Help with 11, 13 and 35 note grouping in Chopin C sharp minor nocturne op 20

[rovis77]

Hi, how do I mathematically divide these 11, 13 and 35 note groupings that appear in the end of this nocturne, how do I match them against and divide them against the left hand?. thanks

[dcstudio]

instead of trying to mathematically divide it--listen and use your ear..  get the right hand first--don't think of those being in the middle of a chopin nocturne... if they stood alone you would not have any problem. Practice them that way first...then add the LH.  Each one of those groupings is pretty easy... they just look hard.  They are played very evenly and they are more ornamental then melodic passages.    Let your EAR tell you (make sure correctly) where the LH comes in...then check it against the music..   reverse engineer it.

don't feel bad...so many students breeze through that nocturne until they reach that first 11 note group... I have never had one that wasn't able to get past it though and finish.  The next time you see something like that in a piece of music... it won't even phase you.

post it when you finish 

after the movie "The Pianist" came out... EVERYBODY wanted to play this one...lol. 

[rovis77]

are these parts played rubato or in strict tempo?

[mjames]

Op. 20 is the scherzo in b minor.


There's no precise way to play those runs, the idea is for the right hand to "play freely" whilst the left hand plays in strict time. Play them as if you were improvising, just "put them in" and play it against the left hand. That's all I can say.

Some people are really crazy about this, and really go out of their way to methodically divide them equally. I'd say that's a waste of time because it utterly defeats the purpose of how Chopin's music is supposed to sound like.

Also, whether you should apply rubato or not is up to you, not dcstudio, considering it's a matter of a preference. Word of advice though, don't over do it. A lot of people "take away" time without giving it back at all when playing Chopin, making it sound sloppy. Rubato is necessary sure, but Chopin was a classicist, using a lot of it ruins his pieces. At this stage, I suggest paying attention to your pulse, phrasing, and the base lines. Focus on staying on time, and only begin to apply liberties once it's well under your fingers.

[dcstudio]

Chopin is always open to just a bit of rubato...   don't overdo it.

Nocturne No. 20

listen to Szpilman play this he is the man who was portrayed in the movie "the pianist" and pick 4 or 5 others to listen to as well.  Notice the subtle differences in how each of them play those passages..  then decide for yourself.  Oh, and watch that movie if you haven't already... Adrian Brody won an Oscar for that performance... awesome flick.  You will forever associate that Nocturne with Warsaw in 1939... it's a true story.

  Szpilman's performance.  

[dcstudio]

Op. 20 is the scherzo in b minor.




Also, whether you should apply rubato or not is up to you, not dcstudio, considering it's a matter of a preference. Word of advice though, don't over do it.

wow... we were sure on the same wavelength huh? lol

[visitor]

after the movie "The Pianist" came out... EVERYBODY wanted to play this one...lol.  

hmm, i was always more drawn to Kilar's work in the film (as i really like his other more modern composing, ie i have a set of his mazurkas which are really cool)

 

[dcstudio]

YES I loved that work too.  So Jewish sounding, so familiar...yet not.  It is great movie scoring, no doubt.

 .. when he is playing and the Nazi's are bombing Warsaw... and his only concern is to finish...that's some pretty powerful imagery along with the posth C# min Nocturne.   I know there is some Hollywood to that whole movie--or Roman Polanski...but I still LOVED it.  My daughter fell in LOVE with the Op. 22 because of that movie and it's still on her IPOD. Btw, she's 15 and a Fr. Horn player... not a classical pianist.

but all of my piano students wanted to play that nocturne... a few even tackled the Ballad... I like movies that inspire students to play Chopin.  who doesn't ?

[mjames]

YES I loved that work too.  So Jewish sounding, so familiar...yet not.  It is great movie scoring, no doubt.

 .. when he is playing and the Nazi's are bombing Warsaw... and his only concern is to finish...that's some pretty powerful imagery along with the posth C# min Nocturne.   I know there is some Hollywood to that whole movie--or Roman Polanski...but I still LOVED it.  My daughter fell in LOVE with the Op. 22 because of that movie and it's still on her IPOD. Btw, she's 15 and a Fr. Horn player... not a classical pianist.

but all of my piano students wanted to play that nocturne... a few even tackled the Ballad... I like movies that inspire students to play Chopin.  who doesn't ?

