Behind Chopin Etude Op.10 No.1 - How important is the hand size?
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- Опубліковано 14 лип 2024
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Thank you very much! Stay safe, stay healthy and stay in the Heart of the Keys!;P
Ever thought about having a too small hand for some pieces? Tell me in the comments and have a great Sunday!❤️
Thank god you're talking about hands 🤣.
@@JohnDoe-qr4xu Yeah I was thinking the same lol
Ofcourse, I cant play 11th
@@rebsondodjidahouede3799 My German cousin has the same humour. Everything with her is innuendo even if she didn't mean it. It's like automatic lol
@@bodogreiner1536 Wow sounds like a great teacher. Unless you didn't want to learn it
I'm not a pianist but these videos open my eyes to the challenges every concert pianist is experiencing. I find it all fascinating. This is a wonderful channel!
Note:
Left Hand playing with connection - 6:46
Right Hand Turning point 1 - 8:59
Right Hand Turning point 2 - 10:37
Right Hand Turning point 3 - 11:45
Demo - 12:16
Opening and closing of your hand - 12:34
Showing off 😉- 13:56
Having larger hands certainly has benefits. That being said, there are many ways to compensate for small hands. My teacher’s handspan was just barely over an octave, but great flexibility along with fantastic wrist and elbow technique helped her tackle giants like this piece, many Rachmaninoff Preludes, and even Saint-Saens’ 2nd Concerto.
Edit: Claire Huangci has a good lecture about this topic on Tonebase. Highly recommend that video along with their other content on the channel.
@@bodogreiner1536 - Good question. I do share your sentiments that music lessons should be individual and personalized with a teacher (I assume that’s what you meant). That being said, I’ve been using Tonebase for a few weeks now, but I’ve been taking lessons privately for years. In my opinion, Tonebase works great as supplementary material. There are some fantastic lectures there from really big name pianists covering a wide range of techniques and repertoire, but I personally don’t think you can really benefit from them if you’re a complete beginner and you don’t have a teacher guiding you through the fundamentals to apply said techniques. Also, interesting that you mentioned “one size fits all.” I personally do not believe application-based music courses to be effective, but I wouldn’t lump Tonebase together with those. I’m not sure how many actually use it as a full-fledged course, but I think its best use case is for piano students or serious piano hobbyists who want to supplement their piano learning with insights from professionals and performing artists.
Again, this is just my opinion. Tonebase offers free trials, so I’d encourage people to just try it out and view the lectures for themselves.
You cannot compensate having small hands. You can work around but that is not the same and trust me for someone with small hands often frustrating. There is no logical reason for only one size.
Yes you can use flexibility to substitute for hand size but it can't 100% replace it. For example in some Liszt and Rachmaninoff pieces it's basically almost impossible to play without having hands big enough. One example is the 1838 Paganini-liszt etude 6 (S.140) in Variation 6, you need to be able to reach 10th very quickly and comfortably in the left hand.
this piece is harder than saint saens 2 on a technical level. ss2 is a beginner concerto, this is among the hardest chopin etudes (THE hardest if you ask horowitz)
@@Hvranq As long as you can play an octave, you can play essentially everything in the classical repertoire, and just roll or substitute any chords that are too big
Been watching all the people partcipate in the event! Beautiful Opera/concert Hall! They are from everywhere on our planet!
I loved your interepretation, one of the bests I heard
How absolutely magnificent! Thank you, thank you!!
What a fantastic video! Thank you so much!
Thank you so much for your videos! You are truly inspiring!
I love your interpretation. You bring out the hidden melodies and now I really want to practice this piece
Annique, that was a very excellent way of explaining it! Yes, im also refining this etude for myself and I can only stretch a comfortable 9th but i could play up to the actual tempo now after years and years of revisitng chopin etudes. I totally agree with you on wrist, 2nd finger rotation and listening to the base chord to guide the brain and the right hand = ) looking forward to more of your videos! You
re awesome!
