Is it to difficult?

[thierry13]

Hi everybody,i'm 14 years old and i'm playing piano since one year,and i have a teacher since 2 months,and i'm playing : chopin etude 25.12 , 10.12 , nocturne(chopin),beethoven's pathetique, schubert serenade,schubert impromptu,tchaikovsky's concerto. Would the rachmaninoff prelude in g sharp minor or his concertos  (2,3) would be too difficult for me for the moment or am i improving enough fast for this. Thanks!

[monk]

Ha Ha.

1st of April is over already.

[Piazzo22]

I'd like to add that most 14 year old prodigies would have better grammar and spacing skills.

Did you know there´s pepole who don´t use english language in their daily little lives?
Oh well.... you know it now  
I´m one of them, did you notice?
Is it too much for one day?

[donjuan]

Ill put us back on topic and answer the original question from the francophone..
You have already played some difficult pieces.  Go for it!! what are you afraid of?
donjuan

[liszmaninopin]

I find it very difficult to believe that you've played all of those things after only 1 year of study-only 2 months with a teacher.

However, if you have in fact played all of those pieces, that's amazing!  I'm certain that if you could learn all that in 1 year just beginning, you should find the Rach concertos a fun project.

[donjuan]

that must be one hell of a teacher!

[thierry13]

Well all those pieces are not finished,i should have precised,i'm playing in the meaning of working on with my teacher and all of the more difficult parts are passed. The revolutionary study (10.12) is finished reading,but only at the right speed to the middle of the piece...but it's almost right everywhere.The 25.12 is not really finished but i'm on the way to...and the pathetique sonata the hard parts are finished and are all right, some reading and it's clear.The nocturne is finished.But it's because i read too much pieces(many i not named) at the same time without finishing them...but this summer i'll make a run-threw and finish all that i'm making with my teacher! And yeah i'm a franchophone(canade,quebec) so i don't have a very good english! And yeah my teacher is real good and it's because i heard her play the fantasy-impromptu and the revolutionary study that i wanted to take lessons to play them:p But in the rachmaninoff, the problem is that it's sooooo long and it's full of virtuosity and speed all along... And my teacher does'nt want to make the concertos with me because she is VERY aware of all the details and in rachmaninoff there is so much of that...she recommended the tchaikovsky concerto to me for the moment and i like it !   ... I don't think i'm a child prodigy but i only learn fastly...in september this year i found hard playing bach's minuet with both hands:P And i make about 1 hour,sometimes less or more,by day since this time:P

[liszmaninopin]

How comfortable are you with the Tchaikovsky Concerto?  If you are good with that, that's quite an accomplishment; being a very long piece, and difficult too.  I would certainly imagine that you could do the Rachmaninoff with some work.

[thierry13]

Well i have only started reading it and i don't find it too hard...and i listened to it and it's quite beautiful,but not SO tough,but he has his difficulties! The rachmaninoffs are well more fast and complicated and longer and has more notes and all...but i'll look for it...and do you know where i can find the piano only part of rach 3,or just for two piano...it makes a lot of pages when you read it on the orchestral score!

[thierry13]

Another reason, if someone as seen the movie "the shine" (the story of david Helfgott), the accomplishment of the concerto made him crazy, and he allmost died of a mental chock... so i don't want that this arrives to me because i were not ready for this concerto...

[donjuan]

Another reason, if someone as seen the movie "the shine" (the story of david Helfgott), the accomplishment of the concerto made him crazy, and he allmost died of a mental chock... so i don't want that this arrives to me because i were not ready for this concerto...

If you read the book by his wife Gillian, you will find out how inaccurate the movie was in portraying David's fight with mental illness.  He would have gotten ill whether he tried the concerto or not.  
Still, "Shine" is one of my favorites..
donjuan

[thierry13]

Ok but i have recently seen on the web that David is currently about 50 years old,and begin to make a scene come-back in europe...i don't know if it's true but it seems to be right!

