Your second video was so much enlightening for me
That's good, it was the idea
bars 7 and 8 - I'm trying to get my hand more inside the black notes and then slide down to play the white notes, gonna take some practice to perfect it.
I think you should be careful with this - I realise in my video that at one point I "slide" on the key, this was not my intention (i'm still working on being able to do accurate slow motion demonstrations while talking). The objective is to use the arm to bring the hand slightly in or out during the transition between notes. So that every transition is as small and comfortable. Its difficult because I've effectively given you a 2 minute crash course in something that should probably be discussed over several hours with numerous examples.
Be aware that the particular problem here is "playing fingers 2, 3, 4 or 5 on a white key, followed by the thumb on a black key" - if you are too 'out' you will have to do a large twisting motion, but if you go too 'in' you may end up crowding your fingers with black keys just creating another problem.
If you watch the one where I play the piece at speed you'll see that while the in/out is there, it is smaller than in the tutorial video. Also - I've watched lisitsa frame by frame.. she is more out that me on the B to Bb (something I will be experimenting with over the next few days), she moves 'in' closer to the black keys on the D to Eb. I think her 'in' motion also starts 2 notes in advance of the leaps, rather than 4 like I demonstrated. Her lift and rotation over to the Bb and Eb is also very significant.. I really wish I had some good footage of other performers too..
Now I totally understand what you mean by the curling of the fingers, it really makes the hand tense and I was unaware that this was causing me some of the tension I feel, gonna practice too to make sure the hand is in it's relaxed position and the fingers not curling too much.
Its certainly a tough one to explain without the visual, glad it made some sense to you. I forgot to say the difference between curling and curving.. curling refers to the concious or subconcious movement from the second knuckle, as demonstrated in the video. Curving or curve is the natural position of that knuckle (and the other nuckle). The fingers stay relaxed and "curved", and are moved from the top knuckle, the one that joins the fingers to the hand.
The phrasing on bar 27 is quite controversial. I don't know what edition you are using, but on mine the problem is that the Eb chord (Eb-F-Ab-Eb) is marked as a quarter note and just the top note (high Eb) is marked as a dotted 8th note, that means you can't take off your fingers from the first 3 notes to play the following C note, so the entire Eb chord has to be grouped with the C note as one block to them resolve on the D-F-Bb chord. Well that's how I learned at least...
firstly, its an A natural, not Ab.. but maybe that was just a typing error... I looked at several diffferent editions today, and they are all notated as you explained, including the one that I am using. The real questions here are these:
"Are you using the pedal in this bar? will the pedal be sustaining the crotchets in the 4th beat? if so, what logical reason is there to hold the notes with your fingers?" - don't tell me its 'because the score says so' - it will not change the sound of the piece, and the lift makes for the grouping of 2 notes, giving the da-dum effect, over the more tense da, dum effect.
Bar 55, very enlightening too, I was just doing horizontal movement, now I have an idea of the wrist/arm rotation movement! It's making it really easier to do, although I'm still having problems hitting the right notes even doing the right movement cause they are quite far from each other, I guess just practice more?
without seeing what you are now doing I can't really say anything other than practice more.. I think the critical idea is practice with thought, don't assume that what your now doing is exactly right even though its easier than the old movement.. rather, you may be closer to right.
as far as the RH octave, I have a few more ideas about how to explain the motion and avoiding the stiffness.. I think I really just explained what to do, there was no real explanation regarding the mechanics of 'how' to do it.. maybe I'll give that a crack later on if you are still having trouble with them..
AJ
Topic: Chopin Revolutionary Etude project