Thanks very much for posting this. Your tips were really clear and easy to grasp! I've always struggled with getting this anywhere close to the correct tempo
Wish i could play this in the future! youre my favorite pianist, you inspire me a lot 🤩 thank you for the analysis.
Thank you so much for the important pointers, Annique! They have truly made a great difference in the way I manage the piece ... have also greatly benefitted from your video on the A flat major etude. You have been so generous and helpful ... much gratitude from a struggling amateur from Singapore! :):)
Thank you for this! I think that I finally understand what people mean when they talk about "choreography of the hands." I can just reach an octave, and you give me hope. I love the suppleness of your hands and arms when you play. It's something that I can aspire to. (And thank you for the well-done filming of your hands while you play.)
Just brilliantine, a mini dissertation, thank you.
Actually youre one of the best music youtubers on UA-cam. Your videos are so gooood
Thank you! this video is very inspiring and encouraging. I tried to practise this etude before, but it's too hard and my hands are quite small. However, your video makes me want to pick this up again. Thank you very much! love you channel
Love this so much!! I always complained about my small hands but this video is so so helpful :)
Thanks so much for this!!!
Truly looking forward to your future video, bringing us a broad view to Chopin étude Op. 10 No. 4 which I am practicing these months 😂😂😂
A great and clear explanation of the fundamental movements for the hands when dealing with these complex Chopin's arpeggios.......congratulations Anneke......
Very informative. Fantastic playing at the end 🙏
That's a fantastic version and the way you sing the inner melody is wonderful! You're a fantastic pianist, a wonderful teacher, humble and funny and that's why, I think, we love you and your universe! Thank you so much! As a former horn player who stopped playing, I bought a piano and started learning the way I learned in university. I never had a piano lesson, but I work hard, listen to your tips and it pays! I always thought this pièce was way out of my abilities, but I'm working on the two first pages and that's really fun! Thanks again and keep going this way! 😀
13:56 loved your interpretation! I've seen some really intense performances, but seeing a calm end looks really nice too!
I can also hear you playing the notes that plays like a melody with an accent wich makes it really easy to notice. We can't listen to it that much in faster performances!
Congrats, hope i can play this etude with great technique and knowledge as you, which is my favorite etude from Chopin and inspired me to keep studying Piano, i cried when listened to Vladimir Ashkenazy performance cause i really want to play it!
Very helpful!
Lovely playing!
You are so good you make the yamaha sound amazing!
Bingewatching the chopin competition and learning this etude atm, so this is perfect timing.
amazing work
Thanks a lot Annique (Vielen dank). Very helpful video explaining the state of Chopins thinking when writing his wonderful music for the benefit of the piano performer. The thinking about turning points playing arpeggios is really going to help while working on Chopin Walt op post B150 at bar 22.
Thank you for great suggestions
Thank you for great lesson. Good explanation and demonstration of hand movement technique. I definitely learn something important today.
I am always jealous to those with big hands, u made me feel better now and look at the benefit of my small hands 🙌
You said a lot of really helpfu stuff! 🙏🏼❤️😊
It's wonderful how you do diminuendo before the reprise and at the end of the piece, exactly as the composer indicates and not as most pianists do
I love it!
Thank you *_so_* much for this video - you provide such wonderful and *_deep_* insight that allows us to better appreciate each piece in particular and piano in general - I wonder how much your neighbors in Germany miss hearing your daily practice - hopefully after your upright piano arrives, your temporary Warsaw neighbors will be as nice 🤞🏼
Very useful Tutorial ! thanks a lot Annique
I've been trying to learn this one, thank you soon much! ^-^
Nice video, such analysis is really helpful.
Wow, I was just trying to learn this piece and suddenly This come out, thanks 👍
I really love u annique, basically… thanks to you i took up the piano again. 💗
Nicely explained for technical purposes
Your audio sounded fine to me. Your interpretation is very musical, almost mellow, compared to others who approach it more bombastically. It was a fun watching your wrist and elbow at the end as you played the whole piece.
It is such a beautiful etiude.
