Don't understandard finger in one music

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hannibal
Posts: 14

Post by hannibal »

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to learn piano with synthesia.
I practice from 2 weeks now and I'm currently working on letter fur elise in easy mode.

I don't understand this:
Image


Why I should change my hand here ? It's very easier to just continue to use the right hand.

Thanks in advance for your help ;)
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jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

That is a very good question.

One answer to your question is that it is difficult to learn piano from Synthesia. Synthesia is a practice tool, not a tutorial. The best way to learn is from a teacher who can see what you are doing and give you exercises and explanations tailored to your needs. If that is not possible, a self-study course that provides explanations along with music can be used. Synthesia by itself will leave you with many questions and allow you to develop bad habits.

But to try to answer your question, first you have to understand that the piece you are playing is a simplification of Für Elise arranged by Gilbert DeBenedetti to give a beginner the feeling of playing a piano classic. Next you have to understand that piano fingering is not absolute; it can lead to sometimes furious debates about how it is best done. My guess is the fingering for Für Elise should be chosen to emphasize the phrasing of the piece. (But I have never studied Für Elise with a piano teacher.) Groups of notes that are played with the same hand tend to flow together more easily than those that are split between the hands. Sometimes one chooses a less obvious fingering that produces a better sound.

That said, I don't think the fingering shown by Synthesia is correct. This is a link to the sheet music and videos from DeBenedetti's G Major Music Theory website:
http://gmajormusictheory.org/Freebies/freebies1.html
As is typical of beginner pieces, DeBenedetti has arranged the piece so that both hands play in a fixed 5 finger position. Right hand thumb is on middle C and the remaining fingers play notes that naturally fall under the finger. You do have to change from white to black keys with the same finger. Left hand thumb is on G below middle C and the remaining fingers are on the notes naturally under the fingers. I disagree with DeBenedetti's decision to write the long notes as dotted half notes. I think writing them as quarter notes would be a better reflection of the original.

So you are correct that DeBenedetti intended for you to play those repeated notes with your right hand, not the left as shown by Synthesia. But when you get to the real Für Elise, which won't be for some time, the fingering will have little resemblance to what you are doing now. If you weren't a beginner, a teacher might have you play blue notes 4-6 in your screenshot with the right hand to get more of the feel of the real piece with 3 note phrases in the left hand answered by 4 note phrases in the right hand. This shows the phrasing I am suggesting:
FurElise.png
FurElise.png (116.14 KiB) Viewed 33240 times
But for now, play the first two green eighth notes with your left hand and the third eighth note with your right. Do shorten those long notes to quarter notes so you can restrike the note as an eighth as part of the four note phrase.
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
hannibal
Posts: 14

Post by hannibal »

Thanks a lot for your long a complet answer :wink:

I checked your link, and I'm currently playing like this guys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzc_LZEH4yU
So according with what you explain, it's logic for me to play without moving a lot by hands (else, I did a lot of mistake, because I didn't found the right key :D )

Again thanks you for your time, I will continu to play like that and have a lot a pleasure to lean piano ;)
Maybe someday, I will take a piano teacher for helping me when I will be more confortable with the piano.
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jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

Just to confirm, in the early stages of learning piano you will play with your hands in one position, as you are doing.

If you have the opportunity to study with a teacher, I encourage you to do it now rather than later. When you are more comfortable with piano, you will have learned bad habits that you will have to unlearn. And that is harder and takes longer than learning correctly from the beginning.
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
hannibal
Posts: 14

Post by hannibal »

In fact, I just try to play one hour when I came back from my jobs. I doesn't have time to go to piano course.... :cry:

I know I will learn bad habit, but I prefer have bad habit instead of not playing piano at all ...
I want to play piano from a long time and do I never found time (and money also) to take some course. So I will try by myself ;)
revilo2
Posts: 135

Post by revilo2 »

Synthesia 11 will help you for this.... coming soon
hannibal
Posts: 14

Post by hannibal »

I'm under linux ..... Maybe , I hope I will can use it but ... I still use the version 10.2, the latest wine compatible .... (This line will be only comprehensible with people with knowledge in computer :D )
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jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

hannibal wrote:In fact, I just try to play one hour when I came back from my jobs. I doesn't have time to go to piano course.... :cry:

I know I will learn bad habit, but I prefer have bad habit instead of not playing piano at all ...
I want to play piano from a long time and do I never found time (and money also) to take some course. So I will try by myself ;)
I completely understand. I would suggest you do two things.

1) Find ONE piano instruction book designed for adults teaching themselves and follow that book for at least three months before you consider changing to a different book. A book will guide you through exercises and pieces in a methodical way and provide some important explanations of what you should be doing. "All About Piano" by Mark Harrison, ISBN 978-1-4234-0816-1, is one such book. It does touch on classical pieces but it emphasizes popular music.

