Must answer, Chopin Etude questions...

[leroy199]

ok I know there has bin millions topics on chopin etudes and that just made me think maybe Pianostreet should make a board just for chopin's etudes   anyway here are a few more questions for all of you who already played a chopin etude

How old where you and how many years had you bin playing piano when you started you first chopin etude ? around how much time would you say it took you to get to an approximate respectable tempo?
how much time would you say it took you to finish it or bring it to point you felt comfortable with?   do you maybe remember other difficult pieces you played before you started chopins etude?  i know allot of students have played allot of Czerny op 740 before chopin,  have you?

for me I have bin playing for nearly five intensive years of piano and i have just started op 10 n5.  the most difficult piece i have played so far is Moszkowski op 72 n2 and chopin Fantaisie-Impromptu. Im thinking that within these next 4, 5 month i will be able to plays op 10 n5 at a reasonable tempo.


I would really appreciate any of your replies, thanks in advance

[h_chopin148]

I started my first etude in November when I was 12. I'm 13 now.  It was op 10 no 9. It took me about 3 months so until February until it was up to a good tempo.  I played it in a recital in March and I can say it went pretty well.  Some difficult pieces I have done are Beethoven Sonata op 2 no 2 in A major and Bach Prelude and Fugue in E-flat major from book 1 of the WTC.  I also am working on Beethoven's 2nd piano concerto.  I did not play Czerny op 740.  I don't like Czerny very much  (meaning not at all).  Currently learning Chopin op 10 no 5. I started it in May and I can play through the whole thing at a slow steady tempo.  Hope this helps   

[brogers70]

I was 54 and had been playing for about 15 years when my teacher gave me Op 10 no. 12. It took me about three months to learn the notes and get it together at a slow tempo. After about six months I can play it close to full tempo, but I'd be embarrassed to play for anyone but close friends yet. Maybe in another 6 months. I've started Op 10 no.2 just working on playing the first page completely relaxed. This one might take a couple of years to get up to a respectable speed. But I'm an old codger; a motivated 16 year old could probably progress a lot faster.

[evitaevita]

How old where you and how many years had you bin playing piano when you started you first chopin etude ?

I was approximately 13 or 14 years old (I'm not really sure!...). But I still remember very clearly the moment that my teacher told me that I should start practicing them!
I  had been playing the piano for about 6 or 7 years when I started learning Op.10 No.1.
And after a short period (2-3 months), I started Op.10 No.9 and then No.5.

around how much time would you say it took you to get to an approximate respectable tempo?

It took me about 4 months.
But the truth is that I didn't really practice it very much (I was a bit lazy and the insane difficulty of this etude made me even more lazy!...).

how much time would you say it took you to finish it or bring it to point you felt comfortable with?

Although I could play Op.10 No.1 very fast (at least the first bars and some other parts of the piece!) after 4 months of practicing, I wasn't comfortable at all with this etude due to lack of serious practice. I wouldn't say that I finished it, but after 8-9 months, I would say that I could play the etude relatively well.
I'm currently thinking seriously of practicing it again. It's very important to practice such difficult pieces many times.

do you maybe remember other difficult pieces you played before you started chopins etude?

Basically, I started playing more difficult pieces the year I started with Chopin etudes.
The most difficult pieces I had played before were:
Bach - WTC Book I: Prelude & Fugue I in C Major (the fugue is the really difficult one!)
Mozart - Piano Sonatas 8, 10, 11 & Fantasia K475
Beethoven - Pathetique
Chopin - Nocturne Op.9 No.1, Waltz in E Minor Op. posth (and other nocturnes, mazurkas, waltzes,... but not of great difficulty)
Schubert - Impromptu Op.90 No.2, 3 & 4
Debussy - Arabesque No.1 & Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum (from Children's Corner)
Ravel - Pavane pour infante defunte
etc.

i know allot of students have played allot of Czerny op 740 before chopin,  have you?

No, I haven't played any Czerny Op.740 at all.
But it's true that most students play it before Chopin etudes.
(I didn't play it because my teacher believed that, in my case, it wouldn't be very useful.)

[nanabush]

I discovered the Chopin Etudes back in 2004 (when I joined this forum!!!) I was doing Grade 9 RCM, and these etudes were WAY beyond my level... I (like any other curious high school music kid who just wants to play fast) printed off the first page of 10/4, 10/5, 10/12, and 25/11, and failed miserably at all of them.  I even made a thread about 10/7 asking if there were pieces that broke people to the point where they crumpled the photocopy haha!

I kind of avoided these pieces for the last 9 years (I can't believe I've been on this forum that long... it's absurd), and I got some Debussy, Rach and Liszt etudes under my belt.  After getting more rep down, I did 10/1 and 10/4 last year, and each took me about a month to learn.  10/1 fit really well because I have a big reach, but 10/4 took TONS of hours of practice to get the tempo up.  In my opinion, 10/4 blows 10/1 out of the water; there are a handful of awkward passages in 10/1, but it's the same loose wrist arpeggio technique throughout and you learn to adapt.  10/4 throws so many new problems at you, and when the left hand has to shred those passages out, it's disgusting at first when you see how fast it actually has to go haha!

So I guess my first attempt (really counts for nothing... I may as well have been trying Rach 3), I was 14.  I went back to play two more when I was 21 and they went by A LOT easier.  This was after playing more Chopin (Scherzo 2, Nocturne Op 48 #1) and some Liszt (Gnomenreigen, TE #10, Un Sospiro), and Debussy (Degrées Chromatiques, Arpèges Composés).

If you want to see if you are capable of playing these, try 10/5.  It's VERY accessible, doesn't require a big reach, and is a really good sight reading practice (due to the key and the pentatonic nature of it... you get to work on some pretty crunchy chords on paper, but there aren't TOO many notes going on).  If you can get to like 50-60% of the tempo with right hand alone after a practice session or two (of maybe just like 16 bars) then you can probably get this piece going.  If you get to measure 1 and are like "OmG what are these nooootezz!" (just kidding), or if it is stuck at a snail pace with no chance of the tempo going up (not kidding), then the piece is probably just too difficult at the moment, and you will see that pretty much all of the etudes will leave you in the same position.

===

People say the 'slow' ones are easy... but honestly, if people are cranking through the Black Key study at one note per second and are fixated on learning it this way, without any regard for the phrasing and no hope of increasing the tempo, 10/3 isn't going to 'click' because it's a slower piece... the same issues with phrasing, technique (because technically there is a lot going on in this one...) are going to happen.

So ya, try 10/5 or maybe even a bit of 10/12, and if you are like "what... this is ridiculous" then stick with Moszkowski (OR TRY RACH G MINOR STUDY FROM Op.33!!!! IT"S A GREAT PRE-CHOPIN ETUDE!)

[catherinezng]

First to answer your questions:
I was in 5th grade (10 or 11) when I got my first Chopin etude and I had played piano for around 4 years. My first etude was op.10 no.9 and honestly, it never got to a respectable tempo and I never really felt comfortable with it hahaha. Before the etude, the most difficult pieces I played were Chopin waltzes and a Haydn Sonata. Yes I did play a couple Czerny exercises before the etude (around 5).
 
Playing Chopin etudes that young was definitely a push for me. However, I believe Chopin etudes are tremendously beneficial to building technique whether you get it to full tempo or not. If I hadn't played them so young, my technique wouldn't be half as good as it is now.