I actually learnt to play this way. My professor insists in me playing with my whole arm and barely articulating my fingers. I even did the Hanon exercises like this. My fingers are strong, but I know that the movement of my whole body will always be stronger. This also allows me to feel the music more.
Great video!
I am studying this etude. I have small hands but through practice and movement as you explained, i feel my extension is more comfortable. In your interpretation, I do hear as you go down on the arpeggios, two notes been accented, It sounds lovely! This way you are not making the the octaves the main sound but also part of the arpeggios as well! I don't know if I explained myself on this!
lovely !
I don't even know how to sight read or read scores fluently, but i'm so inspired warching your videos even thought i already play and perform infront of people in the church i'm guilty that i'm good in playing the piano and don't know techniques. However with your videos it helps me to learn new things in piano specially in reading scores. I hope you'll be interested uploading free piano lessons or anything that help us beginners or semi-beginners😅 to learn how to play the piano properly or in the very right way. Love you Annique😘
Love your videos
I am 2 years into learning piano, studying for Grade 6 RCM in Canada, and I'm just starting to dive deep into the body mechanics of it all. I am AMAZED at how my sound has already improved! Great video.
You have to listen to your own playing.
25 years of practicing this Etude, giving up and coming back, your video is inspiring! I’m very much an Amateur, and the number one rule with this etude is a avoid over practising too fast … this piece has given me hand injuries on two occasions! Wish there was This advice about the hand choreography and shape 25 years ago!
Top lesson, thx!
Perfect video. Thank you 🙂👍🎵🎹🇬🇷
Very good!!
This tutorial is brilliant. Very educational. I've tried many of your tips and got effective results in a short time. For years, I had put this study on the "impossible" list until I discovered that hand size doesn't matter.
Bravo!! I loved your musicaly emotion rich, full of soft tides ups&dawn's f&p() interpretation very much!!!
You played this etude exactly as it is written, exactly as I imagined it! With accents on the little finger on the notes in the first octave. And with diminuendo and subsequently piano at 15:08 (many pianists play crescendo and forte on this moment)
Wonderful improvement over your livestream of this etude in 2020! I like this interpretation better than your old one. It's more seamless and fluid, and seems like your technique improved as well!
it was very helpfull, thank you
Thank you for your enlightening masterclass on one of the most beautiful Chopin études.
I think it's worth pointing out, that in some ways this étude is easier to play on a piano from Chopin's own time because the width of each individual key is fractionally less wide than on modern day pianos so the overall space of a tenth was more much easier to negotiate.
The action of a piano from that time was also much lighter requiring much less physical strength.
I also think that pianists today, actually make this piece harder to play than it is, by playing it too fast and too loud.
As soon as you increase the tempo infinitesimally, you create a raft of other physical challenges and playing it too forte throughout can easily lead to fatigue.
One of the greatest recorded performances of this piece I know, is by the late English pianist Ronald Smith.
He recorded all the Études, (for the third time when he was eighty and nearly blind) for Nimbus at St George's Brandon Hill in Bristol, UK.
It's a little known recording but I feel so very close to what I think, (I know it's personal) where Chopin's musical intentions.
Thank you again for your wonderful programme and I look forward to more, Bravo!
I've shared many of the thoughts you expressed in this comment and have played on a 1845 Pleyel identical to Chopin's piano. It is true the keys are fractionally narrower but not that much and the action is different. Although the masses being moved in the action of a key are less, the mechanism is different with the initial resistance comparable to modern piano on the first few milliseconds but then lighter action and also shallower height.
I certainly would be easier to play this etude but not as much as one thinks.
The argument about easier reach is erroneous, because the technique to play this etude is not by having a big hand reach. I agree however that Steinway is guilty for taking piano manufacturing in the wrong direction for a century now, with actions that have become much too hard for the sake of sound power.
I listen to Ronald Smith just now and agree this is a nice interpretation of this etude. To play this etude well, it's more important to be able to keep a steady tempo than rush and slowdown then rush then slowdown all over the piece which brings attention to finger virtuosity instead of the music. Smith has a steady tempo, and brings out each note well , his interpretation is valid.
