Nocturne Op. 9 No. 1--Trouble with evenness

[chomaninoff1]

So, for the past few months, I have learnt and been perfecting Chopin's famous Op. 9 No. 1 Nocturne. I think I have done pretty fine on the piece, but there is still one problem section that seems to be getting me: the 22 note polyrhythmic section at the end of the piece.

It is not the actual polyrhythm that is bothering me (although that was difficult at first), but it is the evenness of the notes that is hard for me. I realize that this is difficult because of the speed of these notes... I'm not having trouble playing it fast though, just the evenness is hard for me.

I have tried playing it slower many times and then speeding it up gradually, but it still doesn't sounds right! Any tips for me besides playing it slower?

Thanks for all your help!

[briansaddleback]

Like to give you some tips but it is so hard to type all this out in iPhone just will say keep doing it slowly (I don't care , you didn't do it slowly many times enough, many of these kids say they did something slowly for ages and it just ended up being a couple of days or at most a couple of weeks. ) but mindfully and methodically work out and observe your body movements from each note to the next what you need to do for even ness and pause on each note feel it observe it go to next note feel that transition and movement observation and so forth.

That cadenza is not to be looked at just mundanely. It is a tough cadenza and even pros spend quality time working on it slowly for long time. That is why they are pros. Not bc they 'naturally' can pull it off easily after a few tries.

Some parts of a piece will mature later for you while other parts more quickly. This is called aging a piece into you hands your mind. Accept it , don't try to make everything fit into one time box.

[chomaninoff1]

Thanks, Brian, for your feedback. I guess it's time to practice it more slowly.

[blackpianistjp]

I can try to record it and or make a tuto  if you can put a screen of the excerpt

[chomaninoff1]

Hmm, thanks for the offer. How do I post a photo on here from my phone?

[iansinclair]

A minor comment -- well, two.  I should note that that particular Nocturne is one of my staple rep. pieces, and has been for years -- it is lovely.  First, I no longer even try to play all 22 of those notes; I had a stupid accident a couple of years back, and there is no way I can play them.  Not happening.  I've simplified it, and only the critics with scores ever notice.

However, on that -- and this is a more general comment, as Chopin particularly but others as well wrote these things -- it isn't really meant to be played mechanically perfectly.  Rather you have a steady flowing pulse in the left hand -- maybe a bit of flex in it, but not much -- and the right hand is intended to play this lovely flowing bit of filigree over it.  The idea is to get that filigree to be really flowing and flexible, and to do that I at least had to practice it all by itself until the fingers just did it, seemingly on their own.  From there it is simple -- just make sure that it starts and ends where it should, and don't even think about trying to get each note to take up exactly 1/22 of the time!

[chomaninoff1]

Ian, thank you for responding. It truly is a lovely piece.

Yeah, I am trying to get this part really light and flowy as you said. My problem was not that I wasn't able to get the notes in, but that it sounded uneven and not very smooth because I was pushing too hard on some notes, and pushing lighter on others. At first I thought that maybe there was something else I was doing wrong, but I have resigned, and realized I just need to practice it slower with a careful attention and emphasis on how much pressure I put on each note.

EDIT: I realize that the section of notes I referred to in my question, is actually 20 notes long, and not 22.