Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Easier Chopin nocturnes/etudes?

Strat, that's a little bit brusque. Threads have a way of developing organically into something afield of the intended focus, and it happens frequently after the original question has been answered.

You got earnest advice about the easier nocturnes and etudes. There just aren't any others to suggest, and I'm not sure if there's more to say about the ones that have been proffered. Why try to control the direction of the conversation at this point?

Steven

To stay on topic. Don't see why a "Which Chopin piece is the most challenging for you?" thread can't be created. They're 2 opposing topics...

I'm not controlling by any means, but if I want any tips on how to perform them or which ones could be suggested to me depending on what I'd like to develop, I'd like to be able to see the info without scrolling through a page or two of posts that have to do with the opposite spectrum of the topic at hand.

Strat, you know that Chopin is enormously popular among pianists. Most every aspect of his music has been discussed and dissected here before, and continues to be at every opportunity—including, even, which pieces are most challenging and which are easiest.

It's all been talked about before, and will be talked about again, because we love it. That's why we're talking about it, again, here and now. If we didn't, you might have been told, "Search the archives; there are many past threads that discuss this." Or, worse yet, "There aren't any easy Chopin pieces." Or even: "You've been playing for a year? Forget about it."

You asked for help, and you got generous assistance. Your answers are on the first page of this thread. You don't need to scroll past irrelevant chatter to find them. And though you asked about nocturnes and etudes, you got suggestions about waltzes and preludes, too. I don't see why it's an issue if the people who helped want to keep talking, or how that fact distinguishes this discussion thread from any other one.

Steven

interesting........

You've received some good advice in this thread.

As Steven implied, "Chopin" and "easy" do not belong in the same sentence as a general rule.
Any discussion about playing his works will inevitably migrate toward technical details. There is no reason to attempt to censor such discussion on a board related to pianism.

I wanted to type "Guys," not "Guy." I can see how you'd take offense at the latter.

Not attempting to censor, but to branch out discussions so that we can have "easy" & "hard" threads that won't overlap info. If somebody wants to debate how difficult a piece is, they can go in the "hard" thread, whereas if they want tips on how to pick an easier piece or how to perform it, they can look into this one.

How that would pass as censorship is beyond me. Only wanting to keep things on topic, that's all.

PS : I added the "s" to fix my post.

Still, the question has already been answered to the extent it can be, and "branching out" into something closely related to the original subject is what we were already doing.

Isn't it ironic that so much truly off-topic discussion has resulted from the attempt to keep the conversation on topic? That the original topic was played out just adds to the humor.

Steven

I was a little miffed by it, sorry for that. No harm, no foul :-)

The topic in hand is tough because Chopin is tough! When I was 8 years old my dream was to be able to play him. I "discovered" him on my own: My mom used to play the Mozart and Beethoven LPs, and when I was old enough to operate the turntable, I found the Chopin, part of the set. Abby Simon and Earl Wild were featured artists.

It wasn't until I was 20 that I "finished" my first piece, the Minute Waltz - in the middle as far as difficulty, and to this day still isn't fully polished because I didn't have the technique then and still play it with the old bad habits present at that time.

Your answer, though, is Op. 28 No. 20 (which I believe you mentioned), Op. 28 No. 4, Op. 28 No. 6. For a bigger prize, go for the A Minor waltz, Op. 34 or one of the Nocturnes mentioned. (Hard to believe the Nocturnes were "bar music"! Oh, how far we've come ).

There are no easy Etudes, unless we are speaking relatively; they are all tough, even for Chopin.

Or you can take my approach with the Minute Waltz and go for something over your head and get the technique as you go - just try to avoid my mistake and be aware of your own weaknesses!

Please, by all means pursue Chopin's works in your repertoire! Just be prepared for a real challenge.

Hope that helps.

'Easier Chopin nocturnes/etudes' thats what the thread states, thats what we are talking about, Jesus!

The nocturnes are not overall very challenging, the etudes certainly are, they are amongst the hardest pieces ever wrote for the piano.... well not if you start going into Godowsky or Alkan territory anyway! They are even more difficult, transcendentally difficult piano music.

What a fantastic contribution I just made to this thread!!!!!!

Started Prelude Op. 28 No. 20 yesterday.

Here's a sample : www.fenderplayersforum.com/chopin-op28-20.mp3

Feel free to tell me if that sounds authentic enough. Those are only the first 2 bars, though. lol

Hey, that's coming along nicely!

IMHO, the Largo tempo could be even a tiny bit slower if you like—but not necessarily! Keeping the pulse even should be the priority, so don't go any more slowly if it would interfere with that. (In my own experience, it's harder to maintain a steady rhythm at a very slow speed.)

Steven

4 more bars done bringing the total to 6.

I updated the MP3.

www.fenderplayersforum.com/chopin-op28-20.mp3

Strat, it's would be hard to believe you just started working on this and have been playing piano for just a year had you not told us! Bravo!

You might already know that you had one note awry in the third chord of the third measure: where the right-hand thumb should play A-flat, you played A natural. I don't mean to call attention to it, just to point it out in case you misread the score and weren't aware.