Pleaseeee, keep on doing vídeos about the etudes! Especially with tips for small hands :)
Thank you so much for talking about this Etude! I would love to interview you.
In the words of Annique, Size does not always matter, A good Fingering will do the Job 😂🤠
Lmao
Exactly 😂🤪
Uhhhhhh
Ok that was a good one 😭😂😂😂
😃 yes true
My left ear really enjoyed this video 👍
very interesting interpretation
Funny you made a video about this etude, I started learning it 2 hours ago and I have small hands (1octave and one note maximum) and for now I don't have the "small hand problem" :)
Thank you very much! I think I would need to have a teacher nearby, watching my hands/fingers/wrists/arms to see if I was moving correctly within the ideal pathway to smoothly move from one arpeggio to the next.
awesome!
I asked you for this video a few weeks ago. Thanks for listening! I just didn't expect the amazing title you choose. LOL...
I’ll check it closely latter.
Good video =) A tips to avoid tention that might be helpfull for people with smaller hands or people with not quite good enough technique for this piece is to also practise it more staccato with the correct hand position and wrist movement but without opening the hand at all. This will also help with alot of Scriabin, and pieces in general that tries to make you stretch your hand like La Campanella, etc.
That's a.. very interesting thumbnail
Very helpful video btw, thank you
Beautiful idea with voicing the 2 beat and the last beat of each arpeggio, will try it out as well(;
The descending is harder than ascending -esp.if you haven't figured it out . Ive been playing this etude since I was ten (way before I had the technique or knowledge) around the age of 20 a teacher told me to think of the right arm and wrist flying and never think of the individual notes .Feel the movement of the hand in every hand position . Immediately ,I was able to play it super fast .Later I wanted evenness and strength in all 5 fingers .Now thanks to this video of Angellique I will learn more !
Das muss ich einfach auf deutsch sagen. Das ist die befriedigendste Etude auf dem Planeten. Well done, Annique!
I always complained about my small hands, but you convinced me! I will not complain again. Just practice more and in a better way!
You can always revoice chords too. Some people become very skilled at rolling their chords.
*_thanks for making my day wøršë_*
*_have a bąd sunday, hahahahahaha_*
Wtf
@@joni428 🦍🦍🦍🦍🦍🦍🦍🦍
Robert Schumann built a devise to strengthen the 4th and 5th fingers that caused him an injury.
Thank you! I've tried to start with this Etude many times, but there was always something missing. I'll be trying out your tips, hopefully I get unstuck this time :) Also, your interpretation does sound different, I feel you bring a lot more life to the piece than the "standard" interpretation does.
I recommend watching Paul Barton’s video on this etude. He illustrates a practical way of playing this etude without the dramatic wrist/elbow movements. The piece itself is more a study of stretching the hands at varying intervals while still playing precisely and maintaining economy of motion. While I appreciate this video, I’m not convinced the technique you’re espousing is what Chopin actually intended for this specific work.
So very interesting. Hope you are enjoying Warsaw.
Another awesome video! I totally agree: big hands help a lot, but trust me when I say we also have our own issues. When I tell some of the things I find difficult to do due to the size of my hands, people with small hands actually laugh because they find it absurd. It is literally unimaginable for them some of the things that we struggle with. For example: switching between the 3rd and 5th fingers (or anything that requires your hand to be in a very closed position really) is hard, because no matter how hard you squeeze your hand, sometimes the distance still remains too big. You can only close it up so much, so you need to find ways to compensate the remaining distance and solve problem. Another annoying thing: avoiding hitting the board with stretched fingers (especially when you are excited and not paying too much attention, haha!). I could go on, but you guys get the point. We all have our challenges.
@@bodogreiner1536 Piano. Like I said, we all have our challenges. I can easily play chords with 10ths, holding all keys down and still keeping my fingers somewhat relaxed, but I find it hard to close my hands really tight, especially during fast movements. :( I'm getting better at it because my teacher gives me lots of great advices and exercises that help me with that, but I used to suck at it. It was like a giant trying to control its hands in slow-motion, hahaha! Pathetic. Hodor playing the piano meme.
