Ocean Etude!!

[nanabush]

I love this piece!   I have heard it only once a while ago and didn't quite remember how it sounded.  My teacher brought in a recording of Chopin Etudes, don't remember by who sorry, and she played a bit of each.  I actually am obsessed with this piece, and I have started trying it.  In the end how difficult is this to get up to speed, it says 80 for half note which is extremely fast...The only trouble I am having so far is playing the propor notes with the left hand when it goes up only on white notes...Am I making a huge mistake, I saw on some posts that this was hardest one, and on some that this is one of the easier ones...

[Jacey1973]

Which is the ocean etude? I've never heard that name...

[nanabush]

Op25, 12 sorry my teacher calls it that.

[puppetmaster]

I'm learnign this piece myself as well. For me atleast, getting the parts up to speed are a matter of learning the right notes, and then repitition and slowly speeding up. But not being an expert myself on it, am also curious as to how to learn the piece efficeintly.

[pseudopianist]

The Ocean Etude is not one of the overall hardest but of course it depends from person to person.

What other piece have you played? Since it quite a strech from grade8.

I haven't play it but I have tried it out, it is the same technique over and over so when you get a hang of it it won't be too difficult to learn.

https://www.pianosociety.com/index.php?id=112

Read this guide on how to learn this piece, Malcome seems to think this is one of the hardest but I think a lot of people would disagree, I for one.

Good luck

[nanabush]

I can play Black Key and F minor op 10, started revolutionary, I just couldn't get into it, it's impressive but I think there are better etudes.  Fantasie Impromptu, Prelude in C sharp Major by bach, and I'm good at arpeggios
I started it yesterday, and I'm only finding it hard to look at the music while playing, I find I gotta memorize each measure because not enough reaction time after realizing what notes to play...

[Barbosa-piano]

I love this piece! I have heard it only once a while ago and didn't quite remember how it sounded. My teacher brought in a recording of Chopin Etudes, don't remember by who sorry, and she played a bit of each. I actually am obsessed with this piece, and I have started trying it. In the end how difficult is this to get up to speed, it says 80 for half note which is extremely fast...The only trouble I am having so far is playing the propor notes with the left hand when it goes up only on white notes...Am I making a huge mistake, I saw on some posts that this was hardest one, and on some that this is one of the easier ones...

\
This is a great piece, and a bit of a challenge to play, although I would not say it is the hardest one. As said previously, the technique is mostly the same throughout the piece. Many wouldn't like the suggestion, but to get the left hand used to the shape of all keys, and used to switching keys, I suggest that you repeat the the passages a number of times, and I also suggest going through the entire Etude with the left hand alone, and then right hand alone. The most difficult thing of this piece for me was probably putting both hands together, because it is not easy to read both hands at such high speed, when you have so many different positions and streches. I also suggest the study of Cortot's Edition of Chopin Etudes, where he presented great preparatory studies.
I hope this reply was helpful, enjoy practice. 

Sincerely,
Mario Barbosa

[Jake]

Hard? It's basically just getting scales up to speed.

[thierry13]

Just work it in chords and you'll be fine.

[Kassaa]

Hard? It's basically just getting scales up to speed.

Dude?

[rebel1ns]

yeah work on it in chords, it really "flows" on your hand so as long as if u keep practicing it ull get it eventually

[Dazzer]

Dude?

i think he means Appeggios. Some schools define appeggios as part of scales.

[pseudopianist]

\
This is a great piece, and a bit of a challenge to play, although I would not say it is the hardest one. As said previously, the technique is mostly the same throughout the piece. Many wouldn't like the suggestion, but to get the left hand used to the shape of all keys, and used to switching keys, I suggest that you repeat the the passages a number of times, and I also suggest going through the entire Etude with the left hand alone, and then right hand alone. The most difficult thing of this piece for me was probably putting both hands together, because it is not easy to read both hands at such high speed, when you have so many different positions and streches. I also suggest the study of Cortot's Edition of Chopin Etudes, where he presented great preparatory studies.
I hope this reply was helpful, enjoy practice. 

