Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Play chopin étude op 10 no 1 at 104 bpm in a week

Hi, I learned this etude in a week, and after a week I am able to play it at 104 bpm with very few mistakes, is this a good improvement?. Will I be able to play it at full tempo in some months?.

i think only you can make that determination. stay relaxed and aim for gradual tempo increase while staying relaxed. The notes and melody itself aren't too difficult, but to really make this piece is through slow-practice

I would have to hear your performance before making any judgment.

Regards,

I'm with Bruce.

What you're saying sounds good, sort of, but.....it depends how the music sounds.

There's more to it than getting the notes. Performances that miss notes can be better (way better) than ones that don't. And it's possible for performances that do get all the notes to be pretty bad. I'm not saying yours is (at all!), just that "getting the notes" doesn't say what we'd need to know. It's a good start, though. And having done it in a week is pretty impressive.


I like the rest of what you said but I can't agree with this part. Even just the notes are very hard -- for most people.

It depends on the movements you use (or don't use) which will either make it effortless or require infinite practice. That tempo doesn't mean much because you can play anything slower and not actually be able to play at tempo.

For this specific piece, you should be able to play it at tempo almost immediately. The biggest difficulty is getting the coordination right and linking the patterns all together. This is not a piece that you can gradually build up to tempo.

Very true.


Very false.

I think you better explain that....

If you get the combination of movements right, you can get the speed immediately. However, if you don't get the combination of movements right, you can hit the speed wall trying to make up for the inefficient/incorrect movements and causing strain in the process. The movements aren't too obvious in this piece, but are much more obvious compared to the other studies. E.g. the wrist makes numerous adjustments to align the fingers as demonstrated by Louis Lortie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH6za0Cp4RA
Louis Lortie plays Chopin's Etude in C major, Op. 10 No.1

Contrary, this tutorial by Paul Barton is incorrect about the stretching:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6vp8QIfcIg

You could say that about any piece. Most people don't have the training or memory to do that and have to build up to it.

I'm with Mark and Damon on this. I think any piece can benefit from slow practice, even if it's easy or you have the "combination of movements right" (not really sure what you mean by that statement).

The "combination of movements" must go hand in hand with a sound appropriate for the piece on which it is applied, no matter the tempo.

Let's say he take op.10, no.1 up to a fast tempo. So what? What then? That says nothing about how it sounds.

Technique is mostly about the combination of movements of the playing apparatus. It's not just a finger exercise. This piece is definitely not a finger exercise but if you use limited movements then this piece will be a pain in the hand, literally.

Also, technique and sound go inner ear to hand. It's already a given that you use the best combination of movements to achieve the desired sound. If you get the desired sound but don't use the best combination of movements, then it will be a struggle and require constant practice.

FaultyD: You seem very convinced. You need to be not so convinced.

Much of what you're saying is certainly valid, but about your bottom lines.....maybe they're true for you, and maybe also for a relatively few other people. But they're not true for most.

For most people, even highly talented advanced players, pieces like this require a great deal of practice, and often some struggle -- even for people who have "the right" movements.

Even Richter chipped notes on this etude....

....and it was said (don't know if it's true) that this etude was the reason Rubinstein would never record the Etudes.

P.S. I did a little searching to see if I could find out about this, one way or the other, and I didn't. But in one of the references that talks about Rubinstein and the Etudes, I did find this:

"Even....Vladimir Horowitz....is quoted as saying that the one in C major, op. 10 no. 1, did not fit his hand...."

(Victor Lederer, A Listener's Guide to the Master of the Piano)

If you play an etude perfectly you've missed the point.

This is an incorrect assumption here. Technique is all about coordination (and neurological and muscular conditioning). What the best pianists have that most don't is simply the best coordination of movements. Further, what makes many of these studies so difficult is due to the limited movements that most pianists use. Most pianists are not fully aware of the huge repertoire of movements that are available to be used. Thus, they are extremely limited from the very beginning. If they learned all of them, they'll realized just how easy playing actually is.

What you describe as struggling is what I referred earlier about making up for poor coordination or an incomplete use of all available movements. And I agree that this study can sound good even without using all available movements to play it. However, if they struggle to achieve that sound, they are not incorporating all necessary movements.

You're asserting that the purpose of an etude is that it is supposed to be difficult. In actuality, the purpose of an etude is to learn it so that it's easy to play.

Because he used a very limited repertoire of movements as well as sitting too low, preventing use of those movements. He wasn't a very good pianist even if he sounded decent enough.

This sounds to me as though you are saying that in order to play this piece (and others that are considered difficult) one must have a vast repertoire of coordinated movements. OK, but how is this helpful in any way to the OP (or anyone else)? "In order to play this piece you must have what's needed to play it. If you don't have it it will be difficult."

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but it just sounds like a pithy bunch of words without any practical application to me.

The movements necessary to play the piano can be learned even by non-pianists. Pianists don't have unique bodies that allow them to move in ways that non-pianists can't. We all have the same muscles, tendons, joints, etc. However, in order for playing to be easy and effortless, the best combination of movements must be used.

Most pianists never use the best combination of movements because they are unaware of all of them. They are blinded either through explicit instruction or failing to thoroughly investigate the best movements. Further, what makes it difficult to learn these movements is the belief that more practice will automatically make it easier, like trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole. For anyone who's spent months trying to force their way to perfection, and then figured out how to play using more efficient movements, they'll know that this is true. It's not how much you practice, it's how you practice.

Piano technique is the combination of movements required to achieve the desired sound.
Good piano technique is the most efficient and effective movements that achieve that sound.