Pianists/Musicologists, Please: "Stretching A Tenth"?

Cafe Society
1

Having once seen “The Mephisto Waltz” (I hope that was the name of the film? It starred Alan Alda?), I know it means the fingers spanning ten keys on the piano, right?

But what does it mean exactly?

Is this an extraordinary pianist who can do this and are there any other works which require a musician to do this particular “maneuver” (Sorry! A better word fails me at the moment, please correct me)?

Could Beethoven or any of his other contemporaries (I know Franz Liszt composed it) have managed it and are there any of their compositions I might listen to where it is evident?

I plan to one day own “Beethoven’s Complete Works” (85 cd’s!), but I don’t want to just listen. I’d like to also interpret.

Thanks!

Quasi

2

I’m not a pianist, but I have large hands with long fingers. An octave is the largest interval I can play easily, I can stretch to a ninth, and while with effort I can just barely squeeze my fingers onto two keys a tenth apart, there’s no way I could manage it in the course of actually playing a piece.

Rachmaninoff is said to have been able to stretch a thirteenth.

3

I don’t have my scores handy, but a tenth is exactly what you said – a third (minor or major) above the degree of an octave.

Some are easier than others to hit – Db-F is tough for me, where C-E is not so tough.

Scriabin is one guy who strikes me as using a bunch of tenths, as does Liszt, but you must distinguish between hitting them straight on, as opposed to rolling them or other ways of gradually making the stretch.

In popular piano music, it’s associated with stride piano (James P. Johnson, Fats Waller, Art Tatum), and famous contemporary pianists like Mac Rebennack use tenths as a major feature of their style, often in “odd” sharp keys (see his “Iko, Iko” for an example in D major) or James Booker and everybody else playing tenths in Eb, Bb, Ab, and so forth.

You can also cut the “webs” between your thumb and index finger to increase your stretch – it’s what I did, and now I can play thirteenths (and nothing else)

4

Thanks to both of you, and Jaledin, I would like for you to know I got my Yamaha keyboard out and tried your notes. Due to my arthritis being in my right (dominant) hand I could only manage Db to A and C to G! :slight_smile:

I understand what you mean about “rolling” vs “straight on”. Straight on meaning the tenth HAS to be hit immediately and the hand ready for the next notes immediately. Do I have that correct?

Finally, why in the hell is a piano considered a “percussion instrument”?

Yes, I know: One strikes a key and a note is produced, but a percussionist (drummer) should not have to also be able to play a piano.

Sorry! I just never understood this! :slight_smile:

I like Fats Waller and Art Tatum, and of course, am familiar with Dr. John, but I don’t know James P. Johnson or James Booker.

I have also never heard the term “stride piano”.

I am, after all, just a drummer who wants to understand! :slight_smile:

Thanks

Q

Thanks!

Q

5

Oh, and on rereading the OP, no, it’s not that rare; it’s a major skill that most contemporary pianists possess – it fills out the sound of solo piano admirably and there are very few substitutes for walking tenths or at least using tenths (or larger interverals) as “low notes.” I’ve heard anecdotally that people who came up in the 1940s playing professional had to use tenths – they couldn’t fake it, or they would be out of a job. So, they learned, even though hardly anybody has Rachmaninoff’s banana hands or Eubie Blake’s or Pete Johnson’s, and they didn’t do that retarded 19th Century Liszt/Schumann stuff of deliberately damaging their hands permanently.

There are legitimate ways of learning to play tenths by carefully stretching your fingers – even without trying, over the years my stretch in LH is far greater than my right, and I didn’t do anything stupid like break my fingers or damage my ligaments. The hand is pretty flexible if you do things carefully, cautiously, and in a relaxed fashion. Since I started playing New Orleans piano a number of years ago, it became pretty easy to fake it or to hit some of the harder tenths flat on (like, say, Bb-D). That said, Mozart was a fine pianist and had small hands – any repertoire which requires a large span can be played by careful manipulation and some trickery, and it will mostly sound just fine.

6

I just saw your last message, Quasimodem – you’d be surprised how many top drummers can get around fine on the keyboard. Jack DeJohnette comes to mind. I do think of piano as primary a percussion instrument, not as a full-time professional, but as someone who only plays for money (or favors ;)) – it’s a very rhythmic enterprise to handle both hands, and most people IME who just “tinkle on the ivories” aren’t very sophisticated when it comes to managing their own time or when playing solo setting up the entire groove while improvising in both hands.

