Ballade 1 In G Minor

[lexus21]

So my teacher gave me the score for the First Ballade and he believes I can do it. I have not been graded and have been playing for six months. I currently know the Moonlight Sonata 1st Movement and can play a bit of the third movement. I'm also 13 years old. Any advice whether I should try it? (Already got the first part of the ballade down.)

[beethovenfan01]

Woo, wow. Uh, yeah. The ballade is very, very hard ...

Some place this on the same level as Liszt's La Campanella. DO NOT TAKE THIS PIECE LIGHTLY!

That said, I love this piece. I am also working on it.

But if you've only been playing for six months, perhaps you should wait just a little more--I've been playing for about five years, and only now am I beginning to comprehend advanced pieces like the G minor ballade. Many take even longer before they can reach this advanced level.

Look, perhaps wait until you have a through experience with all the other major composers first--try a few Bach inventions, then a prelude and fugue. The Moonlight sonata is good, but try to branch out to other works as well--like the Pathetique sonata. I would also recommend studying Mozart and other Chopin works, such as a valse or nocturne, or both (I've studied two preludes, a mazurka, two nocturnes, and am working on the second movement of the piano concerto in f minor).

The crux of all this is: Don't rush to play the hard stuff. I know, because I tried to learn the third movement of the Moonlight sonata before I was ready, and I screwed up the rhythm big time. If you attempt the big pieces too soon, you'll stunt your growth and technique. This is coming from someone who has learned this the hard way!!!

And lastly, I just love this song so much. It's my favorite piece, alongside Beethoven's Appassionata and Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini. I would hate to see it butchered.

Good luck on your future music studies!

[adodd81802]

Sorry it sounds like a troll. (1 post, ludicrous claims... yeah!)

Otherwise your piano teacher is shockingly bad. (or just enjoys taking your money)

[samdm93]

You say you can play 'part of' the 3rd movement of Moonlight? How much is 'part of'? The third movement is difficult but only marginally so in comparison to the Chopin. Had you mastered the entire Sonata I'd say yes but I think your teacher is pushing you too much if he/she really did assign the Ballade.

No offense but the Ballade may be technically way out of your depth, it's an extremely difficult piece both technically and from and interpretive viewpoint. Learning it is a massive commitment due to it's length and technical demands.

Why not play some lighter Chopin to familiarize yourself with his style? He has tons of lighter pieces which are more accessible, namely a couple of the Waltzes? When I was first introduced to Chopin I played the lovely little posthumous Waltz in A minor, and a couple of the Preludes.

[visitor]

Just suggested this in another thread , seems appropriate here, best to play a little ballade before a big one. ARENSKY OP 36 NO4 is so musically compact and dramatic, even though short it has a wide expressive range and the narrative feels complete but total amount of music is manageable given your level
You gotta know you can walk skip before you try to long jump

[natanica]

Regarding the Ballad: 

This last piece suggested by Visitor also sounds like quite a handful, but I have to say I find it truly beautiful...Maybe I'll try it for myself.

[preludetr]

You should get a different teacher. Giving a Chopin Ballade to a 13-year-old who has played for six months is ludicrous. You will struggle with this piece for an extremely long time and won't come close to mastering it.

[lexus21]

So it's been a while since this post. I'm currently about 2 minutes into the ballade and it's been 5 days since I started. To be honest I didn't like the way you guys talked about my teacher, then again, I should've mentioned that I'm the one who asked for the score.

Also it doesn't really seem that hard. I have been listening and playing over and over again and the more I think about it, the easier it seems to me.

Anyway thank you for the replies.

[dogperson]

Lexus
As a way of assessing whether this is too difficult for you, you should look at the Presto con fuoco rather than just start at the beginning of the Ballade for your assessment.  

I frankly don't understand your teacher's allowing you to tackle this as a 6 month learner, regardless of whether it was your request, or not.  For repertoire that I want to play, but is technically too challenging for me, my teacher's response is 'not yet', which I honor.  I have accidentally worked on repertoire outside of my skill level, and found it to be disheartening  to not be able to really play it well, or to have 10 measures that were not good.  To invest a lot of time learning repertoire (which you wlll do for this!), you should have the expectation  to have good results...... or delay working on it.

As a clue to the difficulty level, Henle rates this as an 8.   Moonlight Sonata in its entirety is rated as a 7  

IMHO.