2) Learn how to create MIDI files so you can create MIDI files for the exercises and songs in your piano book. You can use the free MuseScore to do this. It is not too hard and it goes pretty fast.
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

hannibal wrote:I still use the version 10.2, the latest wine compatible...
I vaguely remember this being fixed in newer versions of Wine. Double-check that you have the latest one. (Often this is not the version you get from an "apt-get upgrade" or whatever your distro uses.)
hannibal
Posts: 14

Post by hannibal »

@jimhenry: Thanks for your advice, I will try to find this book but in french :D

@Nicholas: I have tried and it's working ;) Thanks ;)
Do you know the date for the next release :?:
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jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

Don't feel that you have to find the book that I mentioned. I am sure there are good choices in French. Just be sure it is a self-study book intended for adults. Many books assume you will have a teacher helping you.
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
hannibal
Posts: 14

Post by hannibal »

Do you know if the book Piano for dummies or Piano exercies for dummies are they good for learning piano without teacher ? (theses books exist in French ;) )
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jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

I am not familiar with the Piano for Dummies books. Judging from the Table of Contents, it seems like it takes a long time to get to playing the piano.

Muddling through Amazon.fr, I found this:
J'apprends... LE PIANO tout simplement Niveau 1&2 C. Astie + CD

Hopefully someone who has used Piano for Dummies or a French piano instruction book can provide better information.
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
paronym
Posts: 27

Post by paronym »

I encountered the same issue as the OP with regards to the fingering for "Für Elise (Easy)". I couldn't understand why Synthesia is showing me to alternate hands for playing the same note in succession.

I've been trying to use Synthesia to help learn to play the piano (together with a mixture of other stuff, including theory, YouTube videos, etc). I'm a little disappointed to find out that the fingerings can't be relied on. How many of the other included songs also have incorrect fingerings?
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jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

paronym wrote: 06-04-20 11:13 am I've been trying to use Synthesia to help learn to play the piano (together with a mixture of other stuff, including theory, YouTube videos, etc). I'm a little disappointed to find out that the fingerings can't be relied on. How many of the other included songs also have incorrect fingerings?
Hopefully you got my message that trying to use Synthesia to teach yourself piano is a mistake. At a minimum, find ONE, and only one, self-instruction book if you can't learn from a live instructor. Synthesia is a good practice tool that can supplement some form of piano instruction. But it is NOT a piano tutor.
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
paronym
Posts: 27

Post by paronym »

jimhenry wrote: 06-05-20 3:33 pm Hopefully you got my message that trying to use Synthesia to teach yourself piano is a mistake.
I don't think this is a valid justification for the built-in songs to have incorrect fingerings. If the program is telling you what hands and fingers to use, then I think the built-in songs should not be telling you the wrong information.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

paronym wrote: 06-05-20 5:59 pmI don't think this is a valid justification for the built-in songs to have incorrect fingerings.
This is a simple bug in the hand-splitting work that the community provided back in 2009. Over the years we've ironed a couple of the wrinkles out, but this is now the record holder for longest-standing known issue.

(I had initially missed jimhenry's assessment that Synthesia's own split didn't match Gilbert's when this was posted a couple years ago.)

I'll get it fixed for 10.7.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

The missing pickup measure bothered me enough to update the entire file. So, no band-aid fix using the hand splitting tool. But it means that progress and scores will be reset for everyone for that song.

This'll be packed into the app in the next dev preview, but here is the fixed file (and the updated/correct finger hints) in the meantime.

Fur Elise (Easy).mid
(979 Bytes) Downloaded 54 times
Fur Elise (Easy).synthesia
(426 Bytes) Downloaded 48 times
paronym
Posts: 27

Post by paronym »

Thanks Nicholas. Are there any other built-in songs with known incorrect fingerings, or can they all be trusted now?

Looking at Moonlight Sonata, I see a similar thing there -- not sure if that's the correct fingering or not. There may well be other examples too.
moonlight_sonata.png
moonlight_sonata.png (128.44 KiB) Viewed 24050 times
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

paronym wrote: 08-05-20 6:19 amAre there any other built-in songs with known incorrect fingerings, or can they all be trusted now?
This was the only remaining error I knew about. Though, if it took 11 years to find this one, I don't suppose I could guarantee there weren't any more! :D
paronym wrote: 08-05-20 6:19 amLooking at Moonlight Sonata, I see a similar thing there -- not sure if that's the correct fingering or not.
According to Gilbert's sheet music for that one, it appears to be correct.

moonlight17.png
moonlight17.png (7.69 KiB) Viewed 23993 times
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