Advice for RH arpeggios in Chopin op 10 no 4 (bars 3, 11)

[judiciary]

Hello!

I'm currently working on Chopin's etude op 10 no 4 (Torrent). I've learned the first half or so, up to bar 37. It's not too bad and surprisingly I can already play parts of it at speed. A major bottleneck I've identified so far is (as the title says) the arpeggios in the right hand at bars 3, 11, 53, 61 and probably more. I'm having a lot of trouble hitting these RH notes with precision. Does anyone here have suggestions for this?

Because the broken chords are so spread out, it becomes an series of jumps in the RH and it's quite awkward (at least how I'm doing it right now). Another problem seems to be that as I'm preparing to hit the upper note with my pinky, my thumb drags on the lower notes so I can't get to the rest of the arpeggio in time. Right now my instinct is that I should let my arm do most of the work in moving my hand and use the fingers to "aim". Even still, it doesn't seem that I've found the optimal motion to do this, so I was wondering if anyone might have specific advice.

The fingering I'm using is the one in Cortot's edition. Images of the relevant sections:


Thanks!!

[brogers70]

I think that Chopin's notation is giving a hint. The second note of the arpeggio is held as an eighth. I think that is a suggestion that as you play that second note you leave the second finger down and use it as a pivot while you bend your wrist to the right to reach the third note with the pinky. As you reach that note, you release the second finger and bring the wrist back in the opposite direction to bring your third finger over the fourth note, and then the thumb over the first note of the next arpeggio. So the whole thing is really just a question of swiveling the wrist right then left then right then left etc as you go through the arpeggios.

[samwitdangol]

I think that Chopin's notation is giving a hint. The second note of the arpeggio is held as an eighth. I think that is a suggestion that as you play that second note you leave the second finger down and use it as a pivot while you bend your wrist to the right to reach the third note with the pinky. As you reach that note, you release the second finger and bring the wrist back in the opposite direction to bring your third finger over the fourth note, and then the thumb over the first note of the next arpeggio. So the whole thing is really just a question of swiveling the wrist right then left then right then left etc as you go through the arpeggios.

I never realized that Chopin notated it like that to make it easier for the pianist!

[judiciary]

I think that Chopin's notation is giving a hint. The second note of the arpeggio is held as an eighth. I think that is a suggestion that as you play that second note you leave the second finger down and use it as a pivot while you bend your wrist to the right to reach the third note with the pinky. As you reach that note, you release the second finger and bring the wrist back in the opposite direction to bring your third finger over the fourth note, and then the thumb over the first note of the next arpeggio. So the whole thing is really just a question of swiveling the wrist right then left then right then left etc as you go through the arpeggios.

Oh thank you, just tried this and it makes it a lot more comfortable! (As it turns out I was also strangely using the second finger for both the second and third notes of some of the arpeggios, which was making it awkward -- not sure where that snuck in but I'm glad I got another pair of eyes.) I didn't realize the thing with the eighth notes, that's neat