How to play Chopin?

[faa2010]

How can I play Chopin's pieces (in general, I don't mean all the pieces)?

Is there a special or common training for playing Chopin's pieces?

Until now, the pieces I can play and remember are:

Gymnopedie 1
Vals op 69, no 2
Nocturne C# m
Nocturne op 55, no 1
Vals op 64, no 1
Fantasie Impromptu

Of course, in the last 3 pieces I have to improve in the parts that require a higher speed.

[iroveashe]

My advice is to be more specific with your questions.

[gyzzzmo]

play it eh... with emotion?

[quantum]

I suggest you listen to some recordings of Chopin.  Rubinstein is great on the Nocturnes.

[faa2010]

Thanks quantum, at least you give me some advice.

And that can solve the part of emotion.

I was refering also to the parts of the rubato and the parts of the pieces that require higher speed. And how to memorize the piece.

[gyzzzmo]

you memorize chopin just as other composers, and rubato you play... rubato. Theres just nothing really special about Chopin. Thats why the only thing you can say is that you have to play it with... emotion, just like with other romantic composers.

[myriadwhims]

I recommend getting your hands on a copy of "Chopin: Pianist and Teacher: As Seen by his Pupils" by Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger. 

That book has a tremendous amount of information concerning how to play Chopin's music.

[slobone]

Learning Chopin isn't that different from any other composer. First step is to learn the notes, fingering, articulation, etc so well that you could do it in your sleep. Then the real work begins. You have to make the piece sound as if you're improvising. Mechanical or rote playing is not pleasant to listen to with any composer, but it's fatal with Chopin.

How do you translate from just playing the notes to making music? Very carefully. You have to go over every measure, every chord, every note and figure out how it should sound in relation to the other measures, notes, and chords. Figure out where there are inner voices and how much you want to bring them out. Always try for a "singing technique", the piano lines should sing or even speak like vocal lines.

Rubato is not something you apply to the music like a lotion, it should arise organically out of the piece. And it's not "now I'm going to get faster, and now I'm going to get slower." You have to think note by note and make minute adjustments in the line as you go along. Again, the end result should be that it sounds as if you're making it up as you play it.

[DF_pianostreet DF_pianostreet]

I think it depends if you want to PLAY Chopin, or you want to play CHOPIN.   If you are really looking into the style of Chopin and want to delve deeply, you should do a LOT of listening, as suggested by Quantum...  get yourself an album or go to you tube or on the net to get inspired.  Chopin has a definite style that the more you listen the more you appreciate.  Chopin is one of my favourite classical composers.   If you just want to learn a Chopin piece, well then practice is key... often times it helps to learn the hands separately (slowly), and put them together later.   I have found that some of the more complex Chopin music is more than twice as difficult to learn with two hands off the bat.  If you have a specific piece in mind, we could be more helpful with things to watch out for.

[jbmorel78]

Rubato is not something you apply to the music like a lotion, it should arise organically out of the piece. And it's not "now I'm going to get faster, and now I'm going to get slower." You have to think note by note and make minute adjustments in the line as you go along. Again, the end result should be that it sounds as if you're making it up as you play it.

Very well said, Slobone.  I would make one adjustment to what you said, which is that rather than note-by-note, think in terms of gestures.  Once it is clear in the mental sound image where the high points are, how the harmonic rhythm progresses (expands, contracts), what the shape of the phrase is, the rubato will happen naturally as a part of the "oratory."

It may be only a semantic difference in this instance, but I insist on thinking in phrases and gestures, rather than note-by-note.

Best wishes,
Jean-Baptiste Morel

[slobone]

JBM, you're right of course. What I meant to say is, don't think rubato is just a matter of applying accelerando or deaccelerando to a whole passage, as some pianists do. You have to think at a more minute level than that. But yes, certainly the phrase is the basic unit in Chopin as in most music.

[hooray]

I think that if you are listening to a lot of Chopin (lots of different performances), eventually you develop your own style of playing it. And finally you make exactly what you like most.

