A "notable professor" who acts towards others with such a degree of childish contempt that they laugh in someone's face, even if what that someone is saying might be silly, should not be entrusted any students in their care, and hopefully retire from being a "notable professor" as soon as possible. That sort of toxic sh*t does not belong in music.
It’s a figure of speech my man.
I see, still important to call this sort of stuff out.As for it being impossible to learn in 3 months - at least as far as getting the notes down, it's not gonna be a musically masterful performance in that time - can you explain why you think it's so impossible? I'm looking at an edition which is around 36 pages for the piano part. Assuming you had to dedicate a full working day to learning each page (8 hours), it would take about one month to study all pages. Of course, some pages might need more than that. But there are many pages that can be sight read or played in a basic version in an hour or two, given the player has a sufficiently refined technique, reading skills and approach to studying. That gives more hours to the hard pages. Let's add to that that you don't even have to play the difficult bits in full tempo the first month, you have two more whole months to work on the material.Doesn't sound terribly unreasonable to me, assuming a skilled enough player. I have met some people in the piano world who can learn things frighteningly fast.
1-3 months for Rachmaninov 3. Yeah, ok buddy. Dunning Kruger. Speak to any notable professor about that they’ll laugh in your face.
6 months for movement 1? If you learned it all at speed by memory in 6 months that’s impressive. Did you actually perform it? Also, a lot of people would take 1-2 years to learn Rach 3 as it’s one of the greatest piano concertos and achievements for a pianist. Are you sure you learned Rach 3? I’ve never heard someone call it a ‘song’ before that’s kind of sus, ngl.
Well yeah, I’m talking about concert ready. And of course there are some insanely fast learners who could do it within let’s say 3-6 months but it is unusual and you’d still have to put in full work days.
I personally know people who learned it in one month and performed it with orchestra in two. Some people really are just built different like that
I did, many years ago. Laughter wasn't the response I got.
Yeah but it doesn’t necessarily make them any better technicians or interpreters. Just means they clearly have an insane work ethic.
I don't even think the concerto is the most difficult work from Rach. I think the Sonata no 2 first edition, although shorter is much more wicked! 3rd movement of the concerto is where the difficulty really lies.And why do people care how long someone else takes to learn something? It's meaningless. Do you try to compete with them? For what purpose? Laymen would be much more impressed with some music they are familiar with than anything from Rach, so if you are going for impressing others Rach is not the way to go, nor classical music for that matter.
Yeah I do agree with that and some people even find concerto 2 harder.
Funnily enough with concerto 3 I find the 3rd movement easier than the 1st movement
♂️. And no, I’m not trying to compete with anyone. Like I said, I don’t think it even really matters whether you learn it in 3 months or 1 year at the end of the day. It’s just interesting to me
Who cares how long it takes person X to learn piece Y, it either gives you a big head or depresses you, both are useless.
Maybe in an alien world it is totally not harder.hmmm I can't understand why you would think that, the third movement is quite a bit more persistently challenging compared to the first movement which has a lot of easy parts relative to the rest of the work. We could present a chart of all the challenging and easier passages and compare, contrast and measure the frequency to determine what the difference there is, but I don't know if it is really worth the time to prove an obvious point. Of the handful of people I know that play the Rach 3 they all say the 3rd movement is the most difficult and also from my own experience I totally agree. Who cares how long it takes person X to learn piece Y, it either gives you a big head or depresses you, both are useless.