Thanks Annique. Another quality video. I love these analysis/interpretation videos. Look forward to the next one.
One small problem with the video editing. Your main dialogue audio is panned to the left channel. I'd say about 80-90% of your voice volume is on the left. It's a bit disconcerting to listen to when watching the video, especially with headphones. It wasn't a problem with audio recorded while at the piano, though. That sounded fine.
Hopefully you can fix this for the next video.
I have small hand and struggled the with the A major descent and one E major ascending just because of hand size. Even so it is playable with small hand because you have to learn how to fly betwen positions and never closing the hand too much so you can have a good blood flow in the hand. If you close too much or strech too much the hand becomes white without bood to oxigen the muscles. So for Op. 10 nº1 it's important to play in positions with arm following every finger. Also important to relax arm in 5 th finger in every accent.
Exelente !!! Hola de ARGENTINA
I could only dream of playing this accurately
Fab as always 😊
I love the teaching on hand opening and closing and turning points. I can envisage playing faster and smoother progressions as opposed to shouting at 10 drunken slugs on the way home from Oktoberfest
Yes, I have definitely thought of my hands being too small in the past. Liszt has so many tenths, Rachmaninoff has 12ths, and my hands can barely reach a 9th. So legato octaves as occurs in Op. 25 no. 10, aka Chopin's Octave Etude, are very, very difficult for me, as I have to do this when ascending:
Stretch my hand out to max length to play an octave with the 1-4 fingering
Slide first finger up while articulating with the fifth finger
Change to fourth finger so that I can move my fifth finger up for the next octave
etc.
And this when descending:
Play an octave with the 1-5 fingering
Slide first finger down while articulating with the fourth finger
Change to fifth finger so that I can move my first finger down for the next octave
etc.
And of course, the fingering reversed for the left hand.
And I often have to tweak Liszt and Rachmaninoff so that the tenths and twelfths are either arpeggiated if they are important, or in cases like the Liszt transcription of Beethoven's Fifth where the tenths are doubled up an octave, shrinking the left hand to octaves.
I can reach a 9th quite comfortably. My only goal in life is to just play all chopin pieces. Will it be enough? What I mean is, have you been able to tackle (even with difficulty) chopin pieces, has there been an interval you can't reach?
@@d3l_nev Yes, tenths, I can’t reach tenths at all. Chopin doesn’t have as many tenths as Liszt has, but still, there are tenths in some difficult Chopin pieces, especially in the left hand. Figuring out what to do when I encounter tenths has always been a hard thing for me to do. There are some cases where it’s sort of set in stone for me though. Those are:
1) Playing Beethoven, be it sonatas or symphony arrangements -> Because Beethoven generally doubles the tenth in a convenient spot for my right hand and because it’s generally in momentous movements where I have to do something besides arpeggiation(cause in something like Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, that would just slow me down way too much), I omit the left hand tenth and put the octave in its place
2) Slow pieces by Romantic Era composers -> If it’s slow already, I don’t have to worry about slowing down the momentum too much with arpeggios, so I arpeggiate the tenths
But there has been some Chopin that’s been impossible for me to play because of tenths at a fast tempo(the very reason I omit in Beethoven, but I can’t omit in Chopin), or the fact that there’s a lot of leaps and I go too far or not far enough at tempo, or the legato octaves in the Octave Etude(particularly when the octaves are a third apart, those require the reach of a tenth to do legato), or the worst of the worst for me, the sustained 3:4 polyrhythm in Fantasie Impromptu.
@@caterscarrots3407 Wow, thank you for your insight, I do reach tenths a bit stretched, but I imagine I will have still a rough time playing them, again thank you so much!!
@@caterscarrots3407 Also, why do you find hard the tenths in the 3:4 polyrhythm of fantaisie impromptu?
