Chopin Nocturne op 48 no 1, taking off keys or arpeggios?

[faa2010]

'Hello,

I am starting to learn the Nocturne op 48 no 1. The first part I can handle my fingers extension, although in come chords I need' to do some arpeggios. My finger extension is of one octave.

The problems come since the second part, where I have to extend a lot, A LOT. As I said, my extension goes from one note till its octave, in other words, my hands are small. I need to see what to do because this is an important issue till almost the end of the piece.

I also remember that in one of Chopin preludes (op 28 no 7), the editor put two options: arpeggios or not playing some notes. What do you think?, could one of them be the solution?

[outin]

Can you not discuss this with your teacher? These are exctly the kind of "trade secrets" that a good teacher will share with you. The other option is to trust your own ears, what sounds acceptable.

If you are not comfortable compensating for your small hands and figuring out alternative fingerings yet, you may not be ready to study this piece independently yet.

[mjames]

Wow your hands must be really small lol.........

[keypeg]

Wow your hands must be really small lol.........

??

[faa2010]

Greetings, I talked with my teacher, she told me that if I can't play all notes of the chords at the same time, I can played them as arpeggios.

Thanks for your earlier advice everyone.

[beethovenfan01]

Yes generally you want to play them as quick arpeggios, since obviously no one can play many of those massive chords in the middle section as blocked. But Chopin did not necessarily mark all of them to be rolled, which means that often you want to disguise the rolling sound as much as possible to avoid dragging.