Ok, I'm not sure if somebody will take the time to read the post above
You've got that right.
The secret to good writing is to do the work so that your reader doesn`t have to.
The secret of good writing is to do the work so that your reader doesn`t have to.You can`t just throw a block of text at us and expect us each to take the time to make sense of it.
Come on! It's not even that long. Stop being lazy, if you didn't want to read it or make a intelligible comment then why reply?Well I read it and think it seems like a good idea. I would love to join you but I am so busy with everything I need to work on for school I don't think I could take 40 minutes out of my practice time to do it with you. But good luck to you! I would like to hear how it's going in a few months.
i plan to devote 100% of my practice time to the etudes, but not yet, maybe in 5 years or so, I plan to do it this way:starting 4 etudes at the same time,(starting the easiest first) 2 hours of quality practice each, thats 8 hours a day, 56 hours a week, and 224 hours a month. Multiply that by 6 months and you have been relentlessly practicing etudes for about 1344 hours. if you divide that by 4 it comes to something around 330, so that would be around 330 hours per etude, meaning 4 etudes every 6 months, 8 etudes a year, 3 years to master all 24 im guessing it would only take about 100, max 150 hours to master an etude, but then again, these are just average figures.
- legato- staccato- Rhythm alterations suggested by Cortot (exercises no. 12-15) - rhythm alterations are a widely useful exercise that many of us are doing all the time anyway. These four here are the four basic hand positions by starting at the first, 2nd, 3rd or 4th note of the arpeggio.Some notes:- keep in mind when practicing slowly that at full speed not all hand transitions should be played with a full finger legato, because it would cost a lot in terms of fluency. Also practice this exact movement at slow speed (one can still benefit from full legato practice even though it's not the final motion)- no pedal- practice loudly (but not harshly), from f to ff and back to f for each phrase- don't forget the accents at the top of each phrase- when practicing in small units, always include the hand transition either by playing the next note, or by at least ending with a hand that would be fully prepared for going on (I hope it's clear what I mean)- always, even at very slow tempo, keep thinking in quarter notes- also do practice with metronome, gradually working up the speed (leave quite some time for slow practice also)
I have decided with my teacher to devote about 30-40 minutes of daily practice time (from an average of around 3 to 3.5 hours on weekdays and usually at least 5 hours on weekends) to studying in detail a fixed selection of representative fragments from all op.10&25 etudes...
I have no idea what a "fixed selection of representative fragments" means. Sorry, I don't see the point, or any value of doing that. For example, when you go on the stage I highly doubt the audience will be somehow interested in listening to any of that. Besides, it is not a big deal to play an excerpt from any etude, but it is a great challenge to play any of them from the beginning to the end. What are you trying to accomplish and why would you do those fragments, to start with?
it is kind of interesting idea though,but I would do something different I would rather spend like 2 hours on 6 of chopin etudes until they are done and move on to the different sets until 4 cycles are done. The rest you can just relearn all of them again and trust me they will much better and easier to play than the first time you learned (as a cycle of 6 etudes) and you can still have time to practise anything else (don't need to put 100% of practising time only for the etudes).I did myself a little bit different. I did only op.25 (and doing op.10/1,2 now) I just started like 4 of them (1-4) and once I have them quite ok (doesnt need to be everything perfect in tempo) I gradually added the next 4 (which i picked 6,8,9,10) and go on with (5,7,11,12). They took me like 10 months or so to complete all op.25 (along with other pieces).I am thinking of doing op.10 right after,but after the process of learning those etudes I think I would rather play something else before I go back to complete op.10
I tend to gravitate more to the OP's plan, which is what I have implemented for myself.This is mainly because I physically couldn't take two hours of technical work on Chopin etudes every day, I would injure myself. I've found that, for myself, this sort of painstakingly technical work (as opposed to polishing and working on interpretation) has to be done in small, 5-10 minute little bursts scattered throughout the day. So, while I may spend an hour a day on three different etudes, I am never pushing myself to where I feel fatigue or discomfort.
Outlining. Essentially, instead of playing the entire arpeggios, just play the thumb and fifth finger, ascending and descending. (This is assuming, and I have no clue how other people finger this etude, so I may be out on a limb, that you are fingering it similarly to myself. Either way, you get the idea
I have no idea what a "fixed selection of representative fragments" means. Sorry, I don't see the point, or any value of doing that.
That's interesting to hear (and I agree about the prevention of injury, because you can gradually build up the coordination over a longer time). For how long have you been practicing this way already? How about the results so far?
Thanks also for the other tipps. The "outlining" exercise is also suggested by Cortot to practice the basic hand adjustment (and to prevent too much tilting of the hand).
And I'm also frequently recording for self-control, although I don't have access to the tricks you describe on the digital (since I have a grand piano, I have almost never touched my digital....).
Cortot's exercise are weird and focus on the immobility of technique most of the time, wich is not good, and wich is why you tense up. Cortot was a great musician but I wouldn't practice technique under his methods. A bit hanon-ish.
https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,16476.0.html
The approach will not be sequential (i.e. to work on some fragments for three weeks and then move on to the next set), but rather as simultaneous as possible (in practice: sample about 8-10 fragments, keep them for some successive days, then re-sample from the set of fragments [some fragments could also be kept], and to frequently re-visit fragments over time).
My questions are:1. do you also consider this a promising approach of working towards the goal of playing all etudes at a very high level at a single point of time? If not, please share the reasons why you disagree, because I might reconsider the plan if the reasons are convincing.
1.) Here is why I think this approach might be better than just working on full etudes sequentially:-- With only 30-40 minutes daily time (as I said, the rest goes into the transcriptions for the next months), it is not feasible to expect intensive work on all etudes and to keep them all alive and in steady progress for a long time.
-- By working on selected, representative fragments, we can work in very much depth on every little detail of motion and musicality (because in the end the fragments should be played as musical as possible, as they would appear in the full etude). Once the details are understood for the fragment, it will be much easier (at least this is the hypothesis :p ) to transfer this to the full rest of the etude.
-- In this approach, very little time is spent on "learning the notes". I quickly know all fragments by heart and we can focus entirely on the real stuff.
-- Most importantly, I will have practised all fragments for a very long time, and crucially with many and frequent revisits. This is also not feasible when working on the full etudes with the time that I want to devote to this.
-- By working on other repertoire during this "preparation phase", I have enough diversity of styles and pieces to also cover other aspects of piano playing.
2.) A caveat I have not mentioned above: In several etudes, stamina is a substantial problem for most people (10/2 being a particularly notorious example for many, including me). This means we also need to add some stamina exercises for these etudes, but they should also be derived from the same fragments (by repetitions or very simple alterations of a fragment) for the reasons listed above.
Another thought I had is that in each etude, with each problem Chopin presents, he always presents it, in addition to in the clearest way possible, in a very problematic, almost awkward way. For instance, the opening bars of op.10 no.1 could not be clearer. But later on, there are some bars which are almost impossible to play without readjusting the fingering in some way