Chopin op 10 1 vs op 25 12. Which is harder and why?

[rovis77]

Hi, Im choosing one etude to play but I haven't decided yet, which of these two will take lees time to master and why?

[coda_colossale]

I'd say 10/1 is way more difficult. The two etudes are comparable tbh since they work on similar techniques and the figuration and the technique required to execute that figuration are far simpler in the Ocean Etude, even though the Waterfall only has one hand doing all that stuff. Ocean is definitely musically more interesting, though. Good luck!

[ahinton]

Hi, Im choosing one etude to play but I haven't decided yet, which of these two will take lees time to master and why?

Having no idea of your technical strengths and weaknesses at the piano I could not say with certainty but, in the absence of such knowledge, I'd also go for 10/1 as by far the more problematic of the two, not least because of its sheer exposure.

Best,

Alistair

[iamazombie911]

10/1 is definitely harder, because it requires a LOT more wrist dexterity than 25/12. 25/12 is broken chords up and down the keyboard within most people's handspan, whereas 10/1 is the same thing, except outside of most people's handspan.

[hardy_practice]

25/12 is one of the easiest, 10/1 probably the hardest.

[chopinlover01]

The patterns in 25/12 are somewhat intuitive to the hand; I can say nothing of that regard to the arpeggios in 10/1.
Even if you have Rachmaninoff sized hands, you'll have a hard time.

[hardy_practice]

The patterns in 25/12 are somewhat intuitive to the hand; I can say nothing of that regard to the arpeggios in 10/1.
Even if you have Rachmaninoff sized hands, you'll have a hard time.

NOTHING TO DO WITH HAND SIZE!! Sheesh.

[chopinlover01]

Not quite. While hand size can be negotiated around, it certainly helps to have larger hands when you're playing with arpeggios around the interval of a 10th.
The point of the etude is to promote wrist flexibility; Chopin himself said something to the effect of "You will play arpeggios like the stroke of a violin bow after this etude".
Flexibility can, of course, be achieved without large hands, but it's easier to achieve it if you aren't fighting the stretches at every turn. In short, having a large hand requires slightly less.

[hardy_practice]

Rubbish.  The whole point of op 10 no 1 is any hand can do it with the appropriate technique WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH STRETCHING!!

[goldentone]

We can hear you, Hardy.

[kawai_cs]

25/12 is one of the easiest, 10/1 probably the hardest.

10/1 is for sure one of the hardest. 25/12 is definitely not among the easiest. I suppose you have not played any Chopin etudes?

[hardy_practice]

I suppose you have not played any Chopin etudes?

WHAT THE ....!?

[chopinlover01]

Rubbish.  The whole point of op 10 no 1 is any hand can do it with the appropriate technique WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH STRETCHING!!

Yes, but it is certainly easier with larger hands. My comment about hand size was that even with large hands, it's still horrifically difficult.

[hardy_practice]

And I'm saying hand size is irrelevant - a red herring.

[abel2]

And I'm saying hand size is irrelevant - a red herring.

Hand size is most certainly not irrelevant. The etude requires quick stretches up to tenths. The closer your hands can get to those tenths without jumping, the easier it will be. So logically hand size matters.

[hardy_practice]

They are not stretches they are 'reaches'.  Do you have any idea how quickly your hand can reach for something?  any size hand?  Ask your local martial artist.

[pencilart3]

10/1 is for sure one of the hardest. 25/12 is definitely not among the easiest. I suppose you have not played any Chopin etudes?

+1. She has played Opus 25 No 12 also so she is qualified to speak.

And I vote for Opus 10 No 1 as harder than Opus 25 No 12.

[abel2]

They are not stretches they are 'reaches'.  Do you have any idea how quickly your hand can reach for something?  any size hand?  Ask your local martial artist.

Stretches, reaches, stop being pedantic. You know what I meant. And it doesn't matter how fast you can do it. Logically the closer your hand gets the easier and faster you can do it.

[chopinlover01]

They are not stretches they are 'reaches'.  Do you have any idea how quickly your hand can reach for something?  any size hand?  Ask your local martial artist.

Well, I am a martial artist, and I can tell you that if anything, that's a red herring.
Your hand can quickly reach for something, but not while moving the hand across a relatively straight surface with different fingers at different positions, constantly pressing while being rotated by the wrist. That's when practicing comes in.

[outin]

And I'm saying hand size is irrelevant - a red herring.

Then I say you are just acting stupid on purpose or maybe you just don't know the meaning of the word irrelevant

[hardy_practice]

Your hand can quickly reach for something, but not while moving the hand across a relatively straight surface with different fingers at different positions, constantly pressing while being rotated by the wrist.

