Piano Forum

Well, playing scalar lines mixed with wide jumps has been my bugbear for a long time.

Still haven't got the Chopin Op. 10 no 3 (G major) working, but it's coming along.

I have a fondness for Moszkowski's G minor étude -- it really works 345 in the LH, but I have no interest in playing it as an entire piece.  Just the bits that can help me.  Not that the sections beyond the "A" part aren't worthwhile and interesting, just a matter of concentrating on what I need technical woodshedding on -- can't do it all.

As a concert piece, I'd play that any day over the Revolutionary Étude, it's just fresher to my ear.

Beyond that, just scalar work, like Czerny's Op. 740 no. 5. That one's all cribbed out of real Beethoven repertoire, but you don't need as much brain power to play it. See the *Diabelli*, for example, for loads of examples where Czerny took a Beethoven pattern and just made it into a little exercise.

It takes me a long time to decide on an approach an execute it, but for me, that modest set, coupled with just scales and things like Beethoven's Op. 27 #1 (1st movement Allegro section, and last movement) sort of keeps me moving forward.

I guess it doesn't make much too much of a difference, so long as it's musical and is something you can work progressively on w/ LH.

No neg on the "Revolutionary Étude" -- I know somebody who worked hard on that and wouldn't have done the Moszkowski, just because...I don't know, he liked the piece for some reason and/or wanted to have that in his book.  Couldn't pay me enough to play it, AND YET, I still do the octave runs from time to time...I don't know, just to prove I could if I had a head injury and missed Wapner in 10 minutes.  It's not its raw techique, it's just deceptively long and tedious (IMHO!), and I'd rather just play a boogie/rock and roll than spend time on a piece I have heard more than enough times to last a lifetime.



///ETA yeah, in a completely different vein, just screwing around, I like to play jazz heads, like various rhythm-changes tunes (Eternal Triangle, Anthropology, Oleo) or simple ones like "Parisian Thoroughfare" in the LH and occasionally make an exercise out of it, like, I'll drop one melody note in the RH and try to keep the LH going without dropping a beat.  

That could probably apply to any kind of scalar/melodic pattern.  

Not great at it, but it's entertaining and gives the brain some little task to do.

EETA And I wouldn't discount some of the running LH passages in various, even to having  quick glance at the Bach-Busoni Chorale-Preludes.

Even just the second movement from Beethoven's Op. 26 -- maybe a little elementary, but that's IMHO straight out of Bach, like you see in some of the later Beethoven.  From there, who knows?  That could be a feature of your own improvisation someday.  Certainly a legitmate style.