You guessed right – that is what I meant about hitting the tenths “straight on” – if you play D and F# a tenth above, they’d be played at the same time. Dr. John in particular and also Allen Toussaint have some tricks to kind of walk up to the tenth (like in Toussaint’s tune “Life” which both Dr. John and Booker have covered) which still gives the effect of the same interval while also giving a rhythmic pattern to set the stage. Cf. Booker on “the Resurrection of the Bayou Maharajah” (first tune, a medley) and Dr. John on “In the Right Place” album, IIRC.

Stride piano is just basically a ragtime style with some more advanced harmony and more stuff going on – think Art Tatum and James P. Johnson versus Scott Joplin and you’ve got the right idea. A lot more stuff going on in the LH and a lot of “walking tenths.”

Good thread, man! This is right up my alley and I could talk piano for days, even though I’m no Liberace ;).

7

I remember reading that Carl Maria von Weber, who was a contemporary of Beethoven, had very large hands and wrote compositions that exploited them. And I found a reference online that confirms that he could “stretch a tenth”:

Is playing the piano part of a percussionist’s duties? In what works? Are we talking something like a solo, or something like the final chord of The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life”?

8

Jaledin, you’re saying that pianists deliberately injured their hands to make the stretch??? I do understand that their jobs depended on it, but damn! that’s really suffering for one’s art, isn’t it? Jesus!

I get what you’re saying about being relaxed about the tenth: If you’re dreading it about to come up in the performance, the fingers are likely to be stiff and so will you.

I fancy myself a “Beethoven scholar” of sorts. This only means I enjoy his works and read everything I can get my hands on written about him, but I need to know more!

Presently I am reading Edmund Morris’ Beethoven: The Universal Composer, and he, more than other writer, goes into deep detail about the Maestro’s works.

I already know about his private life, the kind of person he was compared to what others thought him to be. But now I’d like to know what his thoughts were and why (beyond all the ludicrous dedications) he composed such beautiful music.

Eroica for instance. The Moonlight Sonata. And my personal favorite, Für Elise.

So could Haydn have taught his pupil to stretch a tenth, and did he (Beethoven) in any of his compositions? Admittedly, I am only halfway through the book, but although it is small and short, I am finding it very enlightening.

My thoughts are that he (Haydn) must have, since Liszt was a contemporary. I’d just like to know where to find them (the tenths) in the score, and no, my admiration isn’t limited to just “tenths”, “thirteenths”, and the like. I would like very much to “see” past the notes.

Thanks for taking time to answer me.

Q

9

Thudlow, in the short time I spent trying to be a music major at Jacksonville State University in Alabama, yes, it was a requirement that you had to have keyboard experience to get your music major.

I dreaded it so much I dropped out.

Out completely means out of the Jax State drumline which got me there in the first place.

Because I never learned rudiments (as opposed to my brother), I was relegated to tenor drum, but I was still in the line!:slight_smile:

I just didn’t know I’d have to hit the keys as well as the skins.

:rolleyes:

Quasi

10

I don’t recall many tenths in the Beethoven repertoire – lots of octaves in the LH, and obvious plenty of difficult stuff, but it doesn’t jump out to me as a feature of his compositions. I could be wrong, though – I’m just going by memory from a long time ago.

I can’t speak about Liszt – the pieces I was able to play weren’t that difficult, and the ones I struggled with (like the 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody and some of the others in the cycle) seem to me to have been more about octaves (especially in the RH).

Famously, Schumann developed some contraption to “help” him develop independence between the fourth and fifth finger, RH, and, IIRC, it basically destroyed his ability to play. Good thing he had a pretty good pianist as a wife! I think Liszt actually did try to cut away at the “web” between his thumb and index finger, although I’m not sure what hand that was. I think his Transcendental Etudes require pretty astonishing reach, but I was never good enough to play them, so I started playing jazz and rock. I think Liszt mostly used an extending rolling technique like you see in the Chopin etudes and in a fair bit of Brahms, or Debussy, for that matter, in his most popular (these days) works.

