Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Chopin - Waltz in A Minor

I really started to like Chopin's other waltzes and so I went to local music store and got this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Walzer-Waltz...438&sr=8-3&keywords=chopin+henle

Here is my progress since my last recording: http://arturgajewski.com/rec/Chopin%20-%20Waltz%20in%20A%20Minor%20-%20Progress%202.mp3

What do you guys think? It's getting easier, especially first two chords. For some reason G7 is really hard to play, I quite often play G, B, E or G, C, F.

I think you're getting there! This is about the stage I'm in with my waltz right now. You're right to keep it slow for now, until you have both the technical and the musical part down. It's what I do, although I'm itching to rush ahead

I know the feeling but you are correct. The emotion and dynamics come later.

It sounding good, I think you're picking it up faster than I did when I started with it! I think I spent the first two weeks just playing the left hand by itself over and over trying to figure out how to make those jumps.

With the significant caveat that I'm a piano student with little more than two years of playing, having spent so many months with it I learned to hear my copious mistakes. My advice would be start thinking about bringing the left hand down in volume versus the right. Especially the second and third beat. First, you don't want to overpower the right hand melody, and second you want to give it the "waltz feel" which means the downbeat is emphasized and the remaining beats are softer. A couple of things my teacher had me do to help with this were 1) playing without pedal, play the right hand legato and the left with a light staccato. 2) For the third beat, you don't even need to lift your hand off the keys when you play or even let them fully return to their top position, that will help the third beat be "almost a whisper."

And good ambition on the Waltz book, funny I did the same thing (though not the Henle, the Palmer/Alfred.) I will tell you, every single one is currently beyond my ability but it's an "aspiration" book for me.

To Qazsedcft, my teacher thinks my 25% Polish blood (thanks Grandma Kocol!) must be what draws me to Chopin

You are progressing ok.

I think pausing every time you have a hard part you should try and avoid and the best way to do this is to play much slower.

I would suggest you slow down the rhythm to play slower and steady.

I actually would not worry about anything else at this stage.

A few smaller things

- Bar 4 has an ornament in the right hand
- The second time around (Bar 7) the left hand G7 changes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9oPjsqR5EE

What about the rest of the piece ?

When I was first learning, my teacher had me skip the ornamentation to make it a little easier to focus on the fingerings and dynamics, I don't know that it's worth worrying about yet.

Ok.

But if an ornament was so difficult - I would have suggested the simplified version.

It seems a very hard piece for a first lesson. It took me a few years of lessons until I could play fur elise and something of this level.

When you talk about the difficulty of leaps in the left hand, remember that this is typical Chopin, so when you conquer this waltz, you are opening the door to many other pieces too. If you ever feel like a piece is too much like work, remember there's a whole world of pieces that you are opening up for yourself as you tackle each difficulty.

May I assume that you are occasionally practicing the left hand alone? Since it is the left hand reaching for the chords that causes pauses in your playing, you should continue to practice the left hand separately until you can reach those chords - at whatever tempo is comfortable - without having to pause.

Regards,

I practice at least one hour every day. Making those leaps was hard for me at the beginning but my teacher of one lesson so far gave me some good pointers. Just a week ago I couldn't believe my hands could do such leaps.



My hands are at the stage where I am focusing about 95% where to place the fingers and the strength is what it is. Thank you for the tips and yes, I am trying to control the volume.



Yes, feels good to have it on the piano stand and gives me motivation.

Yes I have tried to play slower but the same happens. I guess it must be some kind of problem with the thought process as with the G7 my thought are lost, doesn't matter if I play slow or faster. When I woke up this morning I practiced a little along with the altered G7 on the second time (thanks for that note) and the G7 came out a lot better than on my last recording. I am also starting to pick up on the ornaments

The way I practice is in pieces. I want to handle portion first before moving along to the end. Otherwise it just seems too much to grasp.

It is very hard piece for me to learn, yes. But as I am progressing it seems that what I already know becomes easier. Also, my left hand was never a strong case since I started playing piano by accompanying songs on youtube by playing triads with right hand and only base notes in two octaves with left hands pinky and thumb. Now that I need to use the middle finger as well and make leaps, it brings up a challenge but my finders are getting used to the work

Yes I have noticed this and realised that once my left hand becomes a team player as well, I will be able to enjoy so much more.

I do, infact that is how I first started with this waltz. My teacher instructed to hit the bottom A note, then take the leap and position all three fingers to Am chord but not press them yet. Just keep this in that position for a second or two until I am satisfied with how the fingers are position. Then instead of pressing with fingers, let the wrist just drop and make the fingers press the keys.

I repeated the first leap probably couple hundred times and then continued to next one, etc... Then I moved on to all four leaps as played.

The problem might not actually be that my fingers can't find the correct chords as they do when I play only left hand. When I take the right hand into play, the third leap seems to block my thought process.

I'm not sure if I know how to explain this exactly

Here is the progress after today's practice: http://arturgajewski.com/rec/Chopin%20-%20Waltz%20in%20A%20Minor%20-%20Progress%203.mp3

That's considerably steadier than the previous rendition and therefore shows progress. How much of the Waltz are you able to play in this manner?

Regards,

It sounds a lot lot better today.; The tempo was steady and you dont have the hestitation. How did you manage it in 1 day ?!

Try to keep it at a slow tempo and steady. Never be tempted to speed up until you can play the hard parts really well - really a good lesson to learn !

I actually also learn my pieces in blocks so I think its ok. Normally it is because I only practice a piece from what I do in the lesson. The only problem is that often the beginning is much better than the end. I normally have to limit tempo to ensure it is ok.

Music is really ruined if you try and race through and it is much better to keep it slow and play it properly. Speed is normally the last thing I work on. Especially in this piece where it gets harder and you are likely to struggle I would not increase the tempo at all.

Bar 7 where the chord changes this is more difficult but it really is not a big issue. You need to slow down time and play as slow as you need to until you can do it without hestitation. It hands separately as Bruce suggested and practice. If you practice on something really really slowly you can do it.

If you ever have this problem of hesitation slow down the tempo more and play it steady. Would be intereested to see the progress. GOod luck.

This is all that I know so far.

I practiced this for total of three hours today. When I finally was able to manage to play it like this multiple times in a row, I was happy to end my day with the piano



Yes this is the the case for me with Fur Elise. I play the first 16 bars from muscle memory and the next 16 bars is little harder to play since I haven't practiced it so much.