Chopin op.10 no. 4

[franzliszt2]

Hi, I have a week to learn this study as I foolishly forgot to double check my repertoire list for the summer, and only realised today that Chopon etude op10.no4 was on, and my lesson is next week!!!!
Does anyone have any advice on getting it up to speed in a week, I've spent ALL day practicing it and almost got all the notes at about Half speed, now I face the daunting task of speed. Every time I speed it up I lose the clarity, and everything just falls apart. I have played it with all sorts of rhythms, and speed up gradually using a metronome, but it still won't get past a certain speed. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I hope to get it to a tempo which is at least capable of being called presto.

[Kassaa]

Hahahahahaahha, I have been practicing it for two months now, and still don't have it up to speed. You will spend months on doing the third and fourth page right.

[danyal]

HAHAHAHAHAHA! Funny. ROTF!! Good luck with that one. I will have a lot of respect and absolute admiration for your insane genius and pure virtuosity if you perfect, clean and round off that piece in less than a month, let alone a week. Play other things in your lesson. Its sounds to me like you've had alot more to work on other than the etude so present those first.

Good luck anyway. Really...
Danyal

[dinosaurtales]

You guys totally crack me up!  I may NEVER get it up to speed!  Hell, I don't even have the notes figured yet. 

[Kassaa]

You guys totally crack me up! I may NEVER get it up to speed! Hell, I don't even have the notes figured yet.

It is difficult, and it will cost a huge amount of time. I now play it at 152, with some flaws at the third and fourth page, but it is going better each day.

[BoliverAllmon]

You guys totally crack me up!  I may NEVER get it up to speed!  Hell, I don't even have the notes figured yet. 

join the club

[stevie]

richter is here to teach you a lesson, dont worry, itll just take 1 minute and 31 seconds:

https://glumolwiki.free.fr/richy/richter10.4-highres.avi

[thierry13]

Isn't it a bit slow ?

[goansongo]

Wow... I can see you guys are all offering him great advice.

[BoliverAllmon]

Isn't it a bit slow ?

yes definately

[kelly_kelly]

Hi, I have a week to learn this study as I foolishly forgot to double check my repertoire list for the summer, and only realised today that Chopon etude op10.no4 was on, and my lesson is next week!!!!
Does anyone have any advice on getting it up to speed in a week, I've spent ALL day practicing it and almost got all the notes at about Half speed, now I face the daunting task of speed. Every time I speed it up I lose the clarity, and everything just falls apart. I have played it with all sorts of rhythms, and speed up gradually using a metronome, but it still won't get past a certain speed. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I hope to get it to a tempo which is at least capable of being called presto.

I think you need to do some praying.

[BoliverAllmon]

agreed. Miracles need to take place. I was bumming that I had three days to memorize the first etude. It didn't really matter how fast I played it, just have it memorized. That was hard enough, but to have it up to speed. Lord have mercy.

[xvimbi]

The most common cause for speed walls is the fact that the motions required to play something fast may be completely different than the motions required to play something slowly. Certain motions cannot be sped up past a certain point. No matter how much practicing one does, it won't help. Go through the piece and play it in small sections at speed or even faster. You will likely find sections that require different movements. Once you have figured out the correct movements at speed, you can go back to slow practice if you want to, but it has to be a *slow-motion* version of the fast movements.

Hope that helps.

[franzliszt2]

xvimbi... I have taken your advice, and I can now reach page 4 at a fairly quick pace, not as fast as it shuld be, but still fast. I have learnt the 4th and 5th page at a very slow tempo. Th 6th and 7th are just the 1st 2nd pages  again, and the 8th page is all new, but doesn't look as scary as the rest, but i could be very wrong.

I have also resorted to praying a lot, but I find a good 3 hours is more effictive lol.
An idea I had, was to learn the last page, and then I can play it all, except the 5th page (the one where the hands are together in the fast semiquaver passage, and then the diminished arpeggio). Then I can say I didn't have time to learn that, and explain the situation, he'll understand.

 What is everyones favourite recording of the etudes?, I prefer Murray perahia's, and I also like Freddy Kempff playing them.

[BoliverAllmon]

I also agree on the Perrahia

[xvimbi]

xvimbi... I have taken your advice, and I can now reach page 4 at a fairly quick pace, not as fast as it shuld be, but still fast. I have learnt the 4th and 5th page at a very slow tempo. Th 6th and 7th are just the 1st 2nd pages  again, and the 8th page is all new, but doesn't look as scary as the rest, but i could be very wrong.

I'd be interested if you actually did identify spots where you had to change your movements to get over the speed wall and what type of passages they were. But don't waste your time right away if you think you should be practicing instead.

[rob47]

Hi, I have a week to learn this study as I foolishly forgot to double check my repertoire list for the summer, and only realised today that Chopon etude op10.no4 was on, and my lesson is next week!!!!

Here's my advice: Tell your teacher you didn't practice it,  and work on other stuff. What's the big deal?