Leave out the 'but not' and you have Chopin's technique in a nutshell.  It's a lost art.  Even in its day Liszt was one of the few who understood it (and learned from it).  A big hand will help power wise on modern keyboards but that's all.

[abel2]

Leave out the 'but not' and you have Chopin's technique in a nutshell.  It's a lost art.  Even in its day Liszt was one of the few who understood it (and learned from it).  A big hand will help power wise on modern keyboards but that's all.

God you're fricking stupid. Do you not understand simple logic? The closer you start to a note the easier it is to hit.

[pencilart3]

lol what has this thread become

[hardy_practice]

The closer you start to a note the easier it is to hit.

And what do you propose happens after you've 'hit' it?

[abel2]

And what do you propose happens after you've 'hit' it?

Assuming we're talking about Op 10 No. 1 still, your thumb/pinkie goes up/down to the first note of the next arpeggio.

[hardy_practice]

Assuming we're talking about Op 10 No. 1 still, your thumb/pinkie goes up/down to the first note of the next arpeggio.

Ah! not just a bad mouth!  Yes, the technique in this piece is how quickly and accurately can you collapse your hand so the thumb, in an instant, is a third away from the pinky.  What's that to do with size?  If anything a smaller hand may just have the advantage.

[abel2]

Ah! not just a bad mouth!  Yes, the technique in this piece is how quickly and accurately can you collapse your hand so the thumb, in an instant, is a third away from the pinky.  What's that to do with size?  If anything a smaller hand may just have the advantage.

Intra-hand span movements are *maybe* slightly assisted by a smaller hand; however this is much offset by the facility granted to larger and even inter-hand span reaches by having larger spans.

[hardy_practice]

and even inter-hand span reaches by having larger spans.

A larger span helps you do a smaller span? You're 'aving a larf mate!   

[pencilart3]

If you have a smaller hand, it makes reaching the rapid tenths very difficult.

[hardy_practice]

If you have a smaller hand, it makes reaching the rapid tenths very difficult.

You might as well say ringing a door bell is harder for a smaller hand. 

[mjames]

if 6yr olds with itsy bitsy hands can play op. 10 no. 1 then you shouldn't complain about your hands being too small...

[pencilart3]

if 6yr olds with itsy bitsy hands can play op. 10 no. 1 then you shouldn't complain about your hands being too small...

Haha, I'm not complaining, I was just trying to add to the discussion. I don't exactly have small hands, as testified by my playing the first chord of prelude 16 without rolling it. Besides, there ain't gonna be no 6 year old with small hands that can play it like this...

The section at 53 seconds is incredible.

You might as well say ringing a door bell is harder for a smaller hand.  

Uh... no. That does it, you're not paying attention to what I'm saying.

[hardy_practice]

Uh... no. That does it, you're not paying attention to what I'm saying.

Yes, I've obviously missed some great insight.

[pencilart3]

Yes, I've obviously missed some great insight.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that bigger stretches are easier for bigger hands, as a general rule.

[hardy_practice]

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that bigger stretches are easier for bigger hands, as a general rule.

Again you're saying it's easier for a bigger hand to ring a door bell.  Here's Chopin: 'it is important to make use of the shape of the fingers and no less so to employ the rest of the hand, wrist, forearm and arm. To attempt to play entirely from the wrist [what you wish to do], as Kalkbrenner advocates, is incorrect.'  We are talking about a reach using fingers, hand, wrist, forearm and arm - not a stretch.  That was the secret technique Chopin gave to the world.  He, in the words of Jane Stirling, turned the piano into a different instrument.  

[forte88]

If span isn't important for Chopin's secret technique I wonder why he made a contraption to stretch his hands as a child.
Perhaps there's something I'm missing but I know for a fact if I had larger hands, much of his works would be much easier to master and eventhough I marvel at my own speed sometimes I think it does stand to reason that a large hand that can play a chord without a stretch can play it much faster than someone who has to roll the chord

[hardy_practice]

If span isn't important for Chopin's secret technique I wonder why he made a contraption to stretch his hands as a child.

Hey!  I've been looking for that reference - it's about corks I believe.  Where is it from? 

[mjames]

If span isn't important for Chopin's secret technique I wonder why he made a contraption to stretch his hands as a child.

HE WAS A KID.

Kids have REALLY small hands.

"Contraptions"

They were wine corks! ROFL

Also, Chopin still ended up having pretty small freaking hands. Though his fingers were long (relative to his palm) his hands were still pretty small. Smaller than average European male at least.

To be fair, his pianos had narrower keys...

@hardly practice, I read about it in Zamoyski's (idk if I'm spelling it correctly) Prince of the Romantics.

[hardy_practice]

Thanks.  I'm looking in Zamoyski's Chopin - A Biography now.  Hopefully it's there too.