I have no suggestions except to carry on doing what you're doing.

Steven

Thank you very much! I have a background in music, since I play electric guitar (Hendrix, Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, etc), so my ear is pretty developed.

Having said that, you're absolutely right! I *did* misread the score. Since I'm not too familiar with this tune (I discovered it when starting this thread), I didn't catch the mistake right away.

The good news is that I finished the tune tonight after spending a few more hours on it. The bad news is that I recorded the mistake again, since I simply got your post *after* the recording was done.

Nevertheless, here's my version of it. Any tips on how to polish it?... apart from the fact that I'm playing it too slowly? LOL!

http://www.fenderplayersforum.com/chopin-op28-20.mp3

Very impressive for one year at the piano!

Might I suggest you rethink the dotted rhythms a bit? They sound a little stiff to me, which is interesting given your background in music. By this I mean, perhaps play them a bit later and faster, like a quintuplet. This can be very effective in slow music with dotted rhythms, and it certainly makes them sound more human, less mechanical. Just a thought.

Keep up the great work!

Strat,

That's absolutely wonderful playing.

One of the things I noticed immediately in your playing is that you strike all of the chords completely evenly, so all of the notes of each chord sound together and not broken. This can be tough to learn to do. Yet you do it so easily.

One of the most difficult things to learn is playing very softly, especially playing large chords Pianissimo. Again you have no problems here. Your soft, large chords are gorgeous.

Thanks so much for posting your lovely performance for us.

I hope you're going to submit this Prelude, or something else for our Recital 11:

Monica\'s Recital 11 Thread

Since you learned this Prelude so fast, I would suggest that next you try the second Nocturne, Op.9 No.2 in E flat.

I don't think it will give you any problems that you can't surmount fairly easily.


Mel

Hautboys, you're absolutely right of course. Only thing is this was a rough recording. I quickly realized after studying it for a bit that I was actually playing it *way* too slow! LOL! So listening to my own recording puts me to sleep as a result. This is supposed to be powerful & heavy. Instead, IMHO of course, it ends up sounding like elevator music. I'll be re-recording it tonight or tomorrow with much better results, I hope.

dannylux, thanks for your kind words as well. I'll probably try to submit my version of Final Fantasy X-2's Wind Crest, which is a gorgeous piece that I've been working on for months. And since it's much harder for me to play this than this Chopin Prelude, my feeling of accomplishment is much higher towards that piece.

Having said that, to be honest I much prefer Op.9 No.1 to No.2. No.2 is too popular and I've heard it too many times to be passionate about it. It doesn't speak to me like No.1 does. No.2 also sounds way more complicated with fast chords played with the left hand throughout the piece. The only thing that's a downer in a way is that they're all very long pieces, so I wouldn't expect to be ready to post a record until many many months later.

In the meantime, I am looking into learning a couple more preludes that aren't too challenging, but challenging just enough.

I can finally say that I've officially finished a Chopin tune! Woohoo! Feels great!

Strat,

You asked earlier about suggestions for polishing this, and my only advice would be to keep aware of phrasing.

In regard to your latest post, I completely disagree that you are playing it too slow! Largo is, after all, practically the slowest tempo indication. (When you posted a fragment earlier, I mentioned that it could be a tad slower even—and now it feels just right to me.)

Keep up the good work.

Steven

Hmmmm,... I usually hear it played much faster by most professional pianists. Maybe it's because they think it could use a jolt of energy?

Thanks for clarifying the "Largo" aspect as I'm entirely unfamiliar with all piano terminology. "Largo" could mean "very fast" or "a zebra in the fields" for all I know. LOL!

Mostly, I listen to a recording, get the sheet music and learn the notes, then flesh out the musicality of the piece so it flows and sounds musical/organic. The tempo seemed to lag in my current recording so much that I was wondering when it was going to end. The professional rendition I've listened to sounds powerful, heavy, passionate, and gorgeous. In comparison, I find mine to be rather plain and, well,... boring to listen to!

Should I be concerned about sight-reading? I can read music, but it does take time to decode everything. Maybe 2-3 secs per note. I memorize the piece afterwards and play it from memory.

Strat, one of the best things you can do for yourself is give yourself permission to play pieces slower than the record. Holding yourself to a high standard and wanting to duplicate professional work is great, but it's OK to differ with even a heavyweight pianist and prefer a different tempo. This need not mean ignoring the composer's instructions on a score. I so often hear recordings where a piece is taken absurdly fast for seemingly no reason, and it becomes unpleasant to listen to and squashes my emotional connection to the music. Then when I sit down and begin playing myself at a comfortable tempo, that settled, receptive, peaceful feeling comes back. Not a snail's pace, a comfortable tempo.

A great experiment if you have a turntable with variable pitch is to slow the record down a couple Hz at a time. You'll find lot of records sometimes sound and feel better to you a little slower, and you'll hear a lot more rhythms and voice leading. Also, somebody was well to point out that these pieces were written on early pianos with lighter actions. Trying to pull off the same effects on something heavy like a Steinway can really fry your fingers.

There's a lot to learn from tradition, but you don't have to follow it off a bridge, know what I mean?