[Marcelo Castellanos]

"I think that if you are listening to a lot of Chopin (lots of different performances), eventually you develop your own style of playing it. And finally you make exactly what you like most."

I think Hooray's post is dead on.  This has been my strategy with learning Chopin.  When I start to learn any piece, I listen to a wide variety of recordings.  (Rubenstein, Hororowitz, Harasiewicz, and Ashkenazy are my own preferred interpreters).  Usually you will find lots of things that the great pianists have in common.  You'll also find lots of small idiosyncrasies and details that all make their playing unique.  I like to pick and choose those small details and then incorporate them into my own playing.

I'm no expert though, so take what I say with a grain of salt 

[prongated]

I think that if you are listening to a lot of Chopin (lots of different performances), eventually you develop your own style of playing it. And finally you make exactly what you like most.

Uh, no...think about it: you'll just end up with bits and pieces of Rubinstein, Horowitz, Ashkenazy etc. The performance of the work is never going to be coherent, and one will not develop a convincing individual style of play like that.

I suggest you listen to some recordings of Chopin.  Rubinstein is great on the Nocturnes.

I know the following isn't exactly what you're suggesting (and to much extent I agree with your suggestion), but it reminds me of something that perplexes me so much: why is it that many people always try to listen to a piece and learn from the recording(s) before they attempt the piece themselves? Without proper musical understanding or guidance from someone knowledgable, I find that recordings (especially of romantic works) can actually be detrimental towards learning how to play the piece of music well. At the very least, it'll slow you down as you then have to figure out whether what you're doing is in the music or in the recording, before you work out how you think it should be played yourself.

[gyzzzmo]

I dont really get it, why should anybody have to listen to recordings of certain pianists for knowing how something should be played?
Just go play it and do it the way you think it is nice (as long as it is musically sound). You're supposed to be an interpreter, not a copyist

Gyzzzmo

[landru]

I dont really get it, why should anybody have to listen to recordings of certain pianists for knowing how something should be played?
Just go play it and do it the way you think it is nice (as long as it is musically sound). You're supposed to be an interpreter, not a copyist

Gyzzzmo

For me, that kind of assumes that I am already a master at noticing and bringing out the "music" in the printed score before I am a master at playing the score. These are two quite different abilities. I am a developing student at both interpreting the music and playing the music. In Chopin and other Romantic composers the pieces cry out for interpretative details that are only hinted by the score - rubato, subtle dynamics, inner voices, pedalling etc. Listening to other pianists unlocks these hints for the student interpreter who can then learn how to do it on the piano. In the process, they then develop their own taste and views of what works for them in the music.

As a thought experiment (because it probably can't be done), I would be very interested to hear an advanced student master a nocturne of Chopin who had never heard any Chopin renditions. It would be like poetry in translation - yes the words are right, but the poetry might be lost.

However, the same experiment could be probably be done with Bach and it might turn out all right - because Bach does not depend on performer interpretations to the extent that Chopin does. I'm a firm believer in the "apprentice" theory of learning music - that there are things that can only be taught by listening to examples - not by studying the score.

[prongated]

In Chopin and other Romantic composers the pieces cry out for interpretative details that are only hinted by the score - rubato, subtle dynamics, inner voices, pedalling etc. Listening to other pianists unlocks these hints for the student interpreter who can then learn how to do it on the piano. In the process, they then develop their own taste and views of what works for them in the music.

...listening to other pianists in lieu of learning a particular piece can also infect you with their individual style of playing, which is a point I made in a previous post: as a result you're more likely to copy at least part of these pianists' style of playing, which means it will not be original at best, and you will copy their bad habits at worst. Either way, you will most likely end up with an unconvincing overall interpretation of the piece, and the piece will take longer to learn well.

