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I started Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor today. God help me. 😂😂😂

I can't even imagine getting to the point where I could play a Chopin nocturne! Maybe in 10 years! lol I feel like that about Chopin's Waltz in A minor which my teacher says I can start to learn now, but it is terrifying! Those left hand jumps are so scary!

That is a nice piece.

I started the same Nocturne a few weeks ago! Want to start a "study group" here? I'd love to have someone to commiserate with And compare practice ideas, dealing with tough passages (many, many tough passages...), etc.

Welcome to PW, Amykpiano! It may not be so far in the future for you. Waltz in A min is RCM level 6 and Nocturne in C# min is RCM level 9. So 3 years + or - ?

It’s all scary until you finally conquer it, and then that gives you the courage to go forward. All we can do is keep trying!

H

If you want to, sure! I have a bunch of other things that I’m playing along with this one, so I thought to take this piece nice and slow and really get it down as I move along through it. But I’ll absolutely post whatever insight, LOL, that I might get. Which probably won’t be a lot. 😂

This will be a bit of a stretch for me, but after the mazurka that I played this past summer, I’m feeling mildly confident. Sort of? I don’t know, we’ll see!

Thanks so much for the welcome Tyrone! I'm not sure if my teacher is correct when she says I can play the Chopin Waltz. lol She has more confidence in me than I do in myself! I have only been playing for a little over a year, although I played for a short time as a child. I'm definitely not level 6 though! Maybe level 2-3.

Thank you also Lisa! I agree, when I think of how far I've come since last year at this time, it's pretty amazing! Good luck to you with the Nocturne! I hope I can join you in a 5 years! I love Chopin's pieces!

Aha! So your teacher was already assigning you a "stretch" piece with Waltz in A min. Good luck with it! I'm sure your teacher will help you through the rough spots.

I started the Waltz in A minor about 1 year after starting lessons (never having taken any, and starting at age 46), it took me a good 6 months to get to barely performance level, but I learned so much from it! I spent many hours just playing single measures of the left hand to get those jumps down. But what ebonykawai said, "It’s all scary until you finally conquer it, and then that gives you the courage to go forward." is so true. Now, when I find music with those kinds of jumps in it, they don't faze me at all. Indeed, it opened up a world of possibilities, and I was really proud that something that seemed impossible when I started became manageable.

Now, almost 4 years in I'm working on the Chopin Nocturne. It's got some challenges, but I know with hard work, I'll overcome them. Some of the challenges:

- 3 against 2 rhythms
- Reading the piece, especially during the modulations, with the double sharps and other accidentals
- The really fast scales at the end
- Chords that change almost every measure and don't repeat themselves in the same form very often

I'll get them though!

So anyway, tackle that Waltz! I think you'll find that you don't need 10 years before you can play the Nocturne

Thank you both Tyrone and Chrispy again for the encouragement! I will give it a shot. I can play the first part painfully slowly after a few days but I have to start somewhere! 😆 I also restarted playing at 46! I guess that’s the perfect age to begin!

its a beautiful piece, good luck

Wow, good luck! I love the nocturnes!

A few weeks ago, my wife and I were sitting at the dinner table and we were listening to the nocturnes as performed by Bruno Rigutto, from his CD. I like his playing a lot. Anyway, my wife asked me how long before I could play the nocturnes! I blanched, and said, years, years.

So, I hit on the idea of cheating with a Yamaha DYUS1 Disklavier, a solenoid-based player piano, hahaha. She’s in for a surprise. Now, I just have to figure out who has recorded the most beautiful rendition of the nocturnes on the Disklavier.

I figure the Disklavier will cost as much as the lessons to play a single nocturne. So be it. I’ll pay for both things.

It's one of my pieces for 2020 - I learned no. 21 in C minor last year, which is easier. A nice introduction to Chopin's style (the real Chopin, after the easiest preludes and a few other 1-page pieces). I still can't play it well, but I learned a lot of things through it. I liked it much better than the A minor waltz, though, which has always been a struggle for me.

Welcome @AmyKPiano.

I've been at the C#Minor post Nocturne now for not quite six months. There are still some rough patches, mostly to do with the polyrhythms and then the long up and down run near the end. I'm still working on that last bit to get it up to speed. I do like how I have managed to get it to sound otherwise. It is a gorgeous piece.

@sinophilia I had not realised there was an easier nocturne, I thought the C#Minor was it.

That means there is yet another piece (YAP) I can add to my collection of pieces to learn.

@ebonykawai You will do well with it I know.

It´s a beautiful piece, I´ve listened to it many times.

Even though this piece does not have so many technical difficulties requiring virtuosic technique, the runs at the end will probably constitute a barrier for the vast majority of intermediate students.
I like Rousseau´s interpretation very much, listen to the perfect scale run at 3:30:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqpPRj6UZqc

It probably takes many many years of serious practice to get this kind of control over the runs. I´ve heard so many people slow down during the runs or it gets sloppy and very uneven (maybe I am too spoiled by this version by Rousseau lol).

Good luck.

You can feel free to start a group, but you might also want to take a look here:
Chopin Nocturne C Sharp Minor Study Group as we did this last year and there are some nice tips and thoughts in here.

Good luck with this piece - it’s really beautiful. I returned to it a few weeks ago and although would have to relearn some of it, it comes back much more quickly the second time! I’ll be happy to offer some more thoughts as you go. Don’t be afraid of it, just take it one section at a time.

Chrispy, regarding those fast runs, just play them really slowly, and every day, while you learn the rest. Don’t save them for the end or they’ll haunt you as you’re nearly finished and can’t get them right! Speed them up ever so gradually. They take a while to build up, so I suggest you begin with them while learning the rest. Just play them about 10 times a day. It’ll only take a minute or two once you’ve learned them.

. Thank you!


Disklavier is awesome, that's so great!



Thanks for this, I'm sure it will be super helpful!



Excellent, thank, you!

Yes, I've finally learned how to reply to more than one at a time. 😂😂😂 Thanks everyone!