[donjuan]

Ill buy that.  He has some CDs.  "Brilliantissimo" includes many of the works you heard in Shine (Hungarian Rhapsody 2, Un Sospiro, Flight of the BumbleBee.)  there's another CD, I cant really remember the name- something like "A Brave new world"...It's also a great recording.  He plays various works like Schuberts Impromptu Op90 No2..

au revoir,
donjuan

[thierry13]

lol i discovered by a web search all those CD at the same time you posted this! Yes it is : Brave new world...but i don't know what's on this one. He has recordings of rachmaninoff 3,liszt,chopin,mussorgsky. It's sure i'll try to find those CDs, he's amazing!

[Spatula]

Thierry13, you did 1 year of piano and accomplished that much?? HOLY COW!
HATS OFF TO YOU buddy!
Well I started when I was like 8, and haev been playing for about close to 11 years now, but I'm still like working towards Grade 10 RCM (I know, I'm damn slow at Piano), but I don't think I can touch a concerto until I'm done my ARCT, not that I don't have the motivation, but the technique needed, OMG!  

To tell you the truth, I find the Fantasie Impromptu DAUNTING LIKE HECK!  And if I were to start learning a concerto, I personally would start easy with Schumanns concerto in A minor then move to Grieg's A minor, then perhaps something by Chopin.   THEN, only a jedi will I be, I mean, would I dare touch the pages of Rach 2.  Rach 3 can wait for another couple years, if not a decade.

Hey Thierry13, are you the type that can listen to a piece once, then pretty much repeat that same piece? Just wondering !  

[thierry13]

lol no i have a good ear to be right on the note,but not to make things by ear. But my teacher showed how to make all the chords for a melody and i will make things like that...But yes if i want i can make a piece by ear,but not with the bass line...

[thierry13]

I just found that in "in viva",there is a live recording of him at the age of 14 playing the mozart concerto, one of the major part of the shine movie! I WANT THIS CD !! lol  

[goalevan]

I thought he had a stroke when he collapsed during during his performance of Rach 3? Which caused his mental illness.. that's how the movie made it look.

[Hmoll]

Nope. You're not ready for a Rach concerto after one year of study. No one would be.
Your time would be better spent working on stuff that is more at your level. My guess would be that the pieces you listed are far from finished, or up to tempo.

[liszmaninopin]

I just started working on Rach's Second Concerto recently; I've been studying piano for 3.5 years.  At one year, I know I couldn't have played it.  I think it's manageable, but a challenge, for me now.  The Rach Concertos are very demanding pieces.  Hmoll does have a point, something a bit easier might be wise.  If you have your heart set on a concerto, you could try maybe Schumann's, Grieg's, or a Mozart concerto.  Or, you could work on some solo piano music.

[Motrax]

Keep in mind that despite whatever technical difficulties a piece of music might have, there comes a certain greater level of understanding as you become more experienced at piano performance. Even if you can technically tackle the second concerto, I would wait a few years anyway, on the principal that over time you will be able to understand and appreciate the musical aspects of Rach 2 more fully.

(whew, hope I don't sound too snobbish, that was a wordy way of saying what I wanted to say...  )

[thierry13]

I understand what you try to say and it was this kind of opinion i wanted thanks to all...the pieces that i make are not finished,but allmost,and the parts i've finished are at the tempo...it took me one night to make the first two mesures of the revolutionary study,allmost to speed,when the only things i made before were little pieces,i'm now working with my teacher the pedals and the other parts and little details...but the speed as allways been my strenght...when all i knew was minuet in G,i had fun to play it real real fast cauz i had nothing else to do   ... but that's sure that they are not known all to the end but i'll work on it this summer  

[eViLben]

Please stop believe that a 14 y-o aged boy can play tchaiko's concerto, chopin's etudes 25.12 & 10.12 after only one year of piano .... that's really, REALLY ridiculous.

go away thierry.
thanks

[thierry13]

They're not finished i said it... but yes it is possible and when i'll be 15 or 16 i'll surely play them in concert and the tchaikovsky the 2 piano version with my teacher...my teacher is the person who know me the most and she recommended me the tchaikovsky for concerto... it's not because one can't that another can't...

