Breaking down a wall Options

[Gertrude]

Hello!

I am wondering how people are dealing with bars in a piece that seem to be impossible no matter how much it is broken into pieces or how slowly it is taken even hands separate.

I keep working at some bars lately every day for an hour and still I can't play them any faster than a snail's speed with two hands. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif) It feels like trying to take down a wall with a spoon.

For now I "gave up" the hard work and am learning the rest of the piece but will keep spending time on the problem bars hoping that they will finally make sense to my brain - but I would like to hear how other people fight this problem!

[corenfa]

I do run into this - and when i do, I try to ask myself: *why exactly* are those particular bars a problem? Sometimes a bit of musical analysis helps me.

I've just had to learn the Arrival of the Queen of Sheba in a hurry - in two weeks, for a friend's wedding. There was one passage of four bars that I could get up to a certain speed (so I realise - not exactly the same as your problem - but I think the example still may be useful), and no further. It was as though the signals from brain to fingers just totally became rubbish. I wasn't even playing wrong notes that were wrong because my finger slipped one sideways - it completely disintegrated.

I got a bit fedup with this so I tried to see if I could work out what the problem was. In this case, it was because it was an orchestral reduction so the melody was going between the hands. I had not twigged that this was happening, and once I got that, I was able to "predict" what notes came next and it came together pretty quickly. It didn't mean that I didn't then have to practise it a lot some more, but that was what got me over that speed barrier.

I guess this shows me that for me anyway, there are two barriers I have to get over: One is "do I know what is happening musically", and the next is "can I make my fingers move in the right way to make it happen". Sometimes, I can skip the first to get to the second. I couldn't in this case.

I don't know if the same will hold for you, or if it does, which stage you're at, but perhaps it will be a useful different point of view (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)