04:07 Yes! going through a fast exploratory play-through at first will help to establish many things, in addition to finding the best fingering. I think it was Zimerman who said that it also helps to feel the architecture of the phrases and of the whole piece.
I have been learning this etude for 4 months now. Got it to 100bpm, with a more or less clean sound. The fingering part advice I wish I could have known beforehand, I had to learn the hard way, after learning to play it very slowly from memory I realized the fingering I had chosen would not work at faster tempos. So I had to totally rework my fingerings in order to play faster. It was eye opening and a great lesson seeing how much of a difference a more optimal fingering does to achieving dexterity. It made me be so much more conscious about my fingering decisions. I still need to work on this probably for another 4 months if I want to get it anywhere close to the intended tempo, but I’m taking a break from it at the moment. Currently tackling Op 10 no.3 which feels so easy after the mighty op 10 n2.
Thank you. It is mist helpful to see & hear how a concert pianist practices. I have often wondered how pianists playing Chopin play with such speed & accuracy to create what I think of as a shimmering flow of beautiful music.
Hi Greg! Now I am starting this op 10/2. And the first thing I did yesterday was to look at your videos and get some ideas about it. You have really created a collection like an encyclopedia about Chopin‘s works. In my mind Chopin is connected with your name. 😇 Have a nice Sunday. 🙋♀️
Hi Kerstin. Thank you ! Well, it's almost 2 years of work and publishing things every week... I'm so happy it's useful!! Good luck with this challenge!
I've been practicing this etude 30min/day 2 years nowI I am at 85% of the speed playing it cleanly. I had a moment of epiphany! How useful really, REALLY is this etude? Nowhere in the modern piano literature is there a demand, requirement for this type of right hand fingers 4 and 5 acrobatics! NOWHERE. What purpose does it serve to slave to improve from 70% to 100% and why should anybody care? Unless you are a professional concert pianist and HAVE to have all opus 10 and 25 under your belt, you 're far better dedicating your time to other repertoire you love.
Paul Barton argues that the chromatic scales exercises using 3,4,5 which helps for this piece also helps all other technique and reduced your risk of injury.
The best teaching comments about how to learn this one BY FAR the most difficult Chopin etude, are by a superb pianist Paul Barton (his lesson is on youtube) He tells it like it is: EVEN for the enormously talented ones, it's not a project for months BUT SEVERAL YEARS. Even then, many top concert pianists avoid it.
Dear Greg, I was wondering: you talk about repeating, and the 12345 grouping and fast playing: but what is happening in your head, before, during and after that (one repetiton) ? Do you picture the notes ? the harmony (or some kind fo instant analysis) ? the feeling in your body ? the movement ? What do you do before, during and after ? and how to you choose the speed of those 12345 ? and when do you choose to go on with the next grouping ?
I feel all the keys, and this feeling is the most important. I decide when to finish after I repeat the same group perfectly more than 50 times (around).... Intuition tells me when to stop
recently i had to practice that works, I suffered that works of the technical difficulties, your analysis is very helped to me thank you so much greg. tell me if there is any problem with my english, because I'm not good at english
@@gregniemczuk thank you! I have often used a translator for comments, however recently I have been learning English so I trying don't used a translator when I leave comments anyway, I’m so glad you understand thank you greg!
Thank you Greg for sharing this video with practicing tips :) Looking forward for the rest. Which day/time are the premieres going on now that the two etude opus are over?
Hi Grzegorz ! Thank you a lot for this video. I am still at the beginning of it but I have a question regarding the fingering. If I am not mistaken, Jan Ekier states that the fingerings in bold are those of Chopin himself. I understand that sometimes other fingerings are easier, but with how much of a genius Chopin is, I wonder if he chose such hard /strange fingering some times on purpose. I personally try to never change his fingerings. But perhaps we also have to remember that the keyboard has changed over the centuries and some fingerings don't work anymore.