It was actually the movie that got me into classical piano. One day I'll tackle the op. 22 & 23!

[dcstudio]

It was actually the movie that got me into classical piano. One day I'll tackle the op. 22 & 23!

you and many, many, others..  my student load increased noticeably after that movie came out.  It was great   How can I not love that?

please post op. 22 and 23 should you decide to tackle them!!!

[mjames]

you and many, many, others..  my student load increased noticeably after that movie came out.  It was great   How can I not love that?

please post op. 22 and 23 should you decide to tackle them!!!

Will be awhile before i get to those lol

I'm planning on posting Rach's op. 3 no. 2, Chopin's op. 9 no. 1 and op. 27 no. 2, and op 44 once I buy a recording device.

[dcstudio]

Will be awhile before i get to those lol

I'm planning on posting Rach's op. 3 no. 2, Chopin's op. 9 no. 1 and op. 27 no. 2, and op 44 once I buy a recording device.

awesome!  don't think I have seen a vid of your playing yet... I look forward to it

let me know what you purchase for recording and how it works for you...    careful...recording music is every bit as addictive as playing it.  It also will burden you with the same quest for perfection that performing did... only there are way more ways to screw the whole thing up. 

[brianvds]

Op. 20 is the scherzo in b minor.

Um, so which nocturne is it that the OP is talking about here? From the op. 27 set?

Anyway:

There's no precise way to play those runs, the idea is for the right hand to "play freely" whilst the left hand plays in strict time. Play them as if you were improvising, just "put them in" and play it against the left hand. That's all I can say.

Well, I am not remotely advanced enough to tackle much of anything by Chopin, but I cannot work out how one can get one's hands to function independently. I run into the exact same problem with any hint of polyrhythms: my hands quite simply won't work independently.

Which is why I tend to also fall into this:

Some people are really crazy about this, and really go out of their way to methodically divide them equally. I'd say that's a waste of time because it utterly defeats the purpose of how Chopin's music is supposed to sound like.

If I don't try to work out precisely where I am supposed to be, the hand speeds up or falls behind or falls into the same rhythm as the other one, and then there's disaster. I don't know what the cure is, so I cannot do anymore for the OP than to say "welcome to the club." :-)

[dcstudio]

Um, so which nocturne is it that the OP is talking about here? From the op. 27 set?

 no Nocturne NUMBER 20   opus: posthumous
 apparently Fred did not think this one was worthy of publication... so they waited until he died.
btw  were you trying to be a smarta$$?     I apologize if you weren't... I have been known to perceive smarta$$ery on this forum when it was not intentionally delivered--but had you  clicked on the YT link among the first replies... you would have had your answer

If I don't try to work out precisely where I am supposed to be, the hand speeds up or falls behind or falls into the same rhythm as the other one, and then there's disaster. I don't know what the cure is, so I cannot do anymore for the OP than to say "welcome to the club." :-)

give it time... you will get it.   Gotta let go of that need to mathematically divide this one up... use your ear and play it..seriously, it's the only way, my friend.   Precisely where your are supposed to be is not set in stone on this particular one.

[brianvds]

 no Nocturne NUMBER 20   opus: posthumous
 apparently Fred did not think this one was worthy of publication... so they waited until he died.
btw  were you trying to be a smarta$$?     I apologize if you weren't... I have been known to perceive smarta$$ery on this forum when it was not intentionally delivered--but had you  clicked on the YT link among the first replies... you would have had your answer

It wasn't clear to me that the link there referred to the work the OP mentioned. Where I live, internet is hideously expensive so I tend to be reluctant to click on YouTube links if I can help it. Will go do so now, because just a few seconds will probably be enough to recognize it.

give it time... you will get it.   Gotta let go of that need to mathematically divide this one up... use your ear and play it..seriously, it's the only way, my friend.   Precisely where your are supposed to be is not set in stone on this particular one.

Well, as I said, I am nowhere near the kind of technique required for that anyway, and likely never will be, due to constraints on my time and lack of musical ambition.

However, I do run into such things now and then, e.g. situations where you play triplets in one hand but "normal" rhythmic patterns in the other, and then I get completely hopelessly lost - I simply cannot get it to go smoothly.


[/quote]

[briansaddleback]

Just do a glissando.

[dcstudio]

Just do a glissando.

