement in a lot better condition to tackle it without problems.

I have found recently, after years of neglecting usage of the metronome, that slowing the metronome down (waaay down) and practicing precise rythms that way helps very much when speeding up slowly. Do that for a few days, start at the lowest metronome setting and set a reasonable goal for yourself-that is, a place in the music to where you want to play, and the highest metronome marking you wish to achieve in your practice for that day. Slowly build your way up the metronome...as a rule I count out 10 repetitions at each setting, even though i usually do far more than that (but that's usually only 16 or so measures from the Goldberg Variations). If you reach your goal and have time I'd recommend going back down at least a little bit to ensure security. Also, I would highly recommend doing hands-seperate practice like this for three or four days before starting hands-together. It may seem dull and boring but it sure has worked wonders for me.

I agree wholeheartedly with Goldberg.

The metronome is an indispensible tool...use it!!!!!

Practice the broken chords as blocked chords first, and yeah, slowly.

I heard a great method for studying the third movement posted up at least a year ago (can't remember who did it):

What they basically did was to photocopy the piece, cut it up into sections (the opening arpeggios, the 2nd theme, the tremolo bit, etc) and put them in a pile called 'unfinished'. During practice they would pull out one section and just work on it. If you're happy with it in the end, put it in a different pile, 'satsifactory'. Keep working until all the fragments have moved (if you can't get ia fragment one day, just put it back) Then, start with the 'satisfactory' pile until they're all in a 'finished' pile. Bingo. (Well, something like that, I can't find the thread).

Good luck!

Peter

I definitely heard that!!!