Sincerely,
Mario Barbosa

How about memorize it first before trying to play it at speed.

[Jake]

Ooops, you're right. I meant Arpeggios. I still am trying to master this whole piano nomenclature (I've only been playing since last September).

[Barbosa-piano]

 Those can be classified as arpeggios because of the inner notes, but this is all a training of octaves, that are switched by the upper key to the next higher octave. (Did that make sense?)

How about memorize it first before trying to play it at speed.

That is exactly what I meant, so I didn't have to read them in high speed. I guess I didn't phrase that write... Thanks.

Sincerely,
Mario Barbosa.

[musicsdarkangel]

The Ocean Etude is such a beautiful piece.  Listen to Rachmaninoff op 23 no 7 prelude - the beginings sound near identical.

Anyway, I love this piece, and have played it at a few concerts.  80 BPM is B.S.  80 BPM might be the speed at which you take your fastest arpeggio up and down, but there can be some rubato, and you need time to jump up and land down on your next set of bass notes.


I've done a good amount of the Chopin etudes (op 10 no 1, 2, winterwind, revolutionary, about 9 more) and for me, the Ocean Etude was definitely the hardest.

I did op 10 no 1 when I was in 8th grade, and had no problem, yet I did this etude in late highschool, and had major trouble getting it comfortably and up to speed.

The beauty of it is, when you have it down, you HAVE IT DOWN.

It can be braught back in a matter of days or even hours.

[mlsmithz]

The Ocean Etude is one of two or three Op.25 etudes I started learning but in which my teacher and I both lost interest after a month or two (mostly because I was working on other pieces at the time on which we both preferred to focus more attention).  While it does require considerable endurance to play at speed and you should work on memorising it early so that the ascending and descending arpeggii appear under your fingers more automatically, allowing you to focus more on making it sound like music and not noise (this one can very easily sound like noise if played carelessly), I certainly wouldn't rank it among the most difficult of the etudes, but, as always with the Chopin etudes, which ones you find difficult depends on which techniques you find difficult (as I've mentioned in other threads, I don't find the etudes which require stretches and/or leaps - e.g., Op.10 No.1, Op.10 No.9, Op.10 No.11, and Op.25 No.4 - to be too difficult but can't play Op.25 No.6 at anything faster than half speed before it blurs into a mess.... on a related note, can anyone recommend good practice techniques for Op.10 No.7?  That's another one for which I can't get the necessary motion going for more than three or four beats).

[infamousbr]

not that its easy, but op25 no12 is really manageable, its just one skill you need, and it flows right through your hands after u practice it for a considerable amount of time, but it is really fun to play though

[steinwayguy]

This (25/12) is one of only a few etudes I have not figured out yet, "technically" speaking, that is. Are there are any tricks?

[infamousbr]

steinwayguy

when i played it, i started off by playing octaves as chords, and focused on moving the hand quickly with the thumb on the note where the pinky had just played (which is the right hand, almost for the whole piece), and it def helped me a lot. duno if it helps, but thats how i got it down

[musicsdarkangel]

This (25/12) is one of only a few etudes I have not figured out yet, "technically" speaking, that is. Are there are any tricks?

Steinway, I agree with the guy who said move your hands quickly as chords.  This helps, because when you have the chords down, you just have to move the fingers.

Also, try rhythms, but only rhythms in groups of four, because you don't want to accent every three notes.  Try triplet whole, triplet whole, than whole triplet, whole triplet, etc.

Make sure that you are connecting the the pinky and thumb in both hands every time you shift position, and make the motion as smooth as possible, as if you are moving at a constant speed left and right.

Don't worry, it just take a little bit of time to learn.

What helped me the most was moving the tempo up slightly, bit by bit, with the metranome every day.