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The 18th “Chopin and his Europe Festival” – featuring Polish Romanticism
The 18th edition of the Chopin and His Europe Festival is presently taking place in Warsaw. This year 30 concerts are scheduled, and among them piano recitals by numerous outstanding pianists, including laureates of the Chopin Competition. Among these, Bruce Liu, the winner of the 2021 Competition. Read more >>

Topic: How do you break a speed wall?  (Read 220 times)

Offline furr104

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How do you break a speed wall?
on: May 14, 2023, 03:58:08 PM
Seriously. I've been practicing Chopin's etude Op. 10 no. 8 for almost 5 months.
My teacher told me that the only thing that separates me from playing this in public is 5 bars in the middle section. Not the right hand theme, not the coda but these 5 bars for the left hand  :-\

The problem is that even if I practice it with rhythms, after 20 minutes of practice or so I can make it work (till 100/112 quarter notes -- more and my hand starts to crumble), but if I'm playing it in a lesson without prior "warm ups" I'm done, it's a mush, honestly.

I knew my left hand was weaker than my right one but I thought the main difficulty would have been with the runs on the rh, not the left 🤕

There's a baseline speed in which I'm comfortable playing this passage with cold hands, but it's too low (88) -- I would at least need to reach 100.
The problem is mainly on the 4th and 3rd fingers starting the four-notes pattern -- they're uneven after I hit the highest note with the thumb and turn back to the next group

Offline lostinidlewonder

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Re: How do you break a speed wall?
Reply #1 on: May 14, 2023, 05:31:55 PM
Chopin’s fingering forces 4 to stay curved and "unstretching" feeling separated from any stretch after it or returning to it. Moving from the 4th to the extended hand position and back to a "limp" 4th is helpful to promote relaxation. There's so many reason why this passage might trouble you, it is really sad your teacher hasn't given you any solution in 5 months!!!
"The biggest risk in life is to take no risk at all."
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