The most difficult Beethoven I’ve seen (and failed to attempt) is his last piano sonata and the Waldstein, and I don’t believe there are any tenths whatsoever in this two works. There are plenty of other difficult things in there – internal trills, double octave glissandi, and a bunch of other stuff I decided I wouldn’t bother with until I learned the latest Stones tune :slight_smile: My off the cuff impression is that in Beethoven, he was content to use sus pedal and rely on the ability of the LH to catch chords, even partial chords, and it may have been due to the kind of piano he was using then. Or maybe he was just deaf and couldn’t hear sh*t. I kid – he was my hero as a young piano student and I still wish I could play the third movement of the Moonlight like when I was a kid and wasn’t afraid of it (octaves and arpeggios, BTW).

Oh, and, no, the pros from the 1940s didn’t hurt themselves, AFAIK – they just went for it and got those tenths down – if they hurt themselves, they would have been out of work for life. More the virtuosos from the 19th C – a few of them did hurt themselves seriously.

11

Yeah. He loved that sustain pedal, didn’t he?

As well as his little “jokes”, making the soloist in a choir sing off-key?

My God, Jaledin! I still cannot get over the fact that musicians of that era actually mutilated their hands for their music!

I just want to say that I am glad to have found you here, and even though I am just a basic percussionist (very basic!), I have gained much enlightenment from the dumb question I asked in the OP, and I hope you don’t think you were “drawn in” by that?

It was purely a “need to know” thing and something I have always wondered about The Maestro.

Unfortunately, the book I am reading doesn’t dwell much on what Beethoven was taught by “Papa” Haydn, and as far as Anton Schindler is concerned, one can burn his book and send it straight to hell.

Thanks for a great conversation, new friend!

Bill

12

Well, Schumann was the most famous self-mutilator – I’m glad I’ve never seen a picture of what his little device looked like, because it sounds like something I’d never want to see in a dream.

I don’t have any cites, but I believe that Beethoven began, middled, and ended his students with a straight diet of Bach – and I’d be surprised if Haydn did any differently. I reade Wheelock Thayer’s life of Beethoven as a high schooler and can’t remember anything than that he had something like 17 pairs of socks when he died. Damned rock and roll I had my mind on other things than what some old Teuton’s death mask looked like!

No need to thank me for the conversation – I live and breathe piano all day (at 34 I still get in 6 hours per day) and like nothing better than talking about it, even though sometimes I should be working on next week’s show. :slight_smile: Which would be fine if the jobs paid better for your average bar musician, or, in my case, at most average, and, at worst, a page turner for Brendel.

13

Although, when you think about the castrati, cutting the webbing between your fingers for your music doesn’t seem quite so extreme.

14

Wayne Newton!!!

Just kidding! :wink:

Jaledin: Okay you’re up, new friend.

“I reade Wheelock Thayer’s life of Beethoven as a high schooler and can’t remember anything than that he had something like 17 pairs of socks when he died. Damned rock and roll I had my mind on other things than what some old Teuton’s death mask looked like!”

:slight_smile:

Send me a pm and tell me how to find you on YouTube or if you have any cd’s.

Thanks again!

Quasi

15

LOL about the castrati – but I’m pretty sure they didn’t have to apply much pressure with their digits.

I’ll PM you, Quasimodem soon – unfortunately, I don’t have anything I’m really proud of up online – just a bunch of backing tracks on Hammond for some cheesy rock and folk groups. My last two jazz jobs (a Hammond organ trio – guitar, drums, and Hammond, and an acoustic piano + guitar duo) were pretty good, though – I’m sorry I didn’t record them live, which I should have, because until the market dropped out we played together a good long while. I’m still struggling to find my place playing solo piano – I like to have some good musicians with me, but in this economy, it’s hard to get the right money to have quality sidemen, so I go it alone. Better that than get stuck with some sideman who needs to have his hand held and can only play a few styles of music.

You’ve inspired me to get something decent up there, though, so I thank you for that, and I’ll let you know when it happens. Grrr. It’s hard to play solo piano and not sound like a total cheese factory, in a club situation (it’s fine in a restaurant, but in a club without having vocal skills to add to the vibe, it kind of sounds off to me…oh well, it’s still fun to play even if it’s for small paper, or even burritos and beer, plus, it’s free practice time to try out new tunes, as long as it sounds good).

