Ave Maria - Where to start practicing this piece

[Happy girl]

I find this piece quite challenging to learn; coordination when practicing is testing my all my abilities.

Can anyone please advise the best method of approach? I have had a go at learning treble & bass separately & also practicing each phrase with both hands together, but I am not getting very far.

I understand the theory but there are a lot of new techniques to this piece that I haven’t come across before which gives me a lot to think about resulting in brain overload. Can it be broken down further into more manageable bits?

I would love to persevere with it, but my confusion is now twofold; I wonder if it is a good idea to tackle a piece which I perceive to be perhaps too difficult for me at this time?

What is the answer? Many thanks in advance for your reply.

 

[Glenn]

Hi Happy Girl.
Where exactly are you finding it difficult?
Is it the held notes which make up the theme or the slow bass with some twists and turns on what root note goes with what chord?

 

[fjsys]

Thoughts on how I would approach this.

1. Play the bass line by itself working on fingering and smoothness.
2. Add the top note while playing the bass line.
3. At this point figure out bellows and phrasing.
4. Play the arpeggios as a full chord to get finger placement correct
5. Work on final arpeggios.

Keep trying and go slowly.
Good luck
Ben

 

[JeffJetton]

Yeah, I would "narrow the practice space" as much as possible. Chop things up into as small a chunk as you can that you think you can master, even if it that's just the first measure.

In addition to practicing hands separately, I'd even practice the parts within each hand separately, similar to how Ben suggests. I would practice the melody line (top note) all by itself. I might then practice only the arpeggios (without the melody line) in the right hand, just to get used to that.

You could also practice other songs that use a similar style of multi-part writing, to gain practice in the overall concept. In Palmer-Hughes, for example, you might work on "Two Guitars". If you're not up task for that, then this piece might indeed be something to set aside for now. Nothing wrong with that. You'll get there eventually.

Along those lines, another thing I might honestly do is simply redo the arrangement so that it's easier to play. For example: Skip the RH arpeggios altogether and just play the melody. Then, in the LH, play a more rhythmic pattern to fill the space back up, such as: bass-chord-chord-chord-bass-chord-chord-chord (all eighth notes).

(Is this cheating? Not really, IMHO. It's not like either Bach or Gounod wrote this for the accordion in the first place, so anything you do is an adaptation of Gounod's original vision--which, in turn, was taking liberties with Bach's original vision anyway! Musical purity is already out the window on this one from the get go. Better to play a less-complicated version of music you like than to not play it at all, especially if it's a stepping-stone to the version you aspire to.)

And yes, GO SLOWLY. As in ridiculously slow. If you need to, practice it so slowly that, as I've heard it put, "someone passing by wouldn't even recognize the song".

 

[Happy girl]

Glen wrote
<HIGHLIGHT highlight="#bfffff">[highlight=#bfffff]Where exactly are you finding it difficult?
Is it the held notes which make up the theme or the slow bass with some twists and turns on what root note goes with what chord?[/highlight]</HIGHLIGHT>
Yes Glenn, all of that plus, at the same time trying to make sense of bellow movement whilst making a coherent sound.

What brilliant advice from fjsys & Jeffjetton. Pure Gold Dust. Thank you so much, I am going to take all of those points on board.

After reading your collective advice I have renewed interest & energy to move forward & ‘experiment’ with this piece.

I will dissect & re-write parts so that it morphs into a series of technical exercises; that should be fun to do as well as improving my learning & understanding abilities. I can now see this in a different light; aspiring to play this piece as a whole is not immediately important. I realise now that that which is beyond my capabilities, & energy sapping, has now become achievable, albeit sometime in the future.

It is interesting & enlightening to read that bellow control comes in only at number 4 on fjsys’ list; I have been struggling to pack that in right from the word go to avoid developing bad habits!

Thank you for turning this around, thus providing me with a more positive point of view about this ‘impossible’ task!

 

[fjsys]

I may be unusual (or unpopular) in that belief, but I really think that until you have the fingering and some of the dynamics under control you cannot tell where you are going to run out of air and any bellows markings will be at best a little off and at worst just plain wrong.
That said during that learning time I always pick either 2 or 4 out/in and try to stick with that.

The other suggestion that I would offer looking at this is to learn how to use your fifth finger on the bass notes. For me looking at it the fingering for the first couple of measures should be 5/4, 5/2, 4/2, 5/4, and so on. Putting your 5th on the F will help with the reach and make the chords smother.

HTH
Ben

 

[acordiansam]

Now I don't know where you at with you're abilities. Me I would find a simpler version of the song, get that down and then move on to the more complicated piece. It's a fancy version of a much simpler song. Other than that what's been said above is all good advice.

 

[Happy girl]

<HIGHLIGHT highlight="#ffffff">[highlight=#ffffff]fysys wrote
I may be unusual (or unpopular) in that belief, but I really think that until you have the fingering and some of the dynamics under control you cannot tell where you are going to run out of air and any bellows markings will be at best a little off and at worst just plain wrong.
That said during that learning time I always pick either 2 or 4 out/in and try to stick with that[/highlight]</HIGHLIGHT>.

<HIGHLIGHT highlight="#ffffff">[highlight=#ffffff]The other suggestion that I would offer looking at this is to learn how to use your fifth finger on the bass notes. For me looking at it the fingering for the first couple of measures should be 5/4, 5/2, 4/2, 5/4, and so on. Putting your 5th on the F will help with the reach and make the chords smother[/highlight]</HIGHLIGHT>.

Thank you fjsys, I am a big advocate of using he fifth finger but, in this instance it is good to have reassurance especially as confidence is not at premium with this task.

It makes perfectly good sense to concentrate on bellow control later as you advise it has never occurred to me before; a fixed mindset can sometimes be a barrier to progress.

Thank goodness for this forum, it brings people of all abilities together to share ideas; sometimes we give & sometimes we take ………

<HIGHLIGHT highlight="#ffffff">[highlight=#ffffff]Acordionsam wrote
Now I don't know where you at with your abilities.[/highlight]</HIGHLIGHT> Me I would find a simpler version of the song, get that down and then move on to the more complicated piece. It's a fancy version of a much simpler song

Yes Acordionsam, you are right; I do have a much simpler version of the song but I really don’t like the basses at all so I experimented with it, &, after getting disillusioned with myself, & in my optimism, I thought I would have a go at what seems to me to be a more tranquil rendition.