Chopin Etude's in 6 months

[ed24dyt]

Hi, I am a piano student and about 8-9 months into piano. I have a professional teacher whos been playing for over 25 years, and i wonder if i am ready to tackle chopins etudes. Preferably 25/11, 25/5, or 10/4 but any of them are fine. I am currently on some Tchaikovsky and Mozart pieces and I practice 2-3 hours daily and 5-10 on weekends.

[dogperson]

Since you have a professional teacher, you should  ask your professional  teacher who not only has heard you play but understands your meaningless reference to ‘playing some Tchaikovsky and Mozart pieces’.

[ranjit]

"Some Mozart pieces" to some of the most challenging Chopin etudes (op 25 no 11 for instance) is crazy. I would say you're almost certainly not ready, but there's no harm in asking your teacher, and s/he could give you some suggestions on easier pieces which could lead up to that goal.

[nw746]

I would say if you're interested in playing Chopin etudes at this stage you'd probably want to do a lot of preparatory exercises, and should anticipate having to put several months of (frustrating) work in. For example you should be able to play passages like these comfortably & at tempo before you get to something like Winter Wind:

[adodd81802]

Again, I do not understand why you seek the approval of random and potentially unqualified strangers on the internet as opposed to your own teacher, who you've already admitted has 25+ years experience in the field.

If you're asking if we (or at least I) believes someone with no experience can tackle Chopin Etudes after 8-9 months of study, my honest opinion is no.

[anacrusis]

Why don't you ask your teacher?

Having worked a lot on the Etudes I think you shouldn't play them too early - which is what I did! They'll be much easier and efficient to tackle, and you'll be less likely to be frustrated and learn them with bad habits that you later need to unlearn, if you first gain some technical knowhow from a quantity of experience with other repertoire with easier technical problems. That quantity of experience, however, means that you need to put in some more time with other pieces first. Just my 2 cents.

My suggestion would be to let your teacher know that you want to play the Etudes, and ask them to put together a study program for you that will help taking you there.

[ed24dyt]

My apologies to those who have taken this in a way that i did not mean for. I simply wanted other people's inputs and opinions, and yes I do know that i did not add enough context for a comfortable answer. To clarify, I played Mozart Sonatas: (all movements) k311, k309, k545, k283, and k279. At the time i finished these, they were approved by my teacher but I am not so confident i could play them "perfectly" but I know i can play it correctly at the correct tempo with the correct dynamics "blah blah". For Tchaikovsky, I played the Swan Lake theme, Dance of the Sugar PLum Fairy, and the main theme of Piano Concerto No. 1. Same response from my teacher. Each piece took about 8-9 days to finish to my teachers standards. Also, to the person that linked the image of the "recommended piece before starting Etude 25/11" I did try it and i couldnt play it perfectly, but i went at it for about 2 hours and i played it decent enough to the point where someone else wouldnt have a negative experience from hearing it.

Regarding the people who told me to ask my teacher instead of asking an online forum, my response is: Of course i did, i trust my teacher regarding my piano life more than anything. Again, i simply wanted other peoples inputs and opinions so i can get a better view of how big the scale of chopins etudes are at, compared to where I am at.

(dont reccoment czerny or hanon, i already do 15 minutes of both each day 

[quantum]

IMO 15 mins of Chopin Etudes would be more beneficial than 15 mins of Hanon.  I digress.   

***

The best way to know if you are ready is try small excerpts from the Etudes.  It will give you more perspective on what to expect and measure how you will react to the challenge. 

I don't think preparatory exercises are necessary.  You learn to play the Etudes by playing the Etudes, not by playing other stuff.  It is more a matter of if you are ready to take on the workload, and do so in a methodical and safe manner that minimizes the risk of injury, with the guidance of your teacher.

[ranjit]

I checked out the chopin etudes you mention (25/5, 10/4, 25/11). I agree with quantum -- I think you should just try to play them, and see what happens. Some etudes are more likely to strain the hand -- 10/1 and 25/6 come to mind. I've found that you need to be careful with passages involving incessant octaves or arpeggios, and I wouldn't recommend doing those for prolonged periods of time.

I think, however, that with these etudes (25/5, 10/4, 25/11), the worst that is likely to happen is that you will not be able to play them at anything approaching the notated tempo. I see no harm in having a go at it.