In contrast, I find that it is much more beneficial and effective if you learn the piece yourself first, going 100% with what the music says, working at it with your teacher. This is, after all, how the master pianists would've learned the piece to begin with. Chopin wrote plenty of details in his music (where to change tempos, dynamics, articulation, pedalling...). Once you do that, you can start putting in more details that are not in the score (such as rubato, tone colour changes, phrasing...), at which stage you can start listening to what other pianists do for more creative inputs (it is interesting to note that, oftentimes, one finds in the score the explanation as to why certain pianists play the piece a certain way).

Allow me to share with you my personal experience many years ago with learning Chopin's Ballade 1. I had heard a recording by Youri Egorov a lot before I learned the piece myself. When I finally got around to learning it, I actually did some of the details he did (especially as regards rubato, tempo, and phrasing) without realising it. In effect, it took me 1 whole year working with my teacher before I was able to come up with something convincing.

When I looked back, I realised that essentially I had to remove every details I've added to my playing from the Egorov CD and go solely by the music, before I started adding details myself - with my teacher's guidance of course. I realised that, if I hadn't heard the recording, I'd probably be able to come up with a more convincing performance in a shorter period of time.

So, sure, recordings can be wonderful tools for learning a particular piece, if the user/learner can distinguish between what constitutes the actual style of music and the performer's interpretation. I find that usually with Chopin's music, it's largely determined by how well you know the score of the piece since he wrote so much detail in it.

This is not to say that one should not listen to recordings at all of course! It's just that the purpose of hearing other people's performances should be to enlighten, to entertain, to enrich, and not so much to simply learn about how to play a particular piece they happen the be playing.

However, the same experiment could be probably be done with Bach and it might turn out all right - because Bach does not depend on performer interpretations to the extent that Chopin does.

Uh, no - it's the other way around. Think about it: how much musical indications did Chopin write in his score? Much more than Bach, that's for sure. No tempo indications. No articulation indicated. Next to no dynamic markings. What about ornaments - where do you put them, and how do you play them? And rubatos exist in Bach's time too and is also frequently used in performances today, yet Bach never wrote "rubato" anywhere. And what about pedalling? Do we use it or not? If so, where? The list goes on. And on.

[gyzzzmo]

Thank god prongated took the time explaining it, i can only second what he wrote. I think its fine to get some 'idea's' after you almost finished a piece, but you should never take a performance as an example. It A) dulls your own creativity, B)often tends people to rush a piece into something flawed and C) makes you change to playing banjo instead.

Gyzzzmo

[slobone]

I'm a big advocate of listening to recordings, especially if you're working without a teacher. It just saves a lot of time. "Oh, so that's what moderato means, that's how that ornament is supposed to sound, that's how you play 7 against 13" and on and on.

Obviously it would be pointless to slavishly copy somebody else's interpretation, but why should you have to re-invent the wheel every time you start a new piece?

[landru]

I think Gyzzzmo and prongated might be thinking I am advocating copying a performance from listening. I am very wary of doing that and I can believe prongated's anguish in coming up with their own interpretation after a lot of listening to a particular rendition.

Rather my point is that there are musical features that a beginning pianist (this is the Student's Corner BTW) cannot learn adequately or very quickly from the score - they can be brought out by the teacher (who plays examples for the student in most cases) or by listening to other people's renditions and actively paying attention to what the performer is doing. The ear of the student can then help the hands of the student once an appropriate sound image can be used.

In my own case, listening to recordings or to my teacher has illuminated these facets of piano performance:

1. Rubato - how to steal and give back time in a phrase. I know that most piano geniuses (like Gyzzzmo and prongated perhaps) know this intuitively, but for a beginning student - this was a revelation and so hard to do. Listening to some Chopin and Debussy recordings let me know how organic this can be and not the clumsy way I was attempting it.

2. Left/Right dynamics. By this I mean, letting one hand be louder than the other. A very basic skill, but one that students need to master. Listening to some Bach pieces as I was playing them showed me how this actually sounds and this sound image helped me in my own playing. NOT COPYING. REPEAT I WAS NOT COPYING. I was applying sound images to my own playing. Sound images that didn't exist in my universe until I had heard them!...I see I'm getting angry...I'll tone down now...

