Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to show you how to make your melody float on water. What am I talking about? You want to be able to have your melody soar above a bed of rippling currents. The accompaniment in the left hand is like the rippling waves, with the melody in the right hand floating above. I’m going to tell you how to achieve this!
You must find really great fingering for the left hand in order to achieve a delicate legato.
The way to discover good fingering is by practicing without the pedal. Support the melody in the right hand with a lot of arm weight, so the melody can be above the accompaniment, and then play with a very fluid legato in the left hand. By playing without the pedal, you can hear what’s involved in this process. You’ll hear the fluidity of the left hand. You have to find fingering that enables that kind of legato.
The other side of this is that you must have a buoyant melody that rises above the accompaniment.
Why is this so difficult? For two reasons. First of all, high notes don’t last very long on the piano compared to low notes. And on top of that, you have more notes in the left hand. The left hand is faster than the right hand, so it’s a double whammy. So you must create an angularity in your balance where the melody is much louder than the accompaniment. But how can you achieve it without making it sound harsh?
The secret is to transfer the weight of the arm smoothly from note to note.
Instead of articulating each separate note, use the weight of the arm to smoothly transfer from key to key achieving a fluid line, like the breath of a singer or the bow of a string player, so each note floats to the next. You can never achieve a smooth line by calculating from note to note. It will end up sounding calculated! When you transfer the weight of the arm smoothly from key to key, you get a fluid line. By doing this, you can play with tremendous energy without getting a harsh sound. Remember, the piano is a percussion instrument. When you’re playing a beautiful melody, how can you make it sound smooth? Use the weight of the arm in the right hand and a smooth left hand that’s very beautiful, but underplayed. Find a fingering where you can play that extreme legato.
Practice incessantly without the pedal so you can find the fingering that enables this.
That is the secret! Find great fingering in the left hand, practice without the pedal, and use the weight of the arm in order to get a smooth line. Try it in your playing! Let us know how it works for you in the comments here at LivingPianos.com and on YouTube! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
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5 thoughts on “How to Make Your Melody Float on Water”
Interesting to note the changes in your hand position, from mostly low with fingers relatively flat, and occasionally higher with fingers more curved. This seems a critical element working together with the arm weight and weight transfer. Could you comment on the he hand positions that you are using. Thank you as always for all of this great advice, especially the idea of practicing legato without the pedal; very useful in the Moonlight Sonata. This raises the question of how to achieve the very very difficult technique of legato sounding the notes in a way that takes advantage of the escapement mechanism on a grand piano. The ability to push notes down successively without raising the fingers more than halfway off the keys so the damper doesn’t fully engage seem close to impossible. Thank you very much for looking at this lengthy comment.
When playing outstretched passages, the fingers can’t be curved because the reach is too great. As long as the joints don’t collapse (so the fingers are bent upward), you can control the sound. The keys must go down in one motion from the very top to the very bottom in order to assure all the notes play. You also overlap the release of notes in order to create the illusion of a true legato which actually has all the notes between the notes on other instruments and singing.
Great advice, thanks!
Ruth emphasized practicing without pedal. She didn’t allow pedal application until one could play well without it. Finger pedaling becomes more obvious when no pedal is used as well.
I will try and consciously use more arm when playing the melody. Though I am sure that I do this naturally, I will use more arm to allow the act to be more mentally applied.
Brahms didn’t even have a sustain pedal on his practice piano!