[quantum]

Here's my advice: Tell your teacher you didn't practice it, and work on other stuff. What's the big deal?

ditto.

[dinosaurtales]

I'd be interested if you actually did identify spots where you had to change your movements to get over the speed wall and what type of passages they were. But don't waste your time right away if you think you should be practicing instead.

i don't know about you all, but I have had to figure out several "hand position" spots, where I position my hand during one set of sixteenths so that my thumb is already over the note I need to start the next set of sixteenths.  I also "crawl" my hand up the runs by using the fingers of the last two notes of a sixteenth (R.H.) to "pull" my hand up, while finding the first note of the next set with my thumb, almost like braile.  Sounds weird, but the speed picked up right away with that one, as well as the precision.  That said, I really don't have the technique at this point to really do this at proper speed for performance, but I am improving with it anyway.

[fiasco]

 What is everyones favourite recording of the etudes?, I prefer Murray perahia's, and I also like Freddy Kempff playing them.

John Browning's 1968 RCA Victrola recording.  So clear and passionate, perfect timing, sounds flawless as best as I can tell.

[BoliverAllmon]

perrahia and cziffra

[bearzinthehood]

The most common cause for speed walls is the fact that the motions required to play something fast may be completely different than the motions required to play something slowly. Certain motions cannot be sped up past a certain point. No matter how much practicing one does, it won't help. Go through the piece and play it in small sections at speed or even faster. You will likely find sections that require different movements. Once you have figured out the correct movements at speed, you can go back to slow practice if you want to, but it has to be a *slow-motion* version of the fast movements.

Hope that helps.

I'm becoming increasingly wary of slow motion practice.  My reasoning is that it takes a different order of muscle contractions to execute a particular motion quickly than it does to execute it slowly, simply because muscular contraction is one force among many (gravity, key rebound, the elasticity of joints in the playing mechanism).  Because of this, even if it were possible to execute a particular motion in slow motion, which may not be possible (the example Bernhard gave I believe was running, which cannot be done in slow motion), the slowed down motion would inevitably involve a different "script" of muscle contractions, which when sped up will likely be less than optimal.  For this reason I believe that slow motion practice should be used very sparingly.

As always, please understand that I am an amateur pianist and that what I post is only a result of my own personal experience.

[dinosaurtales]

Well, fine.  Now that we've changed the subject, I kick in! 

I have noticed that slow motion practice is superb for certain things, and less optimal for others.  It's required (at least for me) to coordinate and practice tricky fingerings, or to establish hand positions in particular passages.  I also use slow practice to get note passages "even", such as long stretches of the Appassionata final movement, or Mozart K576 final movement, where evenness is important.

I am also working on 10-4 and I have a similar problem with Suggestion Diabolique, whiere some of the practice is to try tiny sections,like 1 measure if neccesary, at speed. Just to get used to the feel.  Because you and Bernhard are right - some of the techincal problems are speed related, and slow practicing to speed sometimes doesn't do it.

[xvimbi]

I'm becoming increasingly wary of slow motion practice.  My reasoning is that it takes a different order of muscle contractions to execute a particular motion quickly than it does to execute it slowly, simply because muscular contraction is one force among many (gravity, key rebound, the elasticity of joints in the playing mechanism).  Because of this, even if it were possible to execute a particular motion in slow motion, which may not be possible (the example Bernhard gave I believe was running, which cannot be done in slow motion), the slowed down motion would inevitably involve a different "script" of muscle contractions, which when sped up will likely be less than optimal.  For this reason I believe that slow motion practice should be used very sparingly.

I agree with you and dinorsaurtales. That's why I said "Once you have figured out the correct movements at speed, you can[/u] go back to slow practice if you want to, but it has to be a *slow-motion* version of the fast movements."

This whole issue would never arise if one wouldn't use the "start slowly, speed up gradually" approach. My main point was that, if one really wants to use that approach, it should be slow-motion, rather than using a different set of movements altogether. I wanted to point out that the "start slowly, speed up gradually" approach often leads to speed walls. I completely agree that slow-motion practice to overcome such speed walls won't work in many cases.

Having said that, both slow practice as well as slow-motion practice all have their place. In my own, personal experience, speed problems come from two sources:

1. Coordination: this essentially means the movements at speed haven't been properly worked out yet. This problem is solved by practicing at or above speed, although often, the "start slowly, speed up gradually" approach using slow-motion works too. This establishes primarily muscle memory.

2. Not knowing the music well enough: Once a note has been depressed one needs to know for sure what the next notes should be. This kind of memory can be obtained through slow-mode practicing (Bernhard advocates super-slow for this purpose) or mental practice. This is entirely different from muscle memory. For me this is the bigger issue when it comes to speed.

I think the trick is to know when a certain approach is useful and when not. They all have their place, and people respond to them differently. One needs to know about all of them.

As always, please understand that I am an amateur pianist and that what I post is only a result of my own personal experience.

We are all mere amateurs

[mandel]

Together with hard work, slow practising and awareness in practising.. the most important progress happens while you're sleeping at night - Trust me.