[forte88]

https://www.increasehandspan.com/historical-attempts

Did you get the notion that Chopin used wine corks from a site selling hand stretchers?
The book I got it from Schumann had wanted to use a similar device to Chopin to stretch his hands, but since his hands were more rigid than the stretchable hands of a child he permanently damaged them.

And being able to play a tenth with ease isn't having small hands. And there are plenty examples of chords in his sonatas(indicated to be played WITHOUT rolling them) that belie the notion that span doesn't matter if you use the secret technique.
Please give an concrete example of this secret technique

[mjames]

https://www.increasehandspan.com/historical-attempts

Did you get the notion that Chopin used wine corks from a site selling hand stretchers?
The book I got it from Schumann had wanted to use a similar device to Chopin to stretch his hands, but since his hands were more rigid than the stretchable hands of a child he permanently damaged them.

And being able to play a tenth with ease isn't having small hands. 

Honey, you also have to consider the fact that the pianos he used had NARROWER keys. I doubt hed be able to hit 10ths on a modern grand with those puny hands.

And no, i got it from reading his biography...

[hardy_practice]

Yeh, seems it all stems from an anecdote from Karasowski and repeated by Niecks:

'From contemporary observers we learn with what perseverance he laboured to overcome the technical difficulties of the pianoforte.  Impressed by the good effect of an extended chord, but unable to play it with his small hand, he endeavoured to produce the desired expansion by a mechanical contrivance of his own manufacture, which he kept between his fingers even during the night.' Karasowski, pg 22.


'From the place and wording of Karasowski's account
it would appear that this experiment of Chopin's took place
at or near the age of ten.' – Nieks, pg 56

Eigeldinger steers well clear of it - that speaks volumes.

Nieks carries on:

'Of course it does not matter much whether we know or do not know the year or day of
the adoption of the practice, what is really interesting is the fact itself. '
 Though I'm not so sure he's accepting the 'fact' himself.  Quite suspiciously he next says:
'I may, however, remark that Chopin's love of
wide-spread chords and skips, if marked at all, is not strongly
marked in the Variations on the German air and the first
Rondo. Let the curious examine with regard to this matter
the Tempo di Valse of the former work, and bars 38 — 43 of
the Pill lento of the latter. In the Rondeau a la Maznr, the
next work in chronological order, this peculiarity begins to
show itself distinctly, and it continues to grow in the works
that follow. It is not my intention to weary the reader with
microscopical criticism, but I thought the first manifesta-
tions of Chopin's individuality ought not to be passed over in
silence.'

Check 'em out - lots of rolls.

[forte88]

Honey, you also have to consider the fact that the pianos he used had NARROWER keys. I doubt hed be able to hit 10ths on a modern grand with those puny hands.

And no, i got it from reading his biography

I see, so with Chopin's secret technique I could hit 10ths on a miniature piano.
I get it, so the technique is to use an small sized piano instead of a standard one?

It's not that the hands are small but that the piano is too big

[hardy_practice]

It's not that the hands are small but that the piano is too big

...and your keys are too heavy!

[pencilart3]

@hardly practice,

HAHAHA HARDLY PRACTICE HAHAA

that may be the case, unfortunately....

[hardy_practice]

HAHAHA HARDLY PRACTICE HAHAA

that may be the case, unfortunately....

Nooooooooooooooooo.  I've been outed! 

[mjames]

I see, so with Chopin's secret technique I could hit 10ths on a miniature piano.
I get it, so the technique is to use an small sized piano instead of a standard one?

It's not that the hands are small but that the piano is too big

yes,or learn to play something that suits your hands, like the flute.

[forte88]

You make a weak case, you both do

[hardy_practice]

The point of the corks thing, if it hadn't already occurred to you, is that the myth needed to be created as an explanation for those who had no conception of what his technique consisted of - which is nearly the entire 19th century worth of pianists (apart from Liszt as I said above).  Unless you'd actually seen him in action and were very astute it would elude you.   That's the secret.   He wrote about it in the piano tutor he never finished re: not solely playing from the wrist.  You must be shown though - can't be read about.  In his lifetime people would buy the music and be mystified by its (to them) unplayability just as you are today Mr Forte!

[forte88]

On the size of his hands; it's completely irrelevant that his hands would be considered small now if he could span a 10th with ease he didn't have small hands.
He indicates rolls when he wants to, but there are some chords that would be impossible to play as chords unless you had huge hands, yet that's how he indicates it and he's pretty precise how he wants something played

And why would I need to believe he made a device to stretch his hands?
I read a biography years ago would you not remember something like that? Before the biography I just thought he had big hands, now I just think of Schumann playing Kinderszenen with his fucked up hands coz he wanted to have hands like Chopin