Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Chopin Etude Opus 10 No 1 Study Group

jazzwee,

Take this with a pinch of salt because I can't play any of the Etudes - but - I do know a generic technique my piano teacher (who does perform the Chopin Etudes) showed me that has worked for me when I need accuracy / speed / evenness. Even if you find it's not going to work in this context it's a useful technique.

Essentially it's pause on note N of a sequence of M notes playing quickly between note N and N' (note N in the next sequence of M notes). Rotate N from 1 through to M each time you play the whole segment you are practising - one line say (don't change within the segment - just the next time you play it). Start with M small, 4 in this case, then increase it and optionally the segment size.

I suppose the idea is that you are playing quickly but breaking it up into small chunks that are achievable and making sure you can play quickly between *any* sequence of notes because of the rotation. Stick with a sequence size of 4 for a while then go to 8 (say).

It's also a great way to make sure you actually know the notes because it breaks 'muscle memory'.

Look carefully at where your hands are (and where they are going) on the pause note to see if they could be better placed to continue - don't realign - rather, make sure they stop in the right place/direction.

LaValse I think that's great thinking. I really think the brain doesn't register the breaks so eventually it joins itself up. I see, Mumbles is a real place!

LaValse's practice method is also what my teacher recommends, and it really helps me a lot getting that pesky 4th finger under control when playing scales. My teacher said that even taking 5 seconds on the slow notes to carefully plan the next movements of each finger and the hand is perfectly fine and good practice.

What I haven't done so far is focus on the proper position of the hand *during* the stop, and not change that (and making sure the hand is perfectly relaxed at the stop). So I too have benefited from this thread already, thank you.

I think it's also in the Chang book, FWIW.

I am having trouble conceptualizing LaValse's practice method.. Is it like playing a single measure and the first note of the next?

anyway, this is a very helpful and very difficult etude. I don't know that it is wise to practice this piece with the goal of performance. I have never played it for people except to show them how beautiful it is. It is a very enjoyable exercise. I always considered it a way to learn a legato way to play, a way to learn intervals and conquer the keyboard in an expansive way.

I am very surprised by the detached manner of playing in some of the videos, particularly the Roy Holmes one. A true finger or hand legato is an excellent technique to have under one's belt. Some people never play 'legato' and rely on the pedal.

My brief encounters with various (but talented) teachers may be why.

@kbk, yeah Mumbles exists, all sorts of myths about the origins of the name The Gower is a spectacular part of the UK. If you (or any PW member) are ever over in this area and fancy a pint or two give me a bell.

Well, for e.g. a C major scale, I was taught it like this:
Play C, hold for 5 seconds.
Play DEF as fast as you can, holding the F for 5 seconds.
Play GAB as fast as you can, hold B for 5 seconds and relax the hand
Play CDE, holding E etc...
The goal here is to identify
- which of the groups of notes before are slower than the others
- why are they slower and what can you do.

You can vary how many notes you play fast - whether it's 4 or 8, just as LaValse said. And you can change if you play just 1 measure this way or three.

Methodically changing which notes you hold is vital as the speed block is often somewhere else than you think. For example, I often though that my thumb under 4th finger to thumb is holding me back in certain scales, when in reality it was the movement of the hand after the thumb-under, making the 1-2 uneven.

I hope this makes sense!

I'd usually include an overlap when using this method, ie start the group from the thumb. Also, any shifts in position need to be felt as instant, whether you are playing the next note or not. Sometimes its good to consider only the stopping point, but I'd generally involve the preparation for any following notes when using this.

It's certainly not a bad idea to shift the stopping points around, but you can cover everything with just as single one- as long as you're absolutely rigorous with having an overlap and including all the detail.

I have not converted to anything. However, I feel that their usage of this transparently obvious term is perfectly acceptable within the field of pedagogy (if perhaps not in esoteric physiological pedantry clubs).



Seems sensible enough. That's just building freedom. The problem is when you start playing (and receiving reaction forces from the keyboard) while in these more vulnerable positions.



I think this is a really confusing quote. What does the rest of the hand mean? What on earth are we supposed to be doing with that? Also, before we had arpeggios being played with no arm movement but "from the wrist"- now Kalkbrenner playing "from the wrist" is bad.

