Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Chopin Prelude op.28 no.15 - In-depth Tutorial

Hi guys!
Here is my new tutorial on Chopin's prelude, the so-called "Raindrop" (not by him).
I tell about how to learn it with hands separate & both hands, also I talk about pedalling, timing, the musical message, and I put everything together at the end of the video.
There will be a PDF link for the sheet music (free), with my fingerings.
I am editing this right now so it will be online in a couple of hours!
Enjoy and good luck!

So many videos on YouTube which are labelled "tutorials" are not such, in my mind. They simply show hands on a keyboard playing through a work (sometimes with the score shown) from start to finish; period.

This, on the other hand is indeed a tutorial in the best sense of the word. It discusses technical and interpretive challenges and how to address them and how to solve or interpret them. It isolates various elements of the Prelude, works on voicing, phrasing and pedaling.

Moreover, the work is well played on a finely-tuned, rich-sounding piano.

I hope that many will learn and benefit from this tutorial.

Thank you for sharing.

Regards,

I agree. This is great. I will try it. I’ve sort of played the prelude when I was young. I was a banger. I recall my father begging me to stop playing. The rain drop sounded like falling on a tin roof, he said. I stopped playing the piece. I think the piano was pretty bad too. Anyway it’s been my regret not having studied this great piece.

I really appreciate your tutorials, I’ll keep this for future reference. Definitely not ready for it just yet! 😊

Many thanks, guys!
I appreciate your comments!
Let me know if you'd like to see a tutorial on a specific piece and I'll put it on my to-do list for the future.
All the best!

Hate to even mention it, but I know many new pianists are longing to play —- Fur Elise

It's too bad we don't have a rating system here for threads and posts. It would help put to the top what people think is important. Unfortunately, this will be lost like everything else in this forum.

Antune, thanks for your tutorial on BWV 974!

I understand why you wished to innovate by strapping a camera to your forehead. It is a laudable attempt to put the viewer in the mind, and looking through the eyes, of the performer... Unfortunately it fails. Probably an effect of relativity : the viewer is sitting in a fixed position in front of an immobile computer, not swinging on a bench in front of the keyboard.

So I got sea-sick.

Which is extremely unfortunate, as your tutorial, is, as all have said, outstanding.

I made a similar comment about the OP's tutorial on Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu. This video, by comparison, is much more "stable," and I was not at all detracted by the camera movement that the positioning of the camera caused. I certainly would not say that the video "fails;" I think it is quite successful as I mentioned above.

Regards,

When I first watched part of the video, I focused on the sheet music while listening to the comments. Now that I look at the pianist's hands I have to agree that an overhead camera in a fixed position would be better than a camera attached to the poster's forehead. Still a terrific and well thought out video.

Hi Vikendios,


It’s not the first time that I get a comment about the camera movement. So I copied the response where I gave an explanation before."Actually, I thought about it a lot because I really care about how people perceive my videos. But I have several reasons to keep the camera placement as it is.
The first one is that I want to present the exact angle as I see my hands. I believe, the viewer must see the nature of the hand movement through my eyes because I think this is the easiest way to understand what I am showing and explaining.
The second reason is that body movement has a huge impact on phrasing and timing in general. Those two things aren’t always the easiest to explain in words. Therefore in my experience, the movement adds to my teaching.
The third reason is that I can show the right or the left hand at a specific time for the certain passage that I want to be the focus of the attention.
For me, the above reasons are very essential to my teaching." It's too bad to hear that you can't connect with my first reason. I would obviously love it if everyone could enjoy my videos a lot. Of course, if I would have an editing crew I could make two video's, where in one the camera is fixed. But since I am doing this all by myself, I don't have that time. The above reasons are still very valid to me, so I am not considering changing the camera placement. Thank you very much though for the feedback and the compliment.

Hi Bruce,

Really happy to hear that you experienced the improvement of the camera stability. I did keep your feedback in mind, so I made more effort to move the camera less while playing. It's almost like learning a new instrument Since I really enjoy making videos that have motion, it's good to hear that this time the video was easier to watch.

All the best!

Hi Pianoloverus,

Thanks for the feedback and the compliment! For now, this is all I can do about the camera stability. I just explained in a comment above why the movement of the camera is something very important to me. Maybe good to mention that I also have a stable cam "playthrough video" about each piece that I make a tutorial about. It is not a tutorial, but it could maybe give an idea about the interpretation of the music.

All the best!

Hi bSharp(C)yclist,

Thanks for the comment, glad you enjoyed it!

Greetings!

Nice. Can you do Chopin Nouvelle Etude 1 ? I am going to learn this next and will be super helpful. PLEASE ;D

The Raindrop Prelude has been on my "I want to learn it list" for a while and your video has inspired me to finally tackle it. Thanks so much for this!

Hi Moo,

I am afraid, I haven't played any of Nouvelle etudes by Chopin
In the future, I would love to add it to my repertoire and make a tutorial about it, but realistically, it can't be very soon.
Sorry!
Good luck with learning!

Hi Chrispy,

Really glad to hear that! I really wish to inspire people with these videos.
It is one of my favourites preludes and really enjoyable to play.
Good luck with the "list"!

What a great tutorial that really is one!
I really like how you highlighted in differing colors some of the inner voices that I so often overlook when I think that I am "playing" a piece...more correct to say just reading through. I know it's obvious but really looking at a score before playing it makes a great difference. Thanks for pulling it apart and making each layer more obvious.
Your Chopin is lovely. I would like to hear some Debussy when you can...first Arabesque is a shimmering piano piece that I would like to see done by a careful and inspiring player as you certainly are.
Thanks again.

Excellent tutorial. I really enjoyed it. I have played with this one in the past but I have never completed it. This may be my inspiration. I am really looking forward to the Rachmaninoff piece that you have up there as well.