What pieces (or exercises) significantly advanced your strength or technique?

shawarma_bees

I'm an amateur and have historically only learned pieces that I love hearing or that I think would be fun to play. In my youth, I used to play scales and other small exercises as directed by my piano teacher to build up technique, but with time now being more limited, I now only work on repertoire I enjoy.

I've long loved the Chopin Etudes but found them pretty much impossible to learn/play on our VPC-1 digital piano. Now that we have a grand, I've revisited Op 25 no 1 (Aeolian harp) and surprisingly found that the real acoustic action has made a tremendous difference in the feasibility of learning this piece.

I've been working on it for only about 2 weeks, but I can definitely feel my strength and technique improving. I initially thought my hands were too small for the arpeggios, but each day it seems more achievable. My rolls and jumps are getting more accurate, and my finger strength is improving. My forearms burn after each playing session!

What has surprised me (but perhaps shouldn't have) is that my improving finger strength and control is helping with other pieces, as well. I was previously stuck on a difficult section in Liebestraum No 3, and after revisiting it last night, I found that my slightly improved finger strength/control really helped!

I'm honestly surprised that just 2 weeks of working on this Etude has made a measurable difference in my technique. I'm curious, what pieces have you found to significantly improve your strength or technique?

twocats

shawarma_bees Op 25 no 1 (Aeolian harp)

I worked on that for a while a couple of years ago, and I'm guessing my hands are not bigger than yours! You have to have a lot of wrist rotation to span the notes. I may come back to it later this year. Have you seen this video? Just gorgeous.

For me the turning point was my obsession with Chopin Ballade No.1. It took me 1.5 years to get it to almost performance level, by which I mean I could play it almost cleanly but was pretty much guaranteed to slip up in the Presto. I finally realized I was never going to be able to play it completely cleanly and ~~gave up~~ decided to move on to other things. It's why I never recorded it and now I can't play it anymore! But anyway, it is one of the hardest pieces I've ever played, but it led me to getting a grand piano (felt like I was finally getting limited by my upright) and then the really nice grand piano I have now. I couldn't do fast jumps before (especially with left hand and right hand at opposite ends of the piano where you have to choose one to look at) and having gone through that is why I'm able to work on the Brahms piano quartet that is my current project.

I definitely feel that having a good grand piano that is easy to play has improved my technique a lot! I'm able to play for many hours without getting tired. I did see a teacher a couple of years back (who did Taubman and Alexander technique) to improve my ergonomics and I think my hands are more relaxed now. If you continue to be tired I would recommend that.

I'm so glad you're enjoying your beautiful piano! I can't believe you went straight from a digital to a concert grand 🙂

Josephine

shawarma_bees

For me it was also aeolian harp. It was a super stretch piece, way too difficult, and I only played something like one page, but it helped me so much with other pieces.

Seeker

shawarma_bees My forearms burn after each playing session!

Having your forearms burn is NOT a good thing; it means that you are not able to relax enough while playing the passages in the etude. What may follow the burning is tendonitis. The "trick", and there is at least one that makes playing this etude in a relaxed way more possible is to relax the hand, returning it as close to neutral position as possible in between stretching flexes. It's a little complicated to explain in writing, better seen on a video. It's possible for folks with smaller hands to play stretched out pieces - think Delarocha and Laredo playing Rachmaninoff - but watch their work and see them relax as much as possible in between stretches.

danno858

This piece was also a major stepping stone for me in my progress - once I mastered this Etude (op 25, no 1) I felt like I had moved into the higher intermediate level. Other pieces did not seem so hard to tackle after this piece.

BartK

Oh yes the Chopin etudes are definitely worthwile for technique but pretty tough. I played the Aolean Harp and a couple of other ones. The thirds etude op. 25, no. 6 is the absolute most difficult piece I ever attempted (and failed miserably 😆).

There are lots of easier etudes that you could use as building blocks. Czerny has many opuses that span the whole spectrum from beginner to very advanced. Then there is Moszkowski op. 72 and Moscheles op. 70 and the Cramer-Büllow etudes, which are often used as preparatory sets for the Chopin etudes.

