Godowsky chopin

[SDL]

Has anyone found the godowsky-chopin etudes helpful to learning chopin etudes?

[mikeyg]

That wouldn't really make sense.  It'd be like learning the Beethoven sonatas to help learn Czerny.

[SDL]

well one hand can teach the other since there are differences in these studies and chopin's.  You could stumble on a technique you many not have found with the RH.

[ramseytheii]

That wouldn't really make sense.  It'd be like learning the Beethoven sonatas to help learn Czerny.

On the contrary it makes all the sense.  Godowsky took the etudes as a starting point, to investigate all of the latent and sometimes unrealized possibilities within them.  If you can learn the Revolutionary Etude, or the Ocean Etude, with the left hand alone, I guarantee you with both hands it will be easier.  Godowsky's edition is actually comparable with Busoni's WTC edition, where he analyzed the fuges for unused possibilities in terms of combinations of themes, entrance of themse, inversions, etc.  He wrote copious footnotes about all these other options in the fugues.
Godowsky expanded the latent polyphonic aspect of Chopin's music, which virtually everybody is succesful in ignoring.  Studying his etudes will increase your awareness of the true depth of Chopin's music, not in abstract and psuedo-poetic babble about heroism or sickly perfumes, but in the play of material, the layers of melodic content, in short the music.

Walter Ramsey

[franzliszt2]

I think that Chopin etudes would be helpful to learning the Godowsky etudes

[ramseytheii]

I think that Chopin etudes would be helpful to learning the Godowsky etudes

Absolutely!

Walter Ramsey

[tompilk]

normal then godowsky... lol
Tom

[alejo_90]

Yo ! What happened to mikeyg? Why did he got banned ??

Pd. Where can I get MIDIS of the chopin-godowsky studies ?

Cheers
Alex

[gyzzzmo]

Na, not helpfull as study material. Godowsky etudes are just variations. You train other things with them.
gyzzzmo

[ramseytheii]

Na, not helpfull as study material. Godowsky etudes are just variations. You train other things with them.
gyzzzmo

Take a closer look, they are not "just" variations but individual compositions in their own right, that take the etudes as a starting point.  It's a grand and original project.  Also, they expand what lies latent in the original Etudes, the layers of polyphony, the pure, true piano writing.  Godowsky shows that anything Chopin wrote to develop the right hand can work for the left, and often better.

Walter Ramsey

[pianiststrongbad]

I agree the Chopin Etudes are stepping stones to the Godowsky Etudes.  Not the other way around.  Similar to addition coming before multiplication.

[gyzzzmo]

Take a closer look, they are not "just" variations but individual compositions in their own right, that take the etudes as a starting point.  It's a grand and original project.  Also, they expand what lies latent in the original Etudes, the layers of polyphony, the pure, true piano writing.  Godowsky shows that anything Chopin wrote to develop the right hand can work for the left, and often better.

Walter Ramsey

I agree they are very good variations, though chopin earns all the credit.

[ramseytheii]

I agree they are very good variations, though chopin earns all the credit.

Then why not just leave Godowsky's name off the thing entirely?  I don't think Chopin wrote even 45% of the notes in his versions. 

Walter Ramsey

[gyzzzmo]

Then why not just leave Godowsky's name off the thing entirely?  I don't think Chopin wrote even 45% of the notes in his versions. 

Walter Ramsey

you said you thought not even 45% of the notes are Chopin's. You're undoubtly right, but Godowsky basicly just copied the CHORDs and music-lines and there is where the beauty of music mainly comes from. Transposing something from right hand to the left (for example) isnt that hard.  Hardest for godowsky was probably to make it technicly possible to play.

[rob47]

you said you thought not even 45% of the notes are Chopin's. You're undoubtly right, but Godowsky basicly just copied the CHORDs and music-lines and there is where the beauty of music mainly comes from. Transposing something from right hand to the left (for example) isnt that hard.  Hardest for godowsky was probably to make it technicly possible to play.

I urge you to look deeper into this by (if possible) learning one for yourself and discovering first hand just how much godowsky took these legendary etudes to a different level! In doing this I guarentee you will come back to your above statement some day and have a mighty chuckle.

[gyzzzmo]

I can play his ocean and black-key variations. Maybe i have to play them all to get that 'chuckle' 

[rob47]

I can play his ocean and black-key variations. Maybe i have to play them all to get that 'chuckle' 

You can play all the black-key variations? touche.




























you sunnuvubitch.

[emmdoubleew]

you said you thought not even 45% of the notes are Chopin's. You're undoubtly right, but Godowsky basicly just copied the CHORDs and music-lines and there is where the beauty of music mainly comes from. Transposing something from right hand to the left (for example) isnt that hard.  Hardest for godowsky was probably to make it technicly possible to play.

I disagree. If beauty was based on chord progressions we'd have a lot more beautiful death metal and pop.

[ramseytheii]

you said you thought not even 45% of the notes are Chopin's. You're undoubtly right, but Godowsky basicly just copied the CHORDs and music-lines and there is where the beauty of music mainly comes from. Transposing something from right hand to the left (for example) isnt that hard.  Hardest for godowsky was probably to make it technicly possible to play.

Actually the chords are virtually all Godowsky's too.  Chopin provided a general harmonic structure, which Godowsky freely alters, and a technical idea, which Godowsky expands to the utmost degree, including activating all of the latent factors of Chopin's music such as counterpoint, and adds passagework upon passagework.  THere are some, like the LH version of a minor, which are very similar in notes and chords, but many are vastly different!

Walter Ramsey