I'm currently learning Mozart's Piano Sonata in A major (K331 I) and can't for the life of me master the 3 against 4 in the second variation. I know how it works mathematically in theory, and can play it if I play it really slowly, but it still sounds stilted when I play it even a little bit faster. I'm wondering if there is any way for me to practice this, or if it's just one of those things you just get one day? How did all of you pianists master it?

Thanks!

I've just started trying to get 3 vs 2 by playing C major in contrary motion, octaves in one hand, 2 in the other, trying to keep to "Strong cup of Tea" rhythm.

Perhaps you could scale this up to 3 vs 4 octaves, not sure how you'd remember the rhythm, but there is a phrase.

I am also currently learning this piece and had exactly the same problem in the second variation. I too could work it out mathematically and I could play it slowly but it sounded odd and it didn't flow very well. My piano teacher told me to just keep the triplets going at a steady speed and then just let the four semiquavers flow over the top without worrying too much about the 3 vs 4 rhythm.

I don't know whether this is really the correct way to play this type of rhythm but it now sounds a lot better when I play it.

I think it's one of those things that you have to just do non-mathematically, cos that does work at a slow speed but your brain won't up the tempo! Practise each hand seperatey, then set a metronome so that the strong first beat of the bar sounds and just throw it all in... Sounds irresponsible but it works. It might not be perfect first time, but split your brain in half, try not to think too much about it, and it will work. Try to think musically rather than mathematically.

I agree with Dulciana about not doing it mathematically.

Try to think along the lines of "Nice cup of tea" where "nice" "cup" "tea" are the triplet beats and "nice" "of" the duplet ones.

I find the penny suddenly drops with pupils who try this. For practise, tap on your knees. Let one hand tap on the words "nice" "cup" "tea", and the other on "nice" and "of" as you say the phrase. I think that, all of a sudden, your mind will click on this sort of rhythm!

Counting in 6s slowly helped me figure out 3-2. If you do it enough slowly, you dont need to count any more, at which point you can speed it up. 3-4, on the other hand would require counting to twelve, which would get confusing, so i'm not doing too well at it! I read a good phrase on here a while ago, but it wasn't relavant to me at the time, so i forgot it

Well you can always try taping the rhythm first. This takes time to develop. Practice slowly for the start. Good Luck!

8 against 3 is interesting........

I was taught to use the phrase "come, cuckoo, come today", which I've found really helpful & have passed on to my own pupils. I think people are different, but I really need to know what the combined rhythm is for cross rhythms - i can't just split my brain in half.

I don't think cups of tea (nice or strong) work for 3 vs 4 - that's 2 vs 3!

Lots of good advice above. Playing polyrhthms is an important but badly neglected skill in piano teaching. It is usually introduced much too late in the musician's development.

You could fill a small book with helpful rhythmic phrases (I found the best for 3 v 4 to be "What disgusting weather") but eventually you have to master polyrhythms on their own terms. That just means practising the two rhythms independently, synchronized to the main beats, then putting them together. When you can do the different rhythms on autopilot then they WILL go together. Faith, perseverance, practice, ... patience

With different rhythms in each hand it is not too bad. Tougher is playing two parts with a mismatched rhythm in the same hand (e.g. a couple of bars in Chopin's 1st Ballade, the entire first movement of the Moonlight sonata - though almost everyone - famous names included - plays that WRONG!)

There are some good exercises in Brahm's Ubungen, and a good section on polyrhythms in Neuhaus's book. Scriabin's work is full of them. Also frequent in Rachmaninov. Chopin's Nocturnes pose slightly different problems - so called "free" rhthms - many notes in decorative groups.

19 v 23 !

How does this rhythm work exactly?

Thank you to everyone for the helpful replies. I guess I'll just have to slog on and hope that it will eventually click. I don't have much of a problem with 3 against 2s, it's just the 3 against 4s..!

Try this. Don't be put off by the overall difficulty of the piece; I'm only suggesting a couple of bars at a ridiculously slow tempo!

Get hold of a copy of Chopin's fantasie Impromptu - all you need is the first page, and you can probably print it off the internet.

Learn the notes, hands seperately in Bars 3, 4 and 5.

Draw a vertical line to join the notes that will sound together - i.e the four crotchet beats of the bar.

Then play the notes simply in the order that they appear on the page, from left to right, making sure that the four main beats sound exactly together. Nod your head, tap a foot, or put a mentronome on - as slowly as you need to, to make sure you're in time.

Just keep repeating bars 4 and 5 till you've got it!

Since the LH is more or less repeating itself in arpeggios you need only concentrate on the notes in the RH and on the timing. I would suggest not complicating the issue by saying a rhyme as you play; just feel the four-in-a-bar. You might find it easier if you replace the semiquaver rest at the beginning of Bar 4 with the note A.

[quote name='PurePianist' date='Mar 31 2008, 04:14 PM' post='683496']
[quote name='bevpiano' post='683382' date='Mar 31 2008, 11:08 AM']
I was taught to use the phrase "come, cuckoo, come today", which I've found really helpful & have passed on to my own pupils. I think people are different, but I really need to know what the combined rhythm is for cross rhythms - i can't just split my brain in half.
[/quote]

How does this rhythm work exactly?


Try writing the rhythm out first. Suppose the RH has 3 notes & the LH 4, it will go:
Together L R L R L & you assign one syllable to each note. Of course, there are not equal distances apart, so you need to work it out. What I do (& this works for more complicated rhythms as well) is multiply the 2 numbers & then write (in this case ) 12 dots, so the 3s are on the 1st, 5th & 9th dots & the 4s on the 1st, 4th, 7th & 10th dots - then you can see clearly how far apart the notes are & fit the words to it. It might seem very mechanical at first, but I've found it gradually becomes more natural & now I don't have to think about it so much. Try tapping it 1st & then do simple exercises or scales in this rhythm to get used to it.

As someone with a rubbish sense of rhythm who's always given my teachers grey hairs with my apparent inability to count to four, my experience is that I have to attack polyrhythms from two angles. Yes, I do it non-mathematically by learning the notes each hand separately until I can't possibly get them wrong, then putting it together. However, I also work it out mathematically and tap the rhythms as much as I can - usually away from the piano - on the bus, in boring meetings, in bed ... If I do this for a while I eventually get it.

I know of a teacher who can be quoted as saying, "If you have to count it, you shouldn't be playing it." I don't actually hold with that myself, because feeling the pulse, which is what I do, comes to the same thing as counting in numbers, but I think I see what she means, in that 'the way it goes' has to be internalised aurally - and that's what I would mean by 'non-mathematically'. A feeling for which notes fall on the main beat, with the others evenly distributed in between, I feel, is a much better way to appraoch it than with rhymes. Rhymes produce a succession of notes rather than a musical rendition, and the problem of placing the polyrhythm in its context and at the correct tempo still remains. Putting it all together very slowly with a metronome seems to me to be the simplest way to get there.

The way I did it is that I learnt the left hand so well I switched off and focused on the right hand instead, and after a few tries it just works not very useful I am afraid, but probably how most people would do it (everyone who tried Chopin's Op.66 Fantasie Impromptu would also know what I mean)

Good choice of music though! Careful you don't start too fast though otherwise the last variation is a nightmare to play; the idea apparently is to have a gradual accelerando through out the movement, variation by variation.