Should You Play Your Melody Notes Slightly Late?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The question today is about why you should play your melody notes slightly late. What am I talking about? You have to play in rhythm, don’t you? What I’m talking about is something extremely subtle. It’s an expressive element utilized mostly in Romantic period music. It used to be much more popular in the early part of the 20th century.

In this video, I exaggerate by playing every single melody note late in the famous E-flat Nocturne of Chopin.

First I play it straight, where the notes are played exactly together, then I play all the melody notes slightly after the bass notes. You can hear the difference between the two examples in the video. Of course, delaying every melody note is excessive, but there is a certain beauty to it. And there is actually a physical reason why this makes some sense, if done in a very subtle manner.

The sound waves of low notes are slower than the sound waves of high notes.

Because of this, the high notes will reach your ears just a fraction of a second sooner than the low notes when they’re played precisely together. It takes a little time for the low notes to swell. If you listen to the sound of one low note alone, it takes a moment for it to reach full volume. But high notes are at full volume right away. But there’s more to it than that.

This technique adds expressiveness to your playing.

When every melody note is delayed, it’s excessive. It’s a mannerism that becomes predictable, and it’s distracting from the music. But if you just do it occasionally on certain notes to add an expressive element, you can end up with something quite beautiful. It’s like seasoning your food. A little spice in a dish can go a long way, but if you use too much, you can’t appreciate all the subtle flavors of the meal. It’s the same thing with an expressive device like this. Listen to some early 20th-century great pianists, and you will hear that this expressive technique was certainly overused by today’s standards. But pianists today still utilize this technique in performance. The only time it becomes offensive is when it’s predictable. If it’s done right, you don’t even notice it’s happening!

Try it out for yourself and see how it works!

I’m very interested in what all of you think about this. Let me know how this technique works for you in the comments! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.