This education blog shares various horizons of music in order to promote sustainable development of music education. Being devoted to music education for 19 years, Carol Ng has established her private studio at Adelaide, South Australia with an examination-standard Yamaha grand piano. In addition, Carol is keen on enlightening the next generation and advocating continuous advancement of music industry.

教育BLOG旨在推廣音樂教育發展,讓更多人認識不同的音樂領域;吳老師投身音樂教育十九年,於南澳洲的阿得萊德開設私人教室,並採用符合考試標準之Yamaha 三角琴教學,致力培育新一代音樂學好者及推動音樂行業的持續發展。

2014年5月18日 星期日

Slur Technique


© Richard Beauchamp — Jan. 1999

From the moment most pupils meet their first slurs — perhaps in Steibelt’s little Adagio
in A Minor or Beethoven’s Sonatina in G, they regard them as boring and outdated
stylistic effects, encumbrances put into the music by quill happy composers
intent on making their works look more interesting on paper and progress more
difficult for the student. Very often all the teacher is able to get across to the reluctant
pupil is that the second note should usually be softer than the first and somewhat
shorter than written. In fact, not only do slurs help to make the music dance, breathe
and ‘speak,’ they are also an opportunity to get something right early on that will
later enable the student to play some of the most ‘difficult’ music by Brahms,
Rachmaninoff and Liszt. It is not uncommon to find professional pianists who
experience difficulty in playing “Auf dem Wasser zu singen” by Schubert,
the second movement of the Sonata for Violin and Piano by César Franck, the
 seemingly impossible changes of hand position in the Coda from Brahms’ second
piano concerto, or even the beginning of the Sonata in D Minor Op 31 No 2, known
as “The Tempest,” by Beethoven, all of which have difficulties directly related
to slur technique.

slur example

Pianists sometimes change fingers on all the ‘repeated’ notes, but this can sound clumsy as it is more difficult to
control the tone, and is, in any case, unnecessary if slur technique has been correctly learned.

slur example
It’s the repeated Cs and Ds etc. that cause the trouble. The first C should be played as the end of a slur (B natural - C) and the second C as if it was the begining of another slur — but without the arm lift on the next note, because of the continuity of the passage. Similarly with the two Ds etc.

The given fingering is the most satisfactory. Changing fingers on the repeated notes makes it more difficult to control the tone and leads to a tight technique.

slur example

slur example




    A great treasure to be found in slur technique is in learning to relax quickly — not something most of us

think of doing fast! — thereby giving the muscles freedom to re shape
the hand for the next action and for the arm to prepare another downward stroke. Once this relaxation becomes a learned reflex it can be compressed into a
 seemingly infinitely small period of time so that it does not interrupt the flow of the music.

Practising slur technique

The principle of exaggeration is often useful in learning a new reflex, so I start the pupil off with large movements and slow slurs to make time for them.
To avoid ambiguity, here are some photos to illustrate what I mean by ‘low wrist’ and ‘high wrist.’ NOTE: The way the arm slopes is irrelevant, it is the angle at the wrist that is significant.



This is a low wrist position: Low wrist position and this, a high wrist position: High wrist position




Starting with a two note slur, fingered 3,2, in the right hand, get the pupil to form the low wrist position and
raise the hand to about chin height. Then drop onto the first note, maintaining the low wrist position. Next
relax the wrist and play the second note as the arm is raised. It is very important to get this timing right
as many pupils play the note first and then raise the arm, thereby wasting time by making two movements
in place of one, and many others raise the wrist before playing the second note which is a waste of
 the movement. As the arm is raised, the wrist will assume the high position (if it is relaxed) and the
 hand will hang from it. “Dead fish” or “limp rag” seem to be helpful images! It is vitally important
 to get this stage correct, with the hand hanging limply the instant the arm is raised, or the quick
 relaxation needed for virtuoso playing can not be developed. Now continue to raise the arm very slightly
 and at the same time bring the hand up to form the low wrist position again in preparation for the
 next slur. (This is necessary because we are slowing down what will, at speed, become a ballistic
 movement. Momentum will cause the hand to continue upwards after the arm starts to come
 down.) The pupil will by now be convinced that you have reached new heights of insanity in imagining
 that the piano can be played in this manner, but you can demonstrate how the movement becomes
 smaller as you increase the speed. I usually find a quick burst from the opening of “The Tempest”
 does the trick. At the fastest speeds the movement is barely discernable, but, if the relaxation
 reflex has been properly trained, the muscles still have time to prepare the next shapes with comfort
 and freedom.

These slurs can be practised upward and downwards with each pair of fingers. Note that the second note

does not have to be softer. You can give it an accent by ‘kicking off’ or by pushing forwards with your
arm as you play it.

Next, three note slurs can be practised with various fingerings and patterns. Land on the first note,

‘walk’ to the next note (keeping the low wrist position) and lift off on the third note. This gives a
natural diminuendo through the three notes.

Do the same with four notes. Land on the first, walk to the second, walk to the third whilst reducing

the weight and lift off on the fourth. It is important to save the lift for the last note. Once again
this gives a different dynamic for each note. (You can, of course, do any of these slurs with or
without a diminuendo as required.) When you have mastered this technique, those passages (e.g. in
Mozart) where a group of notes begins by repeating a note or finger, will give you no trouble at all.
The two notes do not feel as though they are repeated. Rather, the first is the end of an action
and the next the begining of one — like notes that are separated by the end of an up bow and the
begining of a down bow on a stringed instrument.

With five notes, land on the first, walk to the second, reduce the weight on the third, lift very slightly on

 the fourth and lift off completely on the fifth.


slur example

slur example





Arm phrasing

A very useful spin off from all this practice is that the pupil will have learned how to phrase with arm weight.

Simply lower the arm as the notes get louder and raise it as they become softer. This is a beautifully natural way to phrase and brings to life the playing of many pupils who have previously been unaware of arm phrasing. String players will quickly catch on to the advantages of this technique as it is so like the phrasing they do when they add or take away weight in the bow arm.

When watching a pianist play in this way, the hands appear to perform a dance which articulates the music, as would be the case in this example.

slur example      from "Musicians' Health"

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