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Ok guys, I picked this piece to learn for the ABF Etude recital in October. I've learned the main theme that repeats itself again near the end, but am having trouble when the arps get wider and wider. I have a smallish hand... an octave playable (9th is a very big stretch) in the right hand and a 9th (10th is not really playable but stretchable) in the left hand. Any tips on how to get these down? My hand as well as my brain is confused!

I really love this piece. It's not terribly long, but I guessing it requires alot of stamina to play at tempo. I have a while to go till the recital but any AND all practice tips for this etude would be extrememly helpful!

Thanks,
Matt

Hey Matt. I have been looking at this piece as well. It is very difficult. Maybe the most difficult of the set.

From what I have read from here, the key to getting to tempo, is Slow practice. Making sure you hit every note precisely. I have seen pretty good improvement from very slow practice. I am not anywhere close to tempo though.

Hope that helps some. I'm sure that more people that have learned this piece can give more detailed advice.

Mike

Matt,

Mike is right. Work on this really slowly and firmly to the bottom of the keybed. This will give you the results you need.

I worked on this one ages ago, but never got it up to the tempo indicated in my edition of the Op. 10 Etudes.

This etude, by the way, is considered one of his most difficult. Don't let the C-major key fool you!

John

For the really wide stretches (C - F - C -F) you might want to consider using both hands. Since the pedal is down, your bass notes will be sustained, anyway. Distribute freely, but it's usually done by the L.H. playing what the R.H. fifth finger would have been playing.

Like John, I played this years ago, but I never got to that insane tempo. My teacher at that time suggested a few alternate fingerings, some of which I've kept to this day.

Also, you might want to try some "strategic" staccatos on R.H. fifth finger. The 5-1 legato causes the hand to expand and contract too quickly, and may be a source of difficulty.

I know my suggestions are not what Chopin intended by writing this etude, but you've got to do what you have to do to play a piece, given all the physical limitations of the human hand.

you don't really want to stretch your hand too much for reaching a note from previous one, but 'jumping' to it, which is what i would do. you'd get really tired playing through this if you keep stretching your hands without some sort release between notes.

btw, i only tried its 1st page (so that i'm not an expert for it) but i got the idea...

Do not stretch your hand at all! It is not what the etude is teaching you. You go up on the 4th quaver of every group on the way up and down on the way down. I'll try and illustrate on the weekend when I'm free. And yes, I think it is the hardest.

I've had this piece in my hands for about a year now but it is far from finished. I found the most improvement after I began to incorporate forearm rotation and arm-weight as the primary motions to actuate the keys.

There are some fairly absurd passages in it, such as the A diminished arpeggio that involves a stretch from A to Eb between the 4 and 5 finger in the right hand. The A major arpeggio is awkward as well, but I find it easier than the diminished.

Playing it without pedal and legato at tempo is nigh on impossible if your hand isn't huge.

I actually find 1235 much easier for the A diminished arpeggio. After I adopted this fingering I've had much less trouble with it. The C half-diminished seventh right before is more difficult for me because of the big stretches on the black keys. As for the A major arpeggio, I agree it's very awkward. I have yet to find a way to play this one. Maybe I'll cheat and use some fingering like 1312 or something...

Matt,

Don't you have Cortot's Edition of the Etudes?

He lists a ton of practice ideas.


Mel

You might want to check out concert pianist Alan Kogosowski\'s book about the Chopin Etudes which includes not only a fascinating biography of Chopin with particular focus on the etudes, but also thorough instructions on how to master each of them. According to him, this first etude is all about NOT stretching the hand, but rather DISPLACING it. I cannot vouch for the effectiveness or validity of this, as I have never learned this particular etude, but he does offer very interesting and unique ideas.