WOW!! I can not believe that this post is just over a decade old! If this person was 18, they must be roughly 28/29 by now! How absolutely awesome it would be if he/she came here and gave us an update. I would really, really love to talk to them. Of course, I haven't been able to read all these posts but... did he/she end up learning Rach 3 at 18 years old ?? If so, how did it go??I've seen that some of you didn't think it was too much of a good idea... well here's another one for you... I'm 17 years old and have been playing the piano for 10 years now. I'm above grade 8 standard (just took my diploma with ABRSM, the exam being DipABRSM) and would like to play something challenging and enjoyable. I heard the Rach 3 concerto not too long ago and I also think it's revolutionary and I'd love to be able to play it!! I feel very much the same as 'animae' (the person who started this post). There is something daring me to learn this piece, but should I attempt it ?? I'm not sure if I have large hands, but I've been told I have long fingers! lol
You don’t need large hands to play Rachmaninoff lol idk why everyone says that. Almost the whole concerto fits in an octave.
Yeah, firstly large hands are irrelevant. Secondly, there’s no harm in looking at it and maybe even learning some passages. But if you haven’t got experience in performing large works and challenging etudes in exams, concerts, recordings, maybe competitions, masterclasses, assessments etc.. then I’d hold on to the thought of learning it until you have. You need experience and also a deep enough knowledge of Rach otherwise you won’t be doing it or yourself justice. You’re only 17, you still have time to gain the experience required.
hmmm I can't understand why you would think that, the third movement is quite a bit more persistently challenging compared to the first movement which has a lot of easy parts relative to the rest of the work. We could present a chart of all the challenging and easier passages and compare, contrast and measure the frequency to determine what the difference there is, but I don't know if it is really worth the time to prove an obvious point. Of the handful of people I know that play the Rach 3 they all say the 3rd movement is the most difficult and also from my own experience I totally agree.
The last movement is like not even in the same ballpark as the first two movements. Idk how a movement where you don’t have to interact with orchestra for 3 minutes is even comparable to the third movement
I think it is in the first movement to be honest, not the second. I’d personally say movement 1 is as hard as movement 3 and in some parts even tricker for the reasons I stated above. But maybe I’m just weird like that lol
Nah - Rachmaninoff_forever got it right. The first two movements are hard... the third is just a pregnant dog to get right. I'm not struggling with the first two movements, but the large C Major and Bb Major chord jumping in the hands (you know the bit I'm talking about) is giving me a little grief, same with one of the last sections before the last cadenza like line in the piece. Movement 1 is easier compared to the 3rd because the passages can be fingered easier than the 3rd.
Not to mention an easy passage in between every difficult section and there’s the three minute cadenza where you get a break from interacting with orchestra at all
Sure but arguably you’re also more exposed for that reason as you have less orchestra to ‘hide behind’. So many sections in movement 3 the orchestra overshadows the piano whereas in movement 1 that’s barely the case.
The two Piu Vivo’s in the first movement are as hard if not harder than anything in the third and then of course the Ossia, particularly towards the end is strenuous.
Idk how a movement where you don’t have to interact with orchestra for 3 minutes is even comparable to the third movement
the third is just a pregnant dog to get right. Movement 1 is easier compared to the 3rd because the passages can be fingered easier than the 3rd.
Hiding behind the orchestra just is bad ensemble skills lol you can’t ‘hide’ behind the orchestra in any part of rach 3 nor should you try to
Quote from: pianopro181 on December 24, 2022, 10:41:45 AM
That’s not my point, the point is regardless of how well you’re playing it that will make it, by nature, more stressful. Hence why I put it in ‘quotation marks’. You’re more exposed in movement 1 period.
It’s a piano concerto you’re in front of the whole orchestra you’re gonna be “exposed” no matter what. Having a thinner orchestra part is like a non issue. What is an issue though is orchestra involvement. In which case the waltz until the end requires more awareness and self adjustment/communication with orchestra than the first movement.
Fair enough, though I still think movement 1 is pretty tough similarly to movement 3 and if relatively easier not by a huge amount. At least for me lol
It's like saying the opening theme of fur Elise is harder than the middle section following it. Hardly anyone will agree but everyone can harvest their own peculiar marginalised perspectives, it just sounds off.
An averaged sized hand is more than enough for mostly everything in the standard repertoire.
Topic: I'm going to learn Rach 3! Am I crazy? 