Chopin Ballade no 1 and 4

[oullman7130]

Hey guys, this is my first post and I'm wondering about what techniques I need to practice to ensure I play the first and fourth chopin ballade well.
My dream has always been to learn all four, and I have recently been practicing a lot more to get them down in time for my recital in about 3-4 months.
Some information that might help you:
It took me about 6 months to learn the third chopin ballade, but that was because I practice sparsely and did not practice well.
I am into the third week of the second ballade and am about to finish it(this is because I am once again practicing a lot, and am practicing very well), hopefully I will be done within the next few days.
I am always working on multiple pieces at once, during the time that I have been working on the second ballade I have been working on rondo capriciosso, waldstein, and mozart k 576.
I really want to find out what techniques (like thirds or octaves) I should practice now so that I can learn these ballades quickly. Obviously I want to learn them very, very well, so please do no think that my sense of urgency will produce crappy ballades. I have some idea of what techniques to practice from looking at the pieces, but would like the input of those who have played them.

[j_menz]

Hey guys, this is my first post and I'm wondering about what techniques I need to practice to ensure I play the first and fourth chopin ballade well.

Presumably the ones required that you are least good at.

If you can't tell what techniques are required just by looking at them, then perhaps you are being overly ambitious. If you don't know what you can do and what you struggle with, then you definitely are.

[cabbynum]

Have you tried reading through either one? The required techniques should jump out at you like crazy. Make an exercise out of the different problems you com across. I did a whole bunch of chords running up and down the piano in both hands in the same way chopin does it in the first ballade for the coda. Then i quickly realized... thats the easy part of that section. Watch the left hand there. The right hand will be easy once you play with it a bit. The left hand is very tricky. The fourth ballade, do we really need to go into whats hard in this one? If you have week thirds and octaves you are gonna regret trying to learn this beast

[verqueue]

As a person who shared your dream in the past and learned all the Ballades I can say it's a hard task. It'll take you much time. Every Ballade needs to mature in your head, so after you bring it to performance level, you need to take a break from it. After some months of a break, when you tackle it again and then again, you'll play it differently, with more perspective.

It took me about 10 years to learn them all - of course I didn't work all these 10 years only on Ballades, I learned a lot of different reperotire. I don't think it's a good idea to focus only on Ballades if you truly want to play them even well. Without some versatility I don't think it's possible.

From technicall point of view in G minor Ballade contains similar technical problems like in Ab major Ballade, but they are just harder.
The f minor Ballade is another story - you need to be able to play chromatic scales in thirds to be able to play the Coda. And there is different type of figurations - when you need to play melody and figurations by one hand, there are more fughatos. And sixths - these are tough.

[lostinidlewonder]

This might inspire you https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jan/12/play-it-again-chopin-ballade-no-1-alan-rusbridger


With regards to technique just ask yourself if what you are doing feels comfortable or not. if a passage feels really difficult your duty is to make that feel easy in your hands. That pretty much sums up good technique though it's a very complicated question.