BTW, for the Aolean Harp I would advise you to always use a fingering that starts with the thumb and ends on the pinky. In my edition some of the arpeggios have different fingerings but I think the point of this etude is to get this smooth circular movement of the hands even if the fingering is a bit awkward.

Pallas

BartK Czerny has many opuses that span the whole spectrum from beginner to very advanced.

Would you mind telling me which is the easiest?

ranjit

Oh, so many pieces.

Chopin Revolutionary Etude, op 10 no 12: Worked on this early on. Spent several weeks strictly playing it at half tempo at the suggestion of my teacher. I realized later that I could play it quite close to tempo (145+ bpm), probably as the patterns had settled into muscle memory. Working on it slowly probably helped with LH speed.
Czerny Etudes op 299 and 740: I learned about a dozen of these with a teacher. He would explain the technique and how to go about it (in terms of motions), and I would learn the pieces. This helped me learn a number of techniques.
All scales, arpeggios in all white keys; octave scales: work on these constantly to make the hand motions feel comfortable over time. They act as a testing ground for new improvements that I make to my technique.
Hungarian Rhapsody 6: I was obsessed with this piece, and played it for hundreds of hours until I figured out the octaves. Definitely taught me octave technique.
Improvisation: Would improvise using plenty of scale and arpeggio runs, octave runs, and left hand jumps. That considerably reinforced some aspects of technique.
Liszt Etude no 7 Eroica, and Prokofiev sonata 3: I have been learning them recently, and it is making pieces I thought were hard earlier feel easy by comparison.

BartK

Pallas Would you mind telling me which is the easiest?

Czerny wrote many opuses that start as beginner exercises and progress to intermediate (op. 261, op. 453, op. 481, op. 599). He even wrote what could be considered a 19th century version of a method book (op. 823). The problem with these is that they progress very quickly to far beyond beginner level. In general, I'm not a big fan of Czerny because his etudes are long and repetitive. The only exception is op. 821 which I like so much I bought a hard copy. It consists of 160 very short etudes 8 bars long covering many different aspects of techniques. I really like them because they are so short you can learn them very quickly and by learning a bunch of them you can learn many different techniques instead of repeating 2 pages of the same stuff. Unfortunately, they start well in intermediate teritory and go on to advanced.

For beginners I think the Burgmüller etudes are much more interesting starting with op. 100.

Rubens

Great question. I'd say Islamey (Balakirev) and Alborada del Gracioso (Ravel).

Pallas

BartK Thank you very much! One of the most motivating things for me personally is having a nice bookshelf of progressive things to look forward to after I finish my method books.

BartK

Pallas Thank you very much! One of the most motivating things for me personally is having a nice bookshelf of progressive things to look forward to after I finish my method books.

I'm a compulsive buyer of sheet music. I keep buying new music books I hope to be able to play even though already have more than I probably will ever be able learn in this life. 🤣

Pallas

BartK I'm a compulsive buyer of sheet music. I keep buying new music books I hope to be able to play even though already have more than I probably will ever be able learn in this life. 🤣

So piano nerds are just a subspecies of book nerd. I have a huge home library, probably half of which I haven't read. So many books! You're in good company!

Jane

Two that I go through (slowly, at my snail's pace) every day are Chopin op 10 no 2 and op 10 no 12.
No 12 I'm focusing on trying to recover some mobility in the left ring finger that was damaged by a surprise fasciotomy last winter.
And no. 2 because... No, there's no sane explanation. Just because...

Rubens

Oh and a big one is Ondine from Ravel, especially thd infamous beginning. That piece gave me something in my arsenal that I can't describe. But now whenever I struggle with a piece I try to remember to "Ondinize" it and usually it gets instantly better. Thank you Ravel.

thepianoplayer416

Bach Contrapunctus #1 from "Art of Fugue" BWV 1080. It's a relatively slow piece with 4 voices. You learn to hold notes down while playing others on top. Some finger substitutions to keep notes down and play others.

Erik Satie "Gymnopedie" #1. A slow piece with a simple melody. Big jumps LH playing chords that is sustained by foot pedal. You learn to use the right sustain / damper pedal.