Three Against Four

1. Fit two even streams into one span

Purpose: play three equal attacks in one hand against four in the other, without turning either line into an uneven imitation of the combined rhythm. Preparation: maintain 2:3 and count a slow four-beat bar steadily.

Here the RH plays four quarters while the LH plays three half-note triplets. Each complete group fills one 4/4 bar. The numbers describe attacks within a shared duration, not different tempos that drift apart.

Twelve small divisions reveal the timing

Divide the bar into twelve equal parts. Number them 1 through 12; the next bar begins on a new 1. The RH attacks at 1, 4, 7, 10; the LH at 1, 5, 9. Both hands next meet at the following bar’s 1.

Tap this on a tabletop before playing. Let each hand keep its own equal spacing. The combined attacks are not equally spaced: their successive gaps, including the gap to the next bar, are 3, 1, 2, 2, 1, 3 small divisions.

Check: the second LH note falls just after the second RH note; the third LH note falls just before the fourth RH note. Neither coincides with an interior RH quarter.

2. Replace the grid with two lines

The pitches now move, but the timing is unchanged. The hands begin an octave apart; the suggested fingers keep each line within one position.

Build continuity in small steps

1. Play each hand separately while counting the shared four-beat bar. Hear the LH as three equal notes across the whole bar, not as three notes fitted to its first three beats.
2. Tap the twelve divisions very slowly and combine one bar. Sustain each written note until the next attack in that hand.
3. Add the second bar without pausing. Listen especially to the space after the final attacks and before the new downbeat.
4. Reduce the spoken count to four beats, then to one bar. Return to the fine grid only when a specific attack needs repair.

Hear one line while playing both

Attend to the LH for one repetition and the RH for the next. Each should sound even when heard by itself. If one becomes a jerky succession of reactions to the other, simplify back to repeated notes.

Variation: exchange the rhythms. Play three equal notes with the RH and four with the LH, first on repeated C, then on a comfortable three- or four-note shape. Keep the same shared duration rather than simply swapping finger numbers.

Ready to move on: three connected repetitions retain the same bar length, and either hand can be brought quietly into the foreground without disturbing the other.

3. Transfer the relationship to a passage

A score may write four sixteenths against three triplet eighths within a single quarter-note beat. That is the same 4:3 relationship on a shorter timescale. Our bar-long studies deliberately enlarge the span so that the timing can be heard and checked.

A reduction that preserves the music

Choose one shared beat or group from the piece. Mark its start and end in both hands. Retain just one easy pitch per hand, keeping every attack and its duration. Establish the ratio, then restore the original pitches one hand at a time. Finally reconnect the beat before and the beat after the fragment.

Avoid adding a pause at the boundary to make the hands agree. The arrival is part of the exercise. A metronome can mark the shared span while you listen to the spacing inside it; it cannot confirm every interior attack by itself.

Common failures and a useful repair

Repertoire bridge

Use this preparation when approaching four-against-three textures such as those in Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu, Op. 66. The aim is to hear two coherent gestures, not to recite twelve syllables indefinitely at performance tempo. Work from the actual note groupings and shared beats in your edition; an exact annotated excerpt remains a later source-review task.

Practice dose: a few accurate, easy repetitions followed by a short musical phrase are more useful than prolonged tense looping. Stop and reset if the fingers begin to brace for every attack.

4. Challenge: a C-major scale in 3:4

Let each hand travel at its own even pace. Start RH on C3 and LH on C2, one octave apart. RH plays 4 notes in each shared group while LH plays 3. Over seven groups, RH climbs 4 octaves and LH 3 octaves; their final tonics arrive together, now two octaves apart.

Count the journey, then hear the lines

The seven moving bars contain 21 LH notes and 28 RH notes. The final tonic is the next shared arrival, printed separately in bar 8; it is not an extra note squeezed into the last group. Hold that arrival together at the fermata. The endpoints are LH C5 and RH C7.

1. Learn each scale alone with the printed continuation fingers. Pass through intermediate tonics without using an ending finger or pausing.
2. Tap one bar of the ratio, then play just that bar’s notes. Add the next bar without stretching the boundary.
3. Join all seven moving bars and arrive together. The hands meet rhythmically at each barline, even when their notes have different names.
4. Listen to one hand at a time while both play. Each line should remain even, with no accent forced onto a thumb crossing or shared attack.

Watch out: the hands cover different distances. Asking both to travel the same number of octaves at these constant rates would prevent a simultaneous finish. The ratio counts notes within each group, not the number of notes including the final held tonic.

Keep the sound quiet and easy while learning. This is an optional coordination challenge, not a speed target. Once the ascent feels secure, plan a separate descending version with proper return fingers rather than turning around in a hurry.