[visitor]

So it's been a while since this post. I'm currently about 2 minutes into the ballade and it's been 5 days since I started. To be honest I didn't like the way you guys talked about my teacher, then again, I should've mentioned that I'm the one who asked for the score.

Also it doesn't really seem that hard. I have been listening and playing over and over again and the more I think about it, the easier it seems to me.

Anyway thank you for the replies.

How has it been a while, you posted 2 days ago.
If you started 5 days ago, that means you asked 3 days after you started the piece, if you had already decided then why.bother asking?

Criticism of the teacher is.valid.based on info provided, unless it is planned failure, effective tactic.to discourage this from you is to let you crash andbyrn...allow you to fail and see for yourself the folly of the endeavor.
Dogperson is spot on if you cannot get the last part up to snuff.in 3 to 5 weeks, come back to it later

[samdm93]

So it's been a while since this post. I'm currently about 2 minutes into the ballade and it's been 5 days since I started. To be honest I didn't like the way you guys talked about my teacher, then again, I should've mentioned that I'm the one who asked for the score.

Also it doesn't really seem that hard. I have been listening and playing over and over again and the more I think about it, the easier it seems to me.

Anyway thank you for the replies.

No offense, but the words "Chopin Ballade" and "easy" do not belong in the same sentence. If you've been playing the Ballade for a couple days and you perceive it as easy, you're either the reincarnation of Liszt - or you're not playing it right.

[chopinawesome]

   I have been playing for almost 7 years and my teacher said to still wait a couple of years before attempting the ballades. I am pretty sure that the ballade is very, very difficult. Good luck.

   The beginning doesn't seem so bad. However, it gets incredibly harder each time you go closer to the end.  Are you sure your music is the original piece? It could also be edited and abridged.

 
  

[lexus21]

Alright. I'm really thankful for all the advice and constructive-criticism. Maybe I should wait before trying it again.

Further replies are always appreciated 

[beethovenfan01]

After working on this piece for hours straight just this morning, drilling every section into the ground with a metronome, hands-alone and together ...

I have concluded that this piece is, indeed, far too much for a beginner. My head hurts after so much work, and while I feel I made significant progress this morning ...

This piece easily deserves its reputation! I would not recommend working on it with only six months worth of experience.

That said, if you decide to ignore all the advice given on here (including my own), I set the metronome to dotted-half note equal forty and just worked the music. The way to learn this piece is similar to eating an elephant--one small bite at a time. And the coda is no different--though I would set the metronome to half-note equals sixty or so instead. That's how you should work on it--small pieces, no more than you can manage.

But if your technique is screwed up, or you end up playing what's not really on the page and thus learning the song wrong ... NO AMOUNT OF HARD WORK WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

[lexus21]

I have decided to listen to you guys and stop learning this ballade. I do not want to get frustrated and then disheartened when I learn that I can't play it. Any Pieces that I could try though?

Thank you all so much for the replies

[beethovenfan01]

Well, we didn't mean this to be disheartening or discouraging ...

I would suggest looking at the Bach Inventions, for starters. If you want something by Chopin, I would suggest a few of his Preludes (E minor, C minor, A major, for instance). These are short and not hard to learn, and you can quickly get to the interpretation stage. If you want even more spice, start with some of his Nocturnes (G minor, C minor [Op. Posthumous], for instance), or a waltz (Op. 64 No. 1 and 2 are both very nice pieces). If you want more Beethoven, the Pathetique is a good sonata to work towards. Many of the sonatas by Mozart and Haydn are challenging rhythmically and interpretively, but are nevertheless good pieces from which you will learn much. And of course I highly recommend studying sonatinas by Clementi and Kuhlau.

Hope this helps!

[outin]

You teacher should be able to help you... But if not then forget about murdering the long and really difficult works that are meant to be played by pianists far more experienced than you. Accept that you are not the freak of nature that can skip the required preparing and make miracles. Otherwise you will never get anywhere...

But I am a strong advocate of students playing music they enjoy and that motivates them
 If you are not into the boring easier classical era pieces that are within your range, do look into Scarlatti sonatas. There are 555 to choose from, all available free on imslp.org. Some of them are virtuosic while some are really beautiful. Any real pianist will be impressed if you play then well because it's harder than you may think. And you should know that Chopin himself played them and gave them for his students to play.

One more thing I love about them is that when learning them one has to make a lot of interpretive choices. (Use the Gilbert editions rather than Longo) Your teacher will help, but I still think it's good to promote creative musicianship from the start. Later rep tends to be quite thoroughly notated...