Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Tension in Chopin Etude Op. 10 No. 1

Hello everyone,

I have been practicing Chopin's Etude Op. 10 No. 1 and I get bad tension. I am not even at full speed yet, and I can barely finish the piece because of the tension in my right arm. I try to focus on the notes on the downbeats and that helps some.

Any advice would be more than welcome

It sounds to me as if you're not technically ready to tackle this piece. I would suggest that you treat it for what it is - a study - and practise small sections, carefully analysing what you are doing physically to cause the tension, over a period of months. If you continue to treat it as a mere addition to your repertoire you will pay the price. I don't mean to sound harsh, but tension in a case like this rings warning bells. Perhaps go off and do some preparatory exercises, preferably of your own devising, based on some of the figurations in the Etude which you find less difficult and less tension-inducing. Good luck!

I thought this thread was going to be about the harmonic progression. Dang.

Steven

You need to learn how to use your arm weight. The arm is kind of a sixth finger.

Monsieur Klutz is correct about your arm. I suspect you are reaching for the notes and therein is the cause of your tension. Take you fingers to the notes by laterally shifting your arm from the shoulder. Play slowly and moderately slowly and try to never extend your hand for notes; be directly above each note that you are going to play. You should feel quite a difference.

I think it's a rite of passage to open up the Chopin Etudes on page 1, thinking it's just another little step on the way - and six months later to be wondering what you have to do to get to page 2 - what does it want from me??

Whilst much of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart can be played adequately with only the hardest bits getting a bit blurred, much of Chopin (and much subsequent romantic repertoire) cannot be played at all with an imperfect technique, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the Etudes, and nowhere more so than in the very first one.

I would limber up on Op.25 No.1 in Ab - it's not so hard and once you get it going the circular movement you need to do with your arms is very satisfying. You'll still need to loosen up every muscle, place your fingers exactly where they need to be before they play the note - the Chopin etudes ask a lot of questions of your technique, and even if you never manage to play them to tempo, you'll improve a lot trying.

I think op 25 no 12 is the easiest.

You aren't using your arm weight properly. There should be NO pain at any time, in whatever you're playing. Someone I know got injured by 10/1 and she had to quit piano, so you want to be careful.

Your arm muscles should not be flexed when you play, and the bridge of your hand (connecting your fingers) should be very strong and never collapse. Think about each individual finger and make sure every finger is strong - do not tense your arm.

I found many ways to pain this past summer while trying to learn this etude. Here are just a couple (note, all physical descriptions are base on the hand/arm in a piano playing position):
- inside of wrist by base of thumb (carpal tunnel?): caused by rotating hand/wrist on the horizontal plane to the right when playing the larger intervals between fingers 1-2 and 1-3. The solution to avoid the pain was to jump the first interval instead, and to ensure I was always keeping my hand aligned with my forearm
- stiffness in outer forearm from the elbow to halfway to the hand: caused by not relaxing the 4th and 5th fingers so that they were lifted up from the first set of knuckles closest to the wrist. Solution, train myself to let go of those fingers. This allowed me to get much faster on the arpeggios
- fatigue on the underside of the forearm after playing ~16 measures at a fast tempo: caused by pulling hand down while playing and by gripping with the third finger.

I never did get anywhere close to finishing the etude after practicing only the first 16 measures all summer. One day I did manage to get the first arpeggio up to mm170. But then after I worked on the second arpeggio, the first one got all messed up and I had to rework it. I don't remember ever engaging in such a losing battle.

This is such a difficult situation, as none of us can diagnose the OP's exact problem in this medium (nor can we who don't experience a problem with tension demonstrate a differing technique that works for us and may remediate the situation).


I worry in particular that such well-meaning advice can cause tension. I'm not saying it's unsound, but someone who's not using the proper technique is going to have a problem reconciling these suggestions with the idea that one should simultaneously be as relaxed as possible.

I'm surprised that no one has yet asked the OP what his teacher thinks (or suggested that he needs one if he doesn't have one). Self-instruction works just fine for many of us, but it's not suitable for all people learning all repertoire.

