Progress with Chopin Etude op 10 no 1 - would appreciate advice!

ranjit

I'm really trying to figure out how to play this etude.

pianoloverus

I think you played a wrong note on at least 80% of the arpeggios(considering up and down as one arpeggio). For starters, I think you should be practicing/playing at a slower tempo. There are many YouTube instructional videos about playing this piece so I would look at those and choose a few that you think are the best. Here's one I would trust but there many others:

BartK

Well, I have not played this etude but from the numerous masterclasses and videos I saw about this etude it is clearly about extension and flexibility. Your hand seems rigidly fixed in certain positions instead of expanding and contracting like shown in the Denis Zhdanov video above. It's not just that video too. Garrick Ohlssohn gives pretty much the same advice in the Chopin podcast video. You need to relax the hand when you cross over and not keep it stretched like that.

ranjit

Progress update

pianoloverus

Again, there are mistakes on virtually every arpeggio even though you play the piece very slowly. I think you are working on pieces very far beyond your present abilities.

ranjit

pianoloverus Have you even played this piece?

MRC

I played this when I was a student. It cost me an awful amount of work to finally get it to a point where I considered it to be presentable, but even then I wasn't really happy with it. I have no inclination to work on it again: for me, this is one of those pieces where the musical content doesn't justify the amount of technical work you need to put into it. Chopin wrote lots of more interesting stuff.

If, however, you are hell-bent on working on this étude, my advice is the same as what Marc-André Hamelin says in this video when talking about Islamey:

Practice really, really, really slowly. And in chunks. Do chunks of only one measure at a time, stopping on the first note of the next measure, at a speed where you make no mistakes at all. When you can play each measure comfortably without mistakes, try chunks of two measures at a time.

Ornstein

You are moving laterally with the RH which is the part of the basis of the technique of this etude but there needs to be more. Possibly you did not want to block the view of the hands but camera placement aside, I have to see your shoulder, even back of the head in frame at the top of the passages. Also there's a slight leaning-into/pulling away-from-the-keyboard dimension of movement as you ascend and descend, respectively.

I like that you put this video out there because the degree of movement and intricacy of biomechanics goes up progressively with the repertoire. I've had the same experience with this on many pieces where your past experience/repertoire you learned up to this point, has a very comfortable, defined range of motion. It feels when things outside of muscle memory and prior experience shows up; I would've loved someone to clarify these intuitive feelings are correct so that you can let go of the uncertainty and second-guessing.

I wish my parents recorded it when I still knew the piece but I played this at 11 at the home of a famous pianist in Oregon growing up. Seeing your video is very much like my own early exploration of this etude and I wouldn't be discouraged yet.

Ornstein

I remembered this video of Garrick Ohlsson had an overhead view. at around 30 secs. Watch the head movement, you can trace out the diagonal movement which exactly illustrates what I mean about the leaning-in on the way up and pulling-away on the way down.

Jane

Ornstein Garrick Ohlsson had an overhead view.

/thread drift

THOSE HANDS

/thread drift

Ornstein

Jane Two of the most aesthetic hands ever!

ranjit

I think it's looking more natural, although not really there yet.

twocats

ranjit try not to accent your pinky on all the descending arpeggios (unless it's the top one), it really sticks out. And your right hand is much louder but the left hand has the melody and every performance I've heard has it really big, I think you should use your arm weight and really get into the keys 🙂

ranjit

Tried to bring this piece up to tempo. As a side note, practicing blindfolded works wonders.

ShiroKuro

@ranjit sounds like you’re making good progress!

ranjit As a side note, practicing blindfolded works wonders.

Ugh, no thank you! 😅

Ironically (perhaps), in two separate pieces I’m working on, there are tricky passages and I’ve been working on looking at my hands, rather than looking at the score, and I’m finding it helpful. This isn’t relevant to you so much though, since you were already playing from memory.

lautreamont

You're really making progress. How are you practicing this, and how does this feel in your hand? I'm nowhere near this level yet, but it's one of those pieces I play a few measures of periodically as a diagnostic. To my ears there seem to be consistent accents on your third octave descending, particularly with the thumb. An underrated challenge of this piece for me is having a consistent smooth sound when the arm and wrist angles are so different for the higher and lower registers, where the awkward part for me is the lower register because the arm angle isn't very amenable for the thumb with its shortness.