Czerny - 32nd notes

[suzyq]

The book I'm using is Czerny Selected Piano Studies - exercise 35 page 24 - 25

It has 32nd notes which has me stymied - I don't know if a metronome would help, it would help if
I could hear it played. 

How do I count 32nd notes - if I use  a metronome what speed do I set it for - Thanks for your suggestions.

[mc ukrneal]

If you start slow, you can eventually work your way up to a faster tempo. A 32nd note is just twice as fast as a sixteenth (so 8 notes to a beat as opposed to four). I would think that as you learn a piece like this that the tempo is a bit slower, so it becomes more like a sixteenth or eighth in feel (though it is still a 32nd). You can slow it down as much as you need during practice.  As you learn the notes and rhythms, you can then try to start speeding it up and hopefully reach the necessary tempo. Czerny wrote a lot of learning pieces, so it may also be that you are learning a specific technical skill here (not having the music, I don't know).

[(poco) Sforzando]

The book I'm using is Czerny Selected Piano Studies - exercise 35 page 24 - 25

It has 32nd notes which has me stymied - I don't know if a metronome would help, it would help if
I could hear it played. 

How do I count 32nd notes - if I use  a metronome what speed do I set it for - Thanks for your suggestions.

There are lots of editions of Czerny studies, so I don't know what piece you're referring to and in what tempo. Posting a scan of one page would help considerably.

Generally, set your metronome to the primary subdivision of the meter. If the piece is in 4/4, set it to the quarter note value. Then within that quarter note, there are 2 eighths, 4 sixteenths, and 8 32nds. The mistake you seem to be making is trying to count the 32nds individually, rather than feeling them as natural subdivisions of the primary note value.

And by the way, a 32nd note is not necessarily "fast." It's all relative to the tempo of the piece. In a very slow tempo, a 32nd could conceivably occupy no more time by the clock than an eighth note in a very fast tempo. For example, in an Andante with quarter note = 60, a quarter note takes (obviously) a second to play. In an Allegro with half note = 60, four eighth notes take the same second to play.

[suzyq]

Thank you for the info and have a Happy Thanksgiving

[jochanaan]

Just be glad you're not playing the introduction to Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata with its 128th notes!

[suzyq]

Just be glad you're not playing the introduction to Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata with its 128th notes!

128th notes - can't imagine how fast they must be,  and only in my dreams will I ever able to play that piece.  I'm happy to let others have fun.

[(poco) Sforzando]

128th notes - can't imagine how fast they must be,  and only in my dreams will I ever able to play that piece.  I'm happy to let others have fun.

The tempo is very slow, a Grave more in a slow 8/8 than common time, and thus the 128ths are perfectly playable. There are only two brief passages of 128ths and one is just a fast descending chromatic scale, and the other is not difficult either. What's difficult in that sonata is the Allegro first movement above all, which has treacherous passages throughout including some very rapid hand crossings.