Actually, John, just on a theoretical basis, I wonder, would it not be more appropriate to practice slowly but with very short finger staccato on each note, rather than stopping to play deeply into each key? It seems to me that in order to achieve speed one needs to activate and leave each key with great speed. Just a thought. I know the etude is marked legato, but legato can be an illusion created by how we match sound from one note to the next, and at great speed actually connecting notes is sometimes not just impossible, but unnecessary to achieve the effect of legato. This is one of the points that Kogosowski makes in his book. In effect, actual legato is often incompatible with speed.

i agree with that Alan Kogosowski's book. actually, there's a free download of the book's first 80 pages or so which covers op.10 1 & 2 etudes, which is very helpful read.

Debussy20 - it's not really about hand stretching in this piece. My hands are about the same size as yours but I had no stretching problem with this piece.

Play with firm fingers, but keep your hand and wrist loose because there is some wrist rotation required when you play between the 3rd and 5th fingers, or 4th and 5th fingers. The 3rd and 4th fingers are longer than the 5th, if you hold the wrist too firmly, then you feel like it's a major stretch to get the next note with the 5th finger.

Debussy20, do not turn the wrists as accuracy will then be lost at high tempi.
Cortot emphasizes this on the way up the phrase, but neglects it on the way down. Make sure therefore your hand and forearm are always line up with each other (if you know what I mean; don't change the position of the wrist, but move th arm).

If you can learn to play a bar of this you can learn to play all the other bars. It will just take longer.


Slow practise!

Try readjusting your sitting position to just Left of Mid-C. This should allow you play the RH easier.

The elbow-wrist-hand can stay in the same plane for all the arpeggios.

It works for me and I've read it works for others; give it a try.

Thanks for all of your great suggestions!

I went to my teacher today and although we worked on the Ginistera I'm using in a competition for most of the time, we discussed this a bit. When my teacher was 25 she was able to study at Peabody for a few years. With her first class with a new professor, the prof placed the 4th Chopin prelude (in E minor) for her and the other students to play. She and the others were very cocky when they heard about this because they all had played it very early in life and it's an "easy" piece. My teacher was blown away with what the prof's expectations and performance of the piece. My teacher said that she had never met anyone able to voice the left hand so well.

Anyway, after the prelude was finished, the prof handed my teacher and the other students this etude. The played righthand alone at a slow tempo and weren't allowed to perform it because the prof did not think anyone was ready for this piece. I'm a little scared in taking it on. I have till October to learn this so I have a while. But seriously... do you think this is doable? I don't have much time to study this piece, but it really is one of my favorites and one i've signed up to play already . Do I need to get a back up for the "recital"?

Thanks again everybody,
Matt

Doable by October of course!!!

Putting the hours in you'll have it in April easy.

For those who have not seen this, at the end Cortot plays the beginning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDBDBpQH5Hw
Unfortunately though, this is NOT an advisable coordination, and certainly not Chopin like. I find playing it this way full of stress.

I can't help commenting on Kogosowski's book. From the free download it seems pretty useless, even silly.

I'm with Keyboardklutz on this. His one piece of practical advice on 10/1 is that it not about stretch and his one piece of practical advice on 10/2 is that the rh chords should not be held for more than their value. Wrapped in lots of more or less relevant information, that's it. It actually reads like a very long undergraduate essay trying to get as much evidence of the writer's knowledge across as possible while almost completely avoiding the point.


John

It's a curious book (based on my impressions of the two sample chapters that can be downloaded). He has a lot of interesting stories to tell, but it takes a lot of sifting to get down to his ideas about piano technique.

He seems to be saying that the hand should never stretch, not even a little bit. I wonder how he plays octaves. And he seems to think that Beethoven's music never requires a span of more than a sixth--I'm not making that up, he does emphasise the word "never". There's a few counterexamples out there, including a little ditty by the name of "Waldstein"...

The notion that this etude is not about stretching, but about displacing the hand was a new one to me. I always heard or read about it being described as a study in alternating between stretching and closing the hand. Again, I cannot endorse either approach, as I have not learned it myself. I'll keep quiet now and let those who have mastered it speak!