While there is much interest in these quotes, I think they all need to be taken with a major pinch of salt, if they are to be used for technical advice. More likely than not it's imprecision of expression that accounts for all these contradictions. Either way, the meaning is often highly ambiguous and there's often no way to abide by what half of these appear to mean without breaking what another one says.

2 hours a day?! Wow, you have tonnes more gumption than me. Interesting how you say that it's strengthening your 4 and 5. I would've thought that Op. 10 No. 2 should be the one you go to if you want to do that. I haven't noticed any changes in my playing, but then again, I haven't practised this very much.

Yes - I absolutely noticed this. Mid Second page I believe.

I was checking out intervals to see if it gets worse and it doesn't fortunately.

Interesting method LaValse. Thank you. Normally I would have thought of overlapping. I wonder why there's no overlap? Maybe so it feels like one movement. It's probably better here to stop in an unusual place. For example this etude can be thought of in beats where each beat is a logical stopping point. But is it test to stop in between?

As much as I do it, it is tiring for the my hands and shoulder. I think I overdid it last night since I'm still tired this morning. So I'm thinking that today was the day to start lightening up on practicing this.

I wanted to record it at 100bpm for posting here. But it is clear that some of the mistakes need time to settle and I can't force it in one sitting.

So maybe it's time to just spend the day at no faster than 60bpm.

I think I've satisfied myself that I don't experience a lockup above 100bpm. It's just an accuracy question.

I hope my experience in learning this gives a clue for others.

I still have a little fatigue on finger 4/5 from yesterday. This is normal right?

I'm going to take it easy on it today.

If you're fighting your wrist this will happen. I neglected to say I don't pronate at all.

OK so some rotation move is still happening that I haven't removed.

I will be conscious of that.

I tell you, even 4 bars of this Etude will cause enough detective work on technique to really help with other things.

I would actually advise people for whom the whole thing is too advanced to just do 4 bars and work on speeding it up. There's enough there and the stretch occurs starting on bar 5.

But there's a thought process that has to come with it and I think that's where real learning begins. Look at all the subtleties we talk about here. It's all amazing stuff.

There was a time when I used to pronate my wrist klutz ... which was the secret to racket head speed at the game of badminton.

But glad to note that you don’t pronate your wrist in making the Chopin Etude 10-1 runs.

Yes, certainly the secret of badminton - pronate for backhand, supinate for forehand. I should take it up!

My upper arm and right side of my hand ached a couple of days ago so yesterday I did very litle practice. Started again today with staccato practice and just awareness of my shoulder, making sure I wasn't doing any unnecessary arm lifting. Arm's good today so whatever I did a couple of days ago wasn't good.

Kbk, I made sure I wasn't doing any rotation and my hand got its usual workout but I didn't feel any strain today. When I felt like rotating like at the turnaround at the top of the arpeggio cycle, I moved my body over and my hand in instead.

Off the piano, I did some thumb stretches in preparation for the next section.

But today I just played the first 16 bars over and over. All fairly slow and just paying attention to landing points on keys. I basically checked that I was landing at the exact center of each key. I was not so there's some work to do there.

It feels comfortable though and I still feel very positive that this is within my abilities. (Whew!).

This piece though is alerting me to my speed wall level in jazz. I can play a C scale at 170bpm with my RH for sure. But in jazz playing my comfort level at improvising as at the equivalent of 100bpm in 16ths and I can play shorter phrases at the equivalent of 120bpm. Lo and behold, that's exactly what I can do in 10/1. I see a definite connection here.

So I find this project to directly affect how fast I can play in jazz. If I can find a comfort level at playing continuous and EVEN notes in 10/1 at 120, then I really believe my jazz playing will be there as well. The reason for similarity? A lot of my jazz playing is also arpeggios. And very random arpeggios.

In jazz, we really think in 8th notes so 120bpm in 10/1 is really a tune at 240bpm in jazz -- which is VERY FAST for improvising.

Someday soon maybe I'll do a few bars of 10/2. Between chromatic and arpeggios, I've got most of my jazz playing covered for the RH.

You do make it sound like hard work. I could practice this all day and not tire. It's really a study in accuracy. Can you not loosen up and find the easiest way to play it? Add the effort later if you're into that?

That's exactly it. I tired so I reassessed what I was doing wrong. Today it was fine. I think as long as I keep reacting then I'll solve all these little problems.

I did spend 1 1/2 hours just on this. Feels good right now.