FWIW, I'm also surprised that someone with the technique to be learning Gaspard is experiencing this problem at all.

Steven

Thanks to all of you for the advice. I do think the weight and positioning of the arm is my problem and what needs to be the focus of my practice. I just finished my Master's last Spring and do not have a teacher right now, which is why I am looking for pointers from you guys, but the weight of the arm was definitely was my teacher emphasized to me in my Master's program.

Sotto Voce, to answer your remark about Gaspard, I experienced some tension in Scarbo, but nothing that couldn't be worked through in the end.

You might consider re-fingering the passage entirely. Although it is written in groups of four 16th notes, you have to realize that Chopin's piano had slightly narrower keys than the modern piano, at at the interval of a 10th, that does make a difference. Try imagining if they were in groups of 3 instead of 4 and finger accordingly, then once you get the fingering down you can work on putting the proper beat emphasis back in.

Chopin's fingering is straightforward, and perfectly fits the figuration—i.e., groups of four notes. They're not in groups of three, and a fingering that attempts to treat them as such will be convoluted to say the least.

Perhaps more important, there would be little reason or purpose for studying this etude with a modification that dispenses with the intended technique. The pedagogical benefit would be lost, and one wouldn't be able to use the piece in any setting in which playing it "correctly" is de rigueur.

I think the music would be compromised, too. Even if one completely suppressed unwanted accents and shifted them to the primary beats on which they would otherwise fall, I am very doubtful that any tempo approaching the target of 144 to 176 bpm could be achieved.

Even if keys were marginally narrower in Chopin's time, it's not really relevant. This etude isn't about one's handspan.


If by "worked through" you mean addressed and remedied, that's great. If you mean playing through pain, discomfort or unresolved tension, it's not.

Steven

Where does that come from? I play on a piano made in 1800, a Broadwood (Chopin also played on one in London). I haven't noticed any difference in the width keys. Besides, you are totally wrong to say 'at the interval of a tenth, that does make a difference'. It is about opening and closing the hand. There is no stretching involved at all..

Build up strength doing humble old Hanon- no 60. Work on the etude at a very slow pace, conciously depressing the key with great strength, then relaxing all muscles... another thing to do is alternate accents. After a while, play the etude without pedal at crotchet=132, then incrementally increase tempo to full speed, thinking Debussy, not Chopin; a generally light, clear cascade and swelling, not too intense and romantic (or at least not during the development of strength).
After you have mastered this, I think you should find that your technique has improved terrifically; you may be disgruntled that l.h is not as good as r.h anymore, in which case play the etude with the l.h playing a transposition for the bass of the original treble line.
Good Luck.

Looks like LP is also getting some nice feedback in this forum too

No, the advice above is poor. Here is one of Chopin's pupils - "I am quite aware that it is a generally prevalent error, even in our day, that one can only play this study well when one possesses a very large hand. But this is not the case, only a supple hand is required."

I'd just re-finger the awkward passages. Don't do the 2-4 stretch. It's very bad for your hand. And I wouldn't legato everything. It's a death wish at 176 if you try to legato every single note in the R.H.

Chopin insisted, even in scales, that preserving the natural resting shape of the hand comes before playing legato. This etude, it's all done with the pedal. Chopin was its first and supreme master!

With all the kind advice on fingering to the Chopin C Major Etude 10/1 ... especially like klutz’s reference to the boss (Chopin) to follow-me-leader ... this is a bit like asking Tiger Woods how one can emulate him hitting his approach shots so close to the pin in making so many eagles and birdies (bet he even wrapped up an albatross!!) ... just thought I’d pop in a MIDI diagram of the first 16 measures to help provide a visual picture of the highly repetitive nature of the arpeggio climbs and descents while the LH is banging out the broad chordal Theme (if it is a theme).

What is poetic genius about Chopin is the follow-up variation in ascent/descent once having set up a symmetrical Manhattan outline in measures 1-2, 3-4 and 9-10 ... can anybody shape up to the Allegro legato tempo ... wish I could?


PS I take a stiff Whiskey to get over my tension ... not necessarily playing a Chopin Etude.