One small tip -- don't practice doggedly for crazy amounts of time, because you don't want to ingrain wrong muscle memory super deep. Usually, it doesn't take a lot of time to undo poor habits imo, but if you have literally spent 1000 hours doing something really wrong and it is deeply ingrained by force of habit, you will have a really hard time undoing it. When working at something above your level, you will not immediately come up with all of the right answers and coordinated movements. So, try to experiment and work smart. Don't practice with tension for hours and hours. If done right, these movements should feel natural and effortless. I've personally never found practicing a certain movement for hours at a time to be of any use at all, as you usually know in the first 15 minutes if something is working or not. Many beginners fall into that trap of constantly trying to "force" technique, but it usually produces a mediocre result.

[anacrusis]

I don't think preparatory exercises are necessary.  You learn to play the Etudes by playing the Etudes, not by playing other stuff.

Having myself worked extensively on the Etudes, which I started doing before I was ready, I have to say I disagree. I have wasted so much time relearning the Etudes because I first learned them when I was too tense and had too many bad habits.

There are cetain foundations to piano playing that I think you benefit a lot from if they are already present when you tackle the Etudes. A certain degree of finger independence, and particularly suppleness of wrist and arm. With a solid technical foundation, they'll no longer be such a daunting task to tackle, but merely a continuation of what you are already doing. So you don't have to learn how to play the Etudes, because you already know the basics that are required.

[quantum]

Having myself worked extensively on the Etudes, which I started doing before I was ready, I have to say I disagree. I have wasted so much time relearning the Etudes because I first learned them when I was too tense and had too many bad habits.

My approach to learning, is that it comes with the expectation of revision.  Rather than aim for setting up conditions to achieve idealistic perfection, I prefer to cultivate a culture of a thirst for continual improvement.  That continual improvement includes revision,  and when necessary challenging personal beliefs on what the best approach to the situation is.

I started studying the Chopin Etudes as a teenager, and with every revision, every rework, every undo and redo, I learned something - something that led to improvement in my playing, and something that I can pass on to my students.  Not one moment of this process do I consider wasted.  Relearning is not the enemy to improvement.  Often times in order to do something better, we must give up doing something that has become comfortable, or familiar or traditional to us.  Relearning becomes the fertile soil to which we sow the seeds of improvement. 

[anacrusis]

Oh, I have nothing against revision as such, and I think it's realistic that you will keep improving your technique as you keep revising the etudes. But there is a difference between learning to walk, then learning to run, then learning to run professionally, and trying to learn to run professionally before you can barely walk. The latter is likely to have disastrous results. I think a paced progression from easier to more difficult tasks and a basic knowledge of how the body needs to be used to get there is still necessary. The question is where the tipping point is? I think if you are just a year or two into learning the piano, you simply lack too much foundational experience.

[adodd81802]

IMO 15 mins of Chopin Etudes would be more beneficial than 15 mins of Hanon.  I digress.   

Don't you mean 15 minutes of Chopin Etudes would be better than 10 hours of Hanon.

[adodd81802]

But there is a difference between learning to walk, then learning to run, then learning to run professionally, and trying to learn to run professionally before you can barely walk. The latter is likely to have disastrous results.

I do very much agree with this also.

Practice in my opinion comes in 2 forms:

1 - Layers
2 - Isolation

Both of which can be applied to everything in life, not just piano.

Layers, effectively is learning something on a more simple level and then increasing the difficulty so that over time, you build the foundations to accomplish more difficult tasks having already mastered the simple ones.

Just as you highlighted here in the walk-run-professional run scenario.

Isolation is drilling further into the specific tasks to master them for the bigger picture. I.E  mastering putting one foot in front of the other by repeatedly practicing that movement.

While we would all love to jump into learning our favourite pieces, what I enjoy about practicing is you can practice may different things that still indirectly prepare you to then learn the pieces you enjoy most, without it becoming too monotonous. I am sure you could probably find a way to argue this, but many of the best professional pianists we know, spent time on Czerny, or exercises, scales, drills to streamline the learning process.

[quantum]

Don't you mean 15 minutes of Chopin Etudes would be better than 10 hours of Hanon.

Of course I do.   

[quantum]

But there is a difference between learning to walk, then learning to run, then learning to run professionally, and trying to learn to run professionally before you can barely walk.

Absolutely agree with this.  I've used this analogy before. 

However, it is also important to note that not all students fit the typical learning mould of their peers.  Some are absolutely capable of an accelerated learning pace, and with the guidance of a teacher can be successful as such.