Piano score question. Is this possible to play?
I'm writing a song for the piano. However, I am not a piano player myself. I wonder if the part in the attached image is possible to play?
The way I imagine it is that the left hand hits the bass note (a D), which is sustained for the rest of the bar (using the sustain pedal of the piano). Then the left hand plays the arpeggio bit, while the right hand plays the top melody.
Is this even possible to play? And, if so, is this a common way of notating it?
Thanks in advance!
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Comments
Don't forget that the pedal will also sustain all the other notes, also.
You wrote:
Is this even possible to play?
Yes, but the left hand pinky will have to release the low D because the upper D in the following arpeggio is 2 octaves higher - impossible to span with the single left hand. The sostenuto pedal (different from the sustain, or damper, pedal) can come in handy here to hold that single D whole note:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_pedals#Sostenuto_pedal
Also take into account that the bass D whole note naturally decays (even with the pedal depressed). With a slow enough tempo that D will lose substantial volume over 4 beats,
In reply to Is this even possible to… by Jm6stringer
Thanks. The sustenato pedal is what I had in mind here as well, but that means that the first note of the top melody will be sustained here as well, right? Since it is a played at the same time as the bass note. Might not be a problem as high notes decay more quickly than bass notes.
In reply to Thanks. The sustenato pedal… by rwiersma78
It will sustain anyway as you have written it as a dotted minim. The sostenuto pedal works by holding up only dampers that were already raised at the moment that it was depressed. So if a player: (i) holds down a note or chord, and (ii) while so doing depresses this pedal, and then (iii) lifts the fingers from that note or chord while keeping the pedal depressed, then that note or chord is not damped until the foot is lifted—despite subsequently played notes being damped normally on their release. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_pedals