[Hmoll]

 Even if you can technically tackle the second concerto, I would wait a few years anyway, on the principal that over time you will be able to understand and appreciate the musical aspects of Rach 2 more fully.

Don't agree with this. If you are technically up to playing a piece you are ready to learn it. In the first place, you are able to memorize more music when you're younger. The more you can memorize before the age of 20 or so, the better you will retain it. If you wait untill you are musically mature enough, you will have missed the boat.
In the second place, how is someone supposed to develop musically if they don't challenge themselves?

That said, Rach 3 after one year of playing is too much of a stretch technically.

[eViLben]

ROFL ... and Rach 2 is not

...

[eViLben]

sorry that was a question

[Hmoll]

sorry that was a question

No. It was more of a rhetorical question.

Here's another one: How obvious is it that what I said about Rach 3 applies to Rach 2?

[Hmoll]

sorry that was a question

No. It was more of a rhetorical question.

Here's another one: How obvious is it that what I said about Rach 3 also applies to Rach 2?

[rlefebvr]

I would be interested in knowing if you are from  Montreal or Quebec City.
Sounds like quite the teacher.

Maybe She could teach me.

[thierry13]

I'm from st-jean-sur-richelieu,near montréal, and she could not teach you she made an exception for me.I began to take piano lessons at a school,and when she knew, she said that she would make an exception for me and give me piano lessons! I'm her only student She is my school teacher because i'm in an harmony at my school and her principal instrument was the piano.

[shas]

Correst me if I'm wrong but was even Mozart that acomplished after just 1 year of playing.
I always considered myself as reasonably quick at the piano after playing 'take five' with LH accoumpanyed solo after 1/4 of a year, but if what you say honestly is true i'm am uterly amazed

[rlefebvr]

So your saying this teacher can teach a 14 year old to play like Mozart, but she only has one student and is unwilling to take on more.....mmmm....

Well, I would love to hear you play one day. I am not that far away. It would be a pleasure to spend an hour watching you play.

[thierry13]

Mozart were most accomplished after one year as me but to the violin too and all other things and he had fives years old   And i don't know but she said it were a question of her principes to teach me and that she could not teach someone who learn less fast than me...and she's really buzy and don't have time for this... she had to choose between me and someone else in my class and she choosed me...so that's it...and from where are you...and do you speak french...?

[rlefebvr]

Je reste a Longueuil. Pas loin du tout.
Si jamais tu veut donner un petit concert, j'y serai dans le temps de le dire.

[thierry13]

Entre moi dans tes contacts msn(si tu l'as): counter_striker325 ... l'an prochain je ferai un concert mi-année surement et je jouerai probablement(rien de sur): sonate pathetique,nocturne numéro 20(chopin),peut-etre étude révolutionaire, surement la serenade de schubert...pour le reste je ne sais pas encore mais ce sont des choses qui peuvent changer!

[Spatula]

Ha, I used to live in St. Basile de Quebec as an exchange student, so I think I visited Lennoxville and the likes around there.  

Maybe I will come visit you, thierry the next time I see Montreal

[thierry13]

Where do you live...in the united states?

[imfrickenfoofy]

hi..my real user name on this thing is macman1288, but i lost my password (my post should be above this one)..

if you can play those songs, thats impressive..if not.you should get your ass kicked..

regaurding rachmaninoff...my teacher, roger wright, plays both of those pieces, as well as other crazy songs. when i told him i wanted to start learning the rach 3, he told me that i am technically ready, but it will take years to be emotionally ready. he told me that regaurdless of how good you are, in order to play certain peices, you need to have experienced life. even moonlight sonata, its not just notes your playing..its feeling..you have to know what was going through beethovens mind when he wrote that piece..i know this sounds weird, like all emotional stuff..but my teaecher has won awards like crazy, and goes on tour all the time and stuff...and id listen to him..both my teachers have told me the same thing..i continuned to learn the piece, and i still am. i dont know, its just a thought i thought id like to add...