3. Left/Right staccato/legato. I was learning a Mozart piece and I was at the phase in my learning that both hands were not independent in touch. Similar to no. 2 above, I had a hard time playing one hand staccato and the other legato. Of course I had exercises, but they weren't giving me a good idea of the sound I was supposed to attain. Listening to some Mozart recordings really short-circuited what the sound could be and has never left me.

4. Ornaments. For the longest time I had a hard time finishing up ornaments in any musical satisfying way - they would end too harshly, or peter out, or stick out like a very sore thumb. It was because I was thinking about the mechanics of the trill/turn rather than the sound image. Listening to the teacher play them slowly with me really helped - but also what really helped was listening to some Haydn sonatas - listening to how the turns at the end of a trill sounded so *good* really helped me in attaining that in my own playing.

5. Inner voices. To a beginning student, inner voices of the kind that one runs into when playing Schumann, Mendelssohn and others are a nightmare. A beginning student just sees all the notes and plays them all equally. To a resulting disaster. And usually it is hard for the student to know enough how to pick out those voices from the score since the composer doesn't exactly print them in differently colored ink. Listening how other pianists bring out the tapestry of voices was so important for this student. I can now attempt to identify how a "simple" score can really be a swarming sea of multiple voices coming up and going down in relation to each other. I don't know how this beginning student could have got that as easily without it being unlocked by listening to masters.

So, these things aren't "copying" - they are fundamental building blocks of music that are suggested by the score but may need the ear to help the hands perform them. I am amazed and humbled that some pianists do not need to listen to examples - they should be very thankful for this gift! However, for students like me with absolutely no talent or ear but a lot of desire, any help we can get is extremely valuable.

And to bring us back to the original topic - all these things I listed above were used when I learned some Chopin mazurkas - I didn't copy anybody's rendition of a particular one, but Glenn Gould in Bach helped me with some dynamics and voicing, and Claudia Arrau in Liszt helped me with rubato, and Hamelin in Haydn helped me with trills and turns. And then finally Rubinstein playing those particular mazurkas helped me with identifying potential musical lines to follow - using his flashlight I then could then shine on other choices to follow. I am but a midget - but the shoulders of these giants are great places to view some awesome music!

[prongated]

Obviously it would be pointless to slavishly copy somebody else's interpretation, but why should you have to re-invent the wheel every time you start a new piece?

Because that is how you come up with a great performance of that new piece. That is how the master musicians do it. Always from the score first. Why should you be different? You can read a music score just like them, after all!

...most piano geniuses (like Gyzzzmo and prongated perhaps)...

...me? Haha here's wishing...

Rather my point is that there are musical features that a beginning pianist (this is the Student's Corner BTW) cannot learn adequately or very quickly from the score - they can be brought out by the teacher (who plays examples for the student in most cases) or by listening to other people's renditions and actively paying attention to what the performer is doing.

It is certainly musically beneficial to be exposed to (especially live) performances of music. And in fact, I certainly would encourage such activity.

As regards interpretation of a piece you happen to be working on, knowing the score well and having thought about it yourself (and working it out with your teacher) will give you a better chance of understanding why the master musicians choose to perform the piece in a certain way. This way, there will be less chance of mixing up stylistic features (e.g. rhythm in Polonaise of Mazurka) with a performer's habits (e.g. where they place rubatos or how to undertake tempo changes).

And sorry if I'm rambling here - it's 4am right now ><

[jbmorel78]

You can read a music score just like them, after all!

Actually, it is the way in which they read the score that qualifies them as master musicians...

Best,
JBM

[prongated]

Actually, it is the way in which they read the score that qualifies them as master musicians...

Yes, so if you never tried to read and understand the score yourself first (the way these master musicians began) before "learning" from the masters, at best you will never understand why they do what they do, and at worst your performance will make no sense and has no musical integrity.