@@d3l_nev I find the 3:4 polyrhythm of Fantasie Impromptu hard, not because the individual parts are hard or because of intervals, but because every time I try to combine the 2 hands, the polyrhythm breaks after a couple of beats. And I feel like just estimating the polyrhythm with some rubato is not sufficient for a piece where that polyrhythm occurs throughout, it has to be more exact. But I can’t sustain that polyrhythm in an exact way, my left hand constantly wants to speed up from eighth note triplets to sixteenths whenever I try to do that.
Hello, I wanted to tell you that you have inspired me to create my channel and even if I do it with a toy piano, the intention and the desire to learn count.😊
I'm working on it now, it is hard to play softly, with good dynamics. Thanks for the tips!
I stopped studying piano when I was little and came back on my own this year. I ended up injuring my hand trying to learn this etude but I'm researching ways to improve... Thanks for the video, it helped me a lot to better understand the objective and the path I need to go before playing anything
If you aren’t really a very experienced pianist, you should avoid pieces this difficult. This is considered one of if not the most difficult Chopin Etude, and playing at its expected tempo puts immense strain on less experienced hands. If you’re ever unsure about what pieces are too difficult or strenuous, use Henle’s difficult grading scale. Obviously difficulty is kind of subjective, but Henle’s scale is generally pretty good to see if a piece is way too hard. At this point, you should definitely avoid 8 and 9s. The jump from 7 to 8 is massive, so you might be able to play 7s. Good luck
@@williamlee4619 Thank you very much, your answer helped me a lot. I'll keep looking for a teacher to help in this process, but surely having a reference like that to move forward little by little will be very good
@@williamlee4619 Chopin is for Concert Pianists Only.
You know what big hands mean, right?! They mean big gloves! This was a very good tutorial. Your arm, elbow, and wrist movement also ensures proper and even shifting of the weight from one key to the next. As with all Chopin études one must listen to Liszt's advice on rapid improvement: "The slower you practice, the faster you learn"!
As Liszt said - 'When you think you have slowed down enough, slow down some more....'
Thank you Annique, i struggle with this etude after years of studying it and your deep exploration and understanding of it is excellent. It's already helped me but oddly my thumb - not the weak fingers ?! - feels uncomfortable when i tried to bring up tempo a bit more (i am at moderate tempo). i hope to confirm it in my next practice session (i don't own my own piano, i go to univ to practice ;p ) but I notice your little finger is almost "falling off the keyboard" and turned right which helps the thumb (a short finger) reach comfortably the keyboard. Maybe that is what i haven't done enough :D i have to try it out. You are delightful and i wish you well, maybe someday even come to your concert.
Thank you for this very instructive video. This is an etude that I've struggled with. I do have big hands and can comfortably reach a tenth while playing other notes with the same hand. This is "handy" for Grainger, and you'd think for Chopin as well. Not I'm not so sure.
Hi Annique, what you call a "turning point" is actually a pivot point. Anyway, what you said was a turning point for me...
Thumbnail: "Does size matter?"
Me: This is totally related to music.
Thanks to you I am at half the speed (almost). Just wandering how to play this on my Accordeon.
The problem I am currently having with this etude is the reach between fingers 1 and 2 at the bottom of the arpeggio. Above middle C, the pattern isn't too difficult, but at the bottom, my hand can't bend to connect the first two notes of the arpeggio with finger 1 and 2. Thank you for this video - your interpretation with the accented notes was beautiful.
Actually piano plahying is about training the brain to control the motion of the hand. It's closer to gymnasitcs than weight lifting. My 4th finger is much longer than my little finger, so I often use my 4th finger on a black key and then go to finger 5 on a decending white key which might be considered weird by some. I like to let my hand discover the best fingering by itself. Someone complained on Musescore that I didn't write in the fingering of a Bach piece. I responded that I don't like to put in fingerings because it's often better if you do it yourself. On the other hand I have some Beethoven with the fingering written in, and overall, I think it's quite good. Moving notes from one hand to the other is another way to overcome difficulties or even get the sound you want. Each note of a chord has to have it's own weight. Usually that comes by itself over time, but you have to experiment with the weighting of individual notes.
It also depends on the size of the partner (in this case the piano ) .