16

It it’s the B3, you have nothing to be ashamed of, Jaledin.

Jimmy Smith played the 3 and here’s my all-time favorite work by him:

The rock group I was in at the time this tune was popular of course 4/4’d it, but we sure did love playing it in the Pow Wow Room.

Enjoy!

Thanks again and I hope we have many more musical discussions!

Q

17

I’d never seen that clip of JOS – like any other organist, I have all his albums, and have tried to copy them all in some form or another, but that is some HOT video – cool. A few years ago when I was playing only Hammond in a trio I was transcribing a lot of McGriff and Dr. Lonnie Smith to get more grease into my playing, as though JOS couldn’t supply the ear grease, but it’s hard to get away from the original master.

Thanks for that, Quasimodem!

18

:):):):):):):):slight_smile:

Glad I could give you some smiles, J!

I have a lot of B3 stuff I bet you already have:

Allman’s and The Band just to know a few off the top of my… head!:slight_smile:

And just for you, a quote from Mr. Joel: “…and the microphone smells like a beer.”

Been there and done that.

When I was but a lad of 15, playing drums for a group called “The Watchmen” (look us up: Watchmen 1965 on You Tube - very primitive) some guy used to send me up trays of beer to get me to play “Wipe-Out”, and I always did.

Some nights I wondered how I got home - driving myself, drunk, my drums in my Chevy II with the bald tires and the gas gauge hanging on for dear life.

But I always did.

Might it have been that way (in some way) for Ludwig (Louie, der Maestro)?

I bet it was.

Q

19

Pianist/organist/Musicology grad student here. Can play tenths but not well. I have enough pain in my left wrist without trying to at this point, lol.

I don’t hear much in terms of tenths in baroque and classical music. You will not hear it in pre-Bach keyboard music because tenths do not respond well to other tuning systems than equal temperment. In Baroque music, which closely adheres to the rules of voice leading established in choral music, you typically would play thirds instead of tenths; in four part writing you’re not supposed to have more than an octave in between voices.

In the romantic era, playing tenths, octaves, and really quick arpeggios were ways of dazzling the crowd as much as anything else. They were 19th century rock stars–Roger Daltrey played Franz Liszt in a movie, 'nuff said. :wink:

You will see a lot of tenths, then, in the sort of “War horses” of fancy piano and organ music; Liszt, Franck, Rachmaninoff. Debussy had parallel quartals in the girl with flaxen hair, which I find equally difficult. Scriabin is one prominent example of a composer who didn’t write stretchy music, in part because his hands were so tiny they could barely span an octave.

Two things from the quote above:

  1. J.S. Bach had fallen into almost complete obscurity at the time of his death. So I agree with what you put, provided you mean the (slightly) less famous CPE Bach, and not his dad.

  2. Back in the good old days of the internet (I’m only 24, but I’ve been surfing since the days of gopher and telnet and mosaic :D), I once found a man who claimed to have built recreation chiroplasts (the gross thingies Schumann used to destroy his fingers), though I never bothered to order one and can’t seem to find them anymore.

Liszt cut the webbings of his fingers out to play like he did. Rachmaninoff had hands like baseball gloves. To Thudlow Boink’s point, I don’t know whether a castrati or hand slicing is more gross: one is obviously a GROSS abuse of parental power, but the other is self-inflicted. Self-inflicted pain is a whole different basket of weird, even if it is on a small scale.

Now, if you find a castrati who did the procedure himself, that I think is the ultimate embodiment of freaky…O.o

20

I stand corrected about Scriabin – although some of his most famous preludes and etudes are certainly not easy to play and do require a great deal of mobility, if not stretch, in either hand. From what I’ve tackled, a larger handspan would be an asset, but not necessary given an adequate technique. I knew he was a brilliant pianist, but did not realize he had some limitations in reach.

I’m also indebted to the correction of Bach’s reputation in Beethoven’s time – it’s well known that by the time of later romantics that his glory had been shown, but I was unaware that he had a relatively dim star even as late as Beethoven at the height of his powers. Well worth looking into, and possibly getting rid of some of my ignorance in the process, so, thanks.