YES!! that's the jazz way...lol  and though it would require a little finesse to make it work for this particular Nocturne... 9 times out of 10 that move will get you out of any jam-up you find yourself in. 

[dcstudio]

However, I do run into such things now and then, e.g. situations where you play triplets in one hand but "normal" rhythmic patterns in the other, and then I get completely hopelessly lost - I simply cannot get it to go smoothly.

so did you have trouble with DeBussey's 1st Arabesque, too?  Usually, that's the one that has thrown students who make that particular complaint.

triplets are "normal"...lol...   polyrhythms... or 3 against 2... or triplets against straight 8ths... works better to express what you are trying to say.

lack of musical ambition...hmmmm.....  did you at one time have more musical ambition and something changed? what happened?

ok... and I know you weren't trying to be a smarta$$... I apologize.

[brogers70]

Hi, how do I mathematically divide these 11, 13 and 35 note groupings that appear in the end of this nocturne, how do I match them against and divide them against the left hand?. thanks

Being mathematically precise with such polyrhythms is way beyond me. And so is complete independence of the hands, at least at first. So what I've tried with those sorts of Chopin runs, 22 against 12, or other one's too complex to do mathematically exactly is the following. I can handle 2 against 3, 3 against 4, and 5 against 3, because I taught myself the patterns and did them over and over and over until I could feel the separate rhythms in the two hands. So I break up things like 22 against 12 into a series of, say,  3 against 2 and 4 against 2. I mark that out and use it to learn the fingerings and the notes. Then I just try to loosen up from there so that as few as possible of the right hand notes land directly at the same time as a left hand note, but making sure I keep the rhythm in the left hand quite strict. Eventually it feels appropriately Chopinesque and improvisatory, without losing the pulse of the accompaniment.

[briansaddleback]

Also, (I was kidding about glissando     ) I am not sure if any of the manuscripts depict or suggest ritardando near the end for the last closing measures but it is prevalently played (the 35 note portion) at a good speed but however the left hand is heavily slowed down to compensate for the numerous notes in the right.

I initially long long ago thought this was incorrect sounding (although intuitively felt like it was logical for the piece), but when if you find a way to hear it played in tempo with the left hand not slowed down at all, it sounds robotic and out of place, not Chopin like at all. So yeah, slow it down a bit on these runs, but enough to make it sound fluid and in context of a quiet closing, not a brilliant Liszt cadenza.

[dcstudio]

Also, (I was kidding about glissando     ).

lol... I was kidding too... it won't work.    however I stand by my statement... there aren't too many jams that a nice gliss won't slide you right out of.

[brianvds]

so did you have trouble with DeBussey's 1st Arabesque, too?  Usually, that's the one that has thrown students who make that particular complaint.

I have a somewhat checkered musical history. I seem to have a fairly good natural talent; family legend has it that I could sing before I could talk, and in my teens I was a quite enthusiastic composer (though I would rather not inflict my creations on anyone!)

I had some piano lessons as a child, which ended when the teacher moved to another town. Then nothing much more happened, until my early twenties, when I took up piano with gusto. But apart from the few childhood lessons, I never had a teacher, and so, inevitably, some aspects of my technique "fell through the cracks."

Perhaps my idea wasn't unsound: I decided to just get hold of exam pieces and then work my way through the grades. At the height of my powers, I could get through the grade six exam pieces, and even give a somewhat shaky rendition of a grade seven piece or two. I did kind of noisily bang and clang my way through a lot of stuff, mind you; precisely the kind of laziness a good teacher might have put a stop to. Alas, I have never been rich and cannot begin to afford lessons, and in those days YouTube or message boards didn't exist either. :-)

Anyway, since those days, life interfered and I played on and off but never got very far. I even tried out classical guitar, but never really got it off the ground - it's a monstrously difficult instrument. :-)

Also, I never quite mastered theory. I have a book or two, but studying it from a book is an exercise as dry as dust, and I find it very difficult to connect what I read in the book to actual pieces of music. I have tried to analyze pieces before playing them, only to find that I simply don't recognize any of the chords, etc. It's actually a whole different set of skills, that apparently takes a huge amount of practice. I am always rather in awe of people who can read through a piece, audiating and analyzing it on the fly. Not sure I'd ever learn that skill because I just don't have time.

