Ballade 1 to Appassionata

[jorley]

Hi everybody, I know this is a difficult question to answer: The most advanced piece that I am learning now is Chopin's Ballade Op 23. Some other pieces I have played before are Beethoven's Op 10 No 2, Op 26 and Op 90, Chopin's Op 48 No 1, Op 10 No 12 and Op 10 No 5, among other things. Some pieces that I really dream of playing but I feel I am not ready to play yet are Beethoven's Appasionata and late sonatas, and Chopin's Op 52 and some of his harder etudes, like Op 25 No 11. My question is, based on my current repertoire, how many years away from those pieces would I probably be, if I develop in a normal rate? 1 year ago, the hardest piece I could play was Chopin's Op 10 No 3 and Beethoven's Op 26, and now I am learning Chopin's first ballade, just to show you all how much I have developed the last year

[awesom_o]

The trouble is, you haven't shown us how much you've developed at all. You've just written a list of pieces that you would like to play, and a list of pieces which you claim to to have already played.

Could you show us how much you've actually developed in the last year, instead of just talking about it?

That would help me to be able to answer your question in a meaningful way.

[jorley]

Well let's just say, hypothetically, that I play the Ballade and all the other pieces I mentioned quite well without any mistakes and tensions, but I still feel that I am not ready for the Appassionata and Winter Wind Etude for example, then would it be a reasonable goal to strive towards being able to play those pieces well without mistakes and tensions, within one or two years?

[awesom_o]

Saying that you could hypothetically play these pieces without any mistakes and tensions still doesn't give me a very good sense of where you're at.

I would have to experience for myself how well you can render the music.

[blazekenny]

Well, I am not sure about the appassionata, but i am pretty darn sure that if you can play the op 10/3 really well, then the 25/11 probably isnt going to be any problem to you. In fact, its one of the easiest Chopin etudes in the end. This forum community tends to fear it alot, but really, just find a way how to best phrase the left hand - the same principle like in 10/5, but you say you have played 10/5 already. 25/11 is no different at all.

[thorn]

The concept of difficulty is a matter of individual perception. Even in this thread it has been demonstrated with the Chopin 25/11.

To answer the "when am I ready to tackle *insert piece here*" question, for me personally it's when either a) I can make a passable attempt at sight reading it below tempo or b) when my will to learn the music is so strong that it overrides the fear of it being beyond me.

I think you'll find the common advice to be along the lines of A above. But there are positive sides to B- so many people talk about the benefits of putting pieces away and coming back to them later.

Repertoire such as the late Beethoven sonatas and the Chopin Ballades need that kind of maturing process. Even people in specialist institutions who learn such pieces very well in short spaces and time don't play them as well as they will in a decade. It sounds like I'm stating the obvious, but a lot of musicians seem to be under the impression that you must "master" everything you learn within a time limit otherwise it's "too difficult", which I find a little misguided. "Master" is a big word...

[thorn]

oops!

[j_menz]

To answer the "when am I ready to tackle *insert piece here*" question, for me personally it's when either a) I can make a passable attempt at sight reading it below tempo or b) when my will to learn the music is so strong that it overrides the fear of it being beyond me.

I agree with what you have said entirely. I find a more useful way of phrasing the question, though, is "Am i not yet ready to tackle X?". A slight reworking. I find the answer to that is often easier and comes down to whether the effort I would need to put in would be, at this point, worth it?

That does not necessarily mean, "can I master it yet?", though it might. It can also mean "Would the technical challenges be such that some work on them would advance me, even if I didn't actually get to play it very well yet?" If so, I might do some work on it, and when there started to be diminishing returns, lay it aside to come back to at a later point.

The answer of not being ready is when either I really don't know what to do - how to approach it  - or when I could get more satisfaction and/or better results from doing something else.