2

The left and right hand notes do not line up together, so is it safe to say that I should play them separately and not together? The piece in question is called Musique pour la tristesse de xion.

enter image description here

0

3 Answers 3

1

What you have there are groups of six in the RH against groups of four in the LH. In principle, that's the same as groups of three against groups of two, in other words triplets vs duplets - you just have two sets per note grouping.

If you are used to playing triplets in one hand whilst playing duplets in the other, you'll do fine playing them using the same rhythm.

If you are not used to triplets vs duplets, it can take a bit of practice to get used to, so rather than that piece of music you might instead just practice the rhythm of triplets vs duplets playing whatever notes (i.e. not worrying about pitch and just focusing on the rhythm for now - indeed a good way to practice such can be done just by drumming your left and right hands on the piano lid or a table or your legs or whatever so you aren't even worrying about fingers, just focusing on feeling the rhythm in your hands). There are various videos on youtube demonstrating ways of developing triplet vs duplet playing, so searching for those would get you the kind of help you'd then be applying for your piece.

The phrase that helped me was "Nice Cup of Tea" to talk through when the notes of the triplets and duplets sound, like this:

Nice (both notes together) Cup (2nd triplet) of (2nd duplet) Tea (3rd triplet)

That gets you through one triplet/duplet group. 6 vs 4 as in your piece would require you do that twice to get through a group. Which is cool, because if there's one thing better than a nice cup of tea, it's another nice cup of tea right after it.

0

Each beamed group is a beat, and the two hands have a different number of notes within each beat. You’re playing six notes in the right hand while only playing four notes in the left. The result is that the first and fourth note in each beat of the right hand will line up with the first and third note of the left, but the other notes won’t happen at the same time. It’s more or less exactly as notated, the second note of each left hand beat happens in between the second and third note in the right hand, while the fourth note of each left hand beat happens in between the fifth and the sixth of the right hand.

Patterns like this are referred to as polyrhythms. This specific polyrhythm could be called 6 against 4, but would most commonly be called 3 against 2. You’ll want to practice playing three evenly-spaced notes in the right hand while playing two evenly spaced notes in the left until they sound truly independent.

0

Here's a way of thinking about it that helps me.

You are trying to fit a group of 6 notes into the same space as a group of 4 notes.

6 / 4 = 1.5

So your right hand should play 1.5 notes for every note the left hand plays.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.