It's another bad habit: the teacher I had never taught me any theory and I learned to play piano like it's a kind of typewriter: recognizing individual notes rather than chords.

Anyway, I eventually realized that given my limited time, I am probably being over-ambitious. So I resolved to focus on easier literature, and rather play grade 4 level pieces nicely than making a mess of more difficult ones.

Now to get back to your remark above about the Debussy Arabesque. The exam pieces I had available, perhaps purely by chance, had almost nothing in the way of playing one rhythm against another. So I never learned that skill. At some point I decided to tackle the Arabesque, because it is apparently supposedly not too difficult and within the reach of intermediate level pianists. Or so I heard. Well, disaster: I couldn't make head or tail of it.

So I decided to tackle some Bach, because I heard that it helps to develop independence of the hands. Two part inventions! Widely listed as easy to lower intermediate pieces. I couldn't play them AT ALL. Not remotely.

At that point I went through one of those extended periods without much playing anyway, and I never got back to those pieces either.

Now I am modestly trying to achieve nothing more elevated than just a reasonably solid grade 4 level, or thereabouts. Working on some Bach "little preludes," because those at least seem to be just about in my reach. :-)

triplets are "normal"...lol...   polyrhythms... or 3 against 2... or triplets against straight 8ths... works better to express what you are trying to say.

Yes, probably: my musical terminology is a tad deficient, as you no doubt noticed. ;-)
Anyway, as I said, I am not even talking about Chopin or Debussy Arabesques - whenever there is any hint of two different rhythms in the two hands, I am hopelessly lost. I even struggle with ornaments, which sometimes come to the same thing. (I must confess I actually don't really like a lot of ornaments, and thus, in Bach, I often simply omit them.)

lack of musical ambition...hmmmm.....  did you at one time have more musical ambition and something changed? what happened?

Well, see above. One has only so much time, and I don't think forty minutes of practice per day will get one much beyond grade four level, especially if you don't only want to practice, but also want time to just play for pleasure.

ok... and I know you weren't trying to be a smarta$$... I apologize.

No apologies needed - I sometimes come across that way. And I should apologize for the above epic post. If you have managed to read through it all to this point, that is... :-)

[feddera]

I don't think it's particularly helpful to tell a beginner to just "play it freely". If he could do that already, he probably wouldn't have made a post about it in the first place. In the end it should be played freely of course, but the question is how to get there.

I remember having some problems with the 35note-run when I first learnt this piece. First of all, you should make sure you can play it at a decent tempo. Just consider them 16th-notes and aim for a speed of 160 bpm with a metronome (with four notes per click).

Next, set the metronome really slow, and practice the grouping 8-9-9-9. At fast tempos the difference between groups of 8 and 9 is barely noticable anyway. Then just play the left hand notes at the start of each group.

The group of 11 notes can be subdivided into 2-3-3-3. The 13 into 3-3-3-4. After a while, when this whole section has been played like this many times, it should start to feel and sound a lot less calculated. Then it will be a good time to just focus on the pulse in the left hand without worrying too much about what the right is doing.

Good luck!

[mjames]

I don't think it's particularly helpful to tell a beginner to just "play it freely". If he could do that already, he probably wouldn't have made a post about it in the first place. In the end it should be played freely of course, but the question is how to get there.

That's where actually trying and experimenting comes into place. Of course if you think that it's also possible to get there through division then fine! However it's perfectly possible for a beginner pianist to be able to grasp the concept.

A few years ago I asked the exact same question about a particular piece (forgot which) and a very informed and intelligent member gave me the exact same answer. Of course it was obvious that I wasn't able to do it then, but the implication was that i should TRY that method of approach through experimentation, to which I ended up doing and now I don't really have problems with all these Chopinesque runs.

Of course, I am me and the poster is himself, so its likely that he won't like or enjoy the method I favor, which is exactly why we have other posters like you to give him an alternative approach to the problem. !

[jimroof]

Chopin's music, despite the fact that it is all written down ever so carefully, always takes on a more musical character when these flourishes are played as if they were being improvised.  You spend weeks and months getting it under your fingers, but the GOAL, IMHO, is to then perform the piece in a manner that, when you reach one of these sections with flourishes, it sounds as if you were just playing along and then suddenly... hey... look what I just thought up! 

In this case, the score cannot be anything more than an approximation of the composer's true wishes.