[shas]

Excelent, On parle Francais maintenant?
C'est beaucoup plus interisant.
thierry13, est ce que tu a deja jouer "the childrens corner, suit" par Debussy?
ca fais 4 ans que je joue le piano et je vais just les comencer mais pour toi, je ne pens pas que serais un problem.
(j'ecris teriblement un francais et anglais parseque je suis dislexique mais je parle courament)
shas

[thierry13]

Le premier,bien que rapide, est fait de simplicité et déchange entre les mains...assez facile...2ieme tres facile,lent et tout...troisieme un peu plus compliqué a lire,mais toujours aussi simple quand il est su par coeur...4ieme a lair un peu plus compliqué mais il se fait bien car il n'y a que des échanges entre les mains ou presque bien que le bout doux soit plus dur car il y a 3 voix...5ieme est assez simple même à la lecture,car il y a tres peu de note de basse...6ieme est selon moi le plus dur mais faisable sans trop de misère avec un peu de travail!

[nerd]

Could you please speak English?

[newsgroupeuan]

I'll translate ,  but I can't sp[eak very fluently :I MAY HAVE TRANSLATED WRONGLY,  IF SO TELL ME !!!!

Excelent, On parle Francais maintenant?
Good,  we're now speaking in french?

C'est beaucoup plus interisant.
It's Much more interesting

thierry13, est ce que tu a deja jouer "the childrens corner, suit" par Debussy?
Thierry,  have you ever played Debussy's children's corner

ca fais 4 ans que je joue le piano et je vais just les comencer mais pour toi, je ne pens pas que serais un problem.
,I don't think they will pose any problems

(j'ecris teriblement un francais et anglais parseque je suis dislexique mais je parle courament)
shas  
My french and english spelling is rubbish because although I'm a fluent speaker, I am dyslexic

MORE TO COME...

[newsgroupeuan]

Traduction : I MAY HAVE TRANSLATED WRONGLY,  IF SO TELL ME !!!!

Thierry: Le premier,bien que rapide, est fait de simplicité et
The first [bit],  Even though its fast,  (? ? ? ? ? ?is made of simplicity and exchange between the hands? ? ? ? ? ?)

déchange entre les mains...assez facile...2ieme tres
....quite easy....second [bit] is

facile,lent et tout...troisieme un peu plus compliqué a
easy,  slow and all (mistranslation perhaps?),  the third is complicated to

lire,mais toujours aussi simple quand il est su par
read but also simple when memorised

coeur...4ieme a lair un peu plus compliqué mais il se fait
The 4th [bit]  is more difficult,  but only because (mistrans?)

bien car il n'y a que des échanges entre les mains ou
there are only exchanges between the hands

presque bien que le bout doux soit plus dur car il y a 3
or almost although (MISTRANS?) .....................Because there are three voices


voix...5ieme est assez simple même à la lecture,car il y a
5 is easy to read cos there are few low/bass notes

tres peu de note de basse...6ieme est selon moi le plus dur mais faisable sans trop de misère avec un peu de travail!
THe sixth [bit] is in my opinion
hardest but feasible without too much misery with a little work!

[newsgroupeuan]

My french isn't very fluent so that what I make of it......am I correct in my treanslations?

[rlefebvr]

Though not quite, it's close enough.

Very good.

It was not written very well in french to start with, so that may have confused you a little.

[Antnee]

Hey Thierry!!!

I'm very similar to you...

I've ony been playing piano for about a year and a half and started my first lessons in January... I can play Chopin's Polonaise in Ab, Shubert impromptu Op.90 No. 4, appassionata mov 1 and 2, and three scrarlatti sonatas. I don't think this is too impressive in itself but more importantly the fact that I can play them well. Not half assed. My repetoire needs LOTS of work so I'm working on it now...

-Tony-

[thierry13]

How old are you Tony?And yeah it was not a good french,it was a little more a chat language that is more common in Quebec...

[liszmaninopin]

I know this will sound like a dumb thing to ask, but how does one add all the small marks that are used when typing in a non-English language (accents, tildes, etc.)?

[thierry13]

I'm not sure i understand your question...but i don't used a good french!