Hey all,

I got home last night and thought I'd play through some of the new stuff I bought but had a bit of a confusing moment in John Field's Nocturne in Bb (what a lovely piece btw!).

There's a passage where it's 8 vs 5 6 quavers. Can anyone offer any ideas as to how I can get this anywhere near right?

I've tackled 3v2, 5v2, 7v2, 10v2, 5v3 before, but can't get my head around this at all.. I tried drawing faint lines down to extend the tails on the sheet and I still can't get it to sound "right". Is there something I should know to get over the hurdle of tackling these kind of things?

Thanks!

Lots of people have difficulties with these, right from simple 3 against 2, to more complex ones, though I have usually managed them OK , and indeed I play this Nocturne. But I dont think theres an easy way to do 8 against 5. The notes should have equal value , so none of the right hand notes (other than the first) coincide with a left hand note, or even come midway between two left hand notes. It really is just a case of playing 8 notes in the bar with one hand and five with the other, and a lot of practice !
Chopin Noctures have a few too, eg end of the D flat one (Op27 No2) has two consecutive groups of 7 against 6. The 48 against 12 (a few bars before), though fits perfectly OK , despite is rapidity !

Hrm... In that case I might see if I can program it into Sibelius, and have it play at a ridiculously slow rate, maybe that will help.

This seems to be an exercise in mental separation of hands more than anything. I can play the correct amount of notes to a metronome hands separately, but HT just turns into a jumbled mess!

Actually Sol, I think its harder to do it slowly than quicker ! But yes , it is rather a mental thing !

There is a way to get to grips with 8 over 5, but it's not exactly easy...

What you need to do is to divide the beat into 8x5 = 40 units, and then work from that. You would then have to count it out in 8's, and accent every 5th beat:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

In this counting scheme, every 1 represents the quaver pulse, and every fifth (accented) beat is the tuplet against it. The trick is to practice it enough to get the feel of the rhythm, and then work it up to speed.

Hope this helps!

Actually I think it's 8v6, I'm at work so didn't have the score handy, but that still makes it no easier!

Found it on IMSLP:

http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/4/43..._-_nocturne.pdf

Page 2, bar 6 Ah well, trying to get that right will keep me busy tonight!

But the above is great, thanks, Mosschops I'll try to adapt that to 8v6

On an unrelated note, I found the book I got very educational, and it's easy to see how Chopin was influenced by this style and also how he "refined" it

Yes you're right it is 8 v 6 (I didnt have score with me either) , that's much easier than 8 v 5, as you can think of it as 4 v 3 twice over. Using Mosschops idea, you only have to split it into 12.

Hurrah... I'm almost there now... Thanks for the advice. I think this will probably be ready for the playday next month.

I absolutely love this piece! What a great buy this book was!

One more tip. With 4 in one hand and 3 in the other, the most important thing is to get the sequence of L and R actions correct. The actual lengths of the notes does not matter so much - that sorts itself out when the sequence has become fluent.

I thought I'd share this snippet... it works



Source: http://kantsmusictuition.blogspot.com/2007...ree-rhythm.html