Those fingerings are by Chopin indeed, and fingerings by the composer surely represent a part of their "spirit" (e.g. Chopin would suggest very different fingerings from Prokofiev). However, not only does the piano change, the hand changes too: your hands, my hands, they could be bigger, smaller, and/or very much differently shaped than Chopin's: therefore it's fine to alter the fingerings a bit to fit the hand, and every pianist does that, provided that the first and foremost principle that you are following is to choose fingerings that "embody" Chopin's style and not Prokofiev's! :)
I have a doubt I'm practising just RH only on purpose for working on weak finger, it's been a month I have observed that my index finger is not relax like your kindof "raised" ,is it something wrong I'm doing
Did I misunderstand, but whether only 1st etude puts emphasise on epic corectness while practicing or every etude should be practice with a thought - one mistake = 100 corect repetitions? Maybe this belief relates to any piece?
Careful ! Plaster Chopin is watching ! :D Dear Greg, you introduce unwanted movements in your practice (shoulder, head, etc), instead you want to look for something extremely sober and relaxed. Alexander's technique/practice can help picturing this. Relaxation comes with speed, so rather than "practicing" slow, you want to start fast. And ... repeating 100 times is not efficient, instead you do not want to repeat, but improve every time. "hard work" is also a wrong concept and approach; instead you should look for ease and comfort, and smart work. IMHO nothing compares with Liszt's technique and practice. Good luck with your piano art and channel !
Dear Mathieu thank you very much! I have problems with this particular etude because I learned it at high school with bad technique and I still suffer from bad habits. But I just wanted to share my experience of practicing it. Thanks for good advices which I will also absorb in practicing. But one thing I disagree: I will never resign from repeating 100-200 times difficult passages because the next day they are ALWAYS better. Best, Greg
@@gregniemczuk Dear Greg, I understand. However, one day, you might want to learn more and faster, because you have ambitious projects, or because your are on tour, then you might find that you are lacking time to develop repertoire and skills and musicianship and artistry as a professional pianist; then maybe you might reconsider this point. On my side, that's something I am always trying to improve. I also understood that many successful concertists (V Horowitz, S Richter, M Argerich...) actually have something in common: incredible memory and ability to learn a piece quickly. I came to the conclusion that there are actually many excellent musicians who deserve to have a "bigger career", but things are not happening that quickly or at all because of this "slowness" to learn; I am not claiming it is everything, but it's an important factor. My claim was actually: you might experience huge progress every days with say 10-20 high quality passes on a tricky part (a piece could be made only of tricky parts ;) ); and observe that you can't improve much beyond that number, so you need to move to another part and give it a day to rest and come back the next day. One extremely important other point I observed is to be extremely regular: work every single day, never drop one day. Sometimes, having 2-3 days break can help, but I did not figure out why/when is the right moment to do that.
@@MathieuPrevotbut I don't have problems with that.... Maybe you don't know that I learned all Chopin's music for piano in nearly 2 years during COVID-19, I'm a concert pianist and I have a few hundred pieces in my repertoire, all in memory......
@@gregniemczuk I understand. I did not know, I just saw 2-3 videos from you. Congratulations ! That quite a big repertoire ! I hope to be able to listen to your art and albums sometime soon. I am also very curious about your Mazeppa, which you quickly mentionned in one of your videos. You are lucky to have studied music and piano from Poland, which is might be the best place in the world to learn and perfect one's piano art; even though I'm not so familiar with the details (who is who, etc). I was thinking sometime to go there for a travel and discover more about artists and teachers/teaching; but I think I'll need to learn polish first, which is something.
The number 100 may be a bit arbitrary, although if the unit being practised is small (5 notes) doing it right 100 times does not take very long, so is not impractical. It is much more sound to practise more repetitions of something that is correct than of something that isn't. It is what neurologists tell us is needed to reinforce the good version rather than the bad. The bad habit of practising long stretches with many mistakes is a perfect way of entrenching the bad habit of making the same mistakes hundreds more times. Being quite a fluent sight-reader, I have spent decades doing the latter. Only quite recently have I taken the trouble to follow the advice to get it right and repeat, away from the score. The advice is both practical and helpful.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
This is my favorite Etude by Chopin so …. Your lesson was excellent for me ! Thank you !!!!!
@@susanhawkins3890 que bueno maestro
You have a very likable presence! Thank you, I will try your advices out.
Thanks!!! Good luck!
04:07 Yes! going through a fast exploratory play-through at first will help to establish many things, in addition to finding the best fingering. I think it was Zimerman who said that it also helps to feel the architecture of the phrases and of the whole piece.
Yes, I think it was him!
I have been learning this etude for 4 months now. Got it to 100bpm, with a more or less clean sound. The fingering part advice I wish I could have known beforehand, I had to learn the hard way, after learning to play it very slowly from memory I realized the fingering I had chosen would not work at faster tempos.
So I had to totally rework my fingerings in order to play faster. It was eye opening and a great lesson seeing how much of a difference a more optimal fingering does to achieving dexterity. It made me be so much more conscious about my fingering decisions.
I still need to work on this probably for another 4 months if I want to get it anywhere close to the intended tempo, but I’m taking a break from it at the moment. Currently tackling Op 10 no.3 which feels so easy after the mighty op 10 n2.
Good luck!!! I'm happy I could motivate you!
Your practice methods are again very interesting! Thank you very much for your tips and your explanations! 🙏😊
Thank you. This etude looks and sounds so much easier than it is.
Querido Greg. Estudié el op.10/2 hace 25 años y lo abandoné por frustrarme.... gracias a tu video voy a retomarlo a mis 43 años. Gracias Maestro
Me alegro mucho!
Brilliant as always!
Another great video Greg! Thank you!
Thank you. It is mist helpful to see & hear how a concert pianist practices. I have often wondered how pianists playing Chopin play with such speed & accuracy to create what I think of as a shimmering flow of beautiful music.
Grazie mille! It Is always so inspiring and interesting to watch your video, I will try to apply your precious suggestions immediately in my practice!
Good luck!
Dziekuje!!
Again, this is another amazing video. You really teach how to play.
Thanks!
Thank you, Greg!!
You're welcome!!
Thank you Sir 💖
Such a nice advises: Send regards from Costa Rica.
Muchas gracias!!! He tocado un concierto en Costa Rica en 2019!
Hi Greg! Now I am starting this op 10/2. And the first thing I did yesterday was to look at your videos and get some ideas about it. You have really created a collection like an encyclopedia about Chopin‘s works. In my mind Chopin is connected with your name. 😇
Have a nice Sunday. 🙋♀️
Hi Kerstin. Thank you ! Well, it's almost 2 years of work and publishing things every week... I'm so happy it's useful!! Good luck with this challenge!
This is like my top 3 Chopin etudes
Nice video thank you!
I've been practicing this etude 30min/day 2 years nowI I am at 85% of the speed playing it cleanly.
I had a moment of epiphany!
How useful really, REALLY is this etude? Nowhere in the modern piano literature is there a demand, requirement for this type of right hand fingers 4 and 5 acrobatics! NOWHERE. What purpose does it serve to slave to improve from 70% to 100% and why should anybody care? Unless you are a professional concert pianist and HAVE to have all opus 10 and 25 under your belt, you 're far better dedicating your time to other repertoire you love.
I agree!
Paul Barton argues that the chromatic scales exercises using 3,4,5 which helps for this piece also helps all other technique and reduced your risk of injury.
Thanks again.
You're welcome!
great video, thanks :D
The best teaching comments about how to learn this one BY FAR the most difficult Chopin etude, are by a superb pianist Paul Barton (his lesson is on youtube) He tells it like it is: EVEN for the enormously talented ones, it's not a project for months BUT SEVERAL YEARS. Even then, many top concert pianists avoid it.
I agree. His tutorial is the most useful. I highly recommend.
Dear Greg, I was wondering: you talk about repeating, and the 12345 grouping and fast playing: but what is happening in your head, before, during and after that (one repetiton) ? Do you picture the notes ? the harmony (or some kind fo instant analysis) ? the feeling in your body ? the movement ? What do you do before, during and after ? and how to you choose the speed of those 12345 ? and when do you choose to go on with the next grouping ?
I feel all the keys, and this feeling is the most important. I decide when to finish after I repeat the same group perfectly more than 50 times (around).... Intuition tells me when to stop
@@gregniemczuk Thank you !
recently i had to practice that works,
I suffered that works of the technical difficulties, your analysis is very helped to me
thank you so much greg.
tell me if there is any problem with my english,
because I'm not good at english
I understand you!
Yes, it is difficult. I'm happy to hear that it helped you!
@@gregniemczuk thank you!
I have often used a translator for comments,
however recently I have been learning English
so I trying don't used a translator when I leave comments
anyway, I’m so glad you understand
thank you greg!
Thank you Greg for sharing this video with practicing tips :) Looking forward for the rest.
Which day/time are the premieres going on now that the two etude opus are over?
The tutorials will not be premieres. But once a week on Saturday I'll premiere new analysis! At 8pm.
@@gregniemczuk Hi Greg, thanks, I will note it down for the following weeks :D
fantastique !
Hi Grzegorz ! Thank you a lot for this video. I am still at the beginning of it but I have a question regarding the fingering. If I am not mistaken, Jan Ekier states that the fingerings in bold are those of Chopin himself. I understand that sometimes other fingerings are easier, but with how much of a genius Chopin is, I wonder if he chose such hard /strange fingering some times on purpose. I personally try to never change his fingerings. But perhaps we also have to remember that the keyboard has changed over the centuries and some fingerings don't work anymore.
Those fingerings are by Chopin indeed, and fingerings by the composer surely represent a part of their "spirit" (e.g. Chopin would suggest very different fingerings from Prokofiev). However, not only does the piano change, the hand changes too: your hands, my hands, they could be bigger, smaller, and/or very much differently shaped than Chopin's: therefore it's fine to alter the fingerings a bit to fit the hand, and every pianist does that, provided that the first and foremost principle that you are following is to choose fingerings that "embody" Chopin's style and not Prokofiev's! :)
I was fooling around with this Etude, without knowing how hard it was... It's hell, indeed...
Yeah.....
I have a doubt I'm practising just RH only on purpose for working on weak finger, it's been a month I have observed that my index finger is not relax like your kindof "raised" ,is it something wrong I'm doing
Yes. You should definitely try to put it down! Start from slow tempo
@@gregniemczuk ty for your quick response mate! means I should be conscious about index finger to not raise during scaling right?
@@xevivr yes, exactly!
@@gregniemczuk tysm !
Did I misunderstand, but whether only 1st etude puts emphasise on epic corectness while practicing or every etude should be practice with a thought - one mistake = 100 corect repetitions? Maybe this belief relates to any piece?
I think it should be a general rule of how to play clean 🙂🙂🙂
@@gregniemczuk I didn't want to hear that... :(
did you say "100 times" ? for a single passage....can you confirm?
Yes! Can be more
Careful ! Plaster Chopin is watching ! :D
Dear Greg, you introduce unwanted movements in your practice (shoulder, head, etc), instead you want to look for something extremely sober and relaxed. Alexander's technique/practice can help picturing this. Relaxation comes with speed, so rather than "practicing" slow, you want to start fast. And ... repeating 100 times is not efficient, instead you do not want to repeat, but improve every time. "hard work" is also a wrong concept and approach; instead you should look for ease and comfort, and smart work. IMHO nothing compares with Liszt's technique and practice. Good luck with your piano art and channel !
Dear Mathieu thank you very much!
I have problems with this particular etude because I learned it at high school with bad technique and I still suffer from bad habits. But I just wanted to share my experience of practicing it. Thanks for good advices which I will also absorb in practicing. But one thing I disagree: I will never resign from repeating 100-200 times difficult passages because the next day they are ALWAYS better.
Best,
Greg
@@gregniemczuk Dear Greg, I understand. However, one day, you might want to learn more and faster, because you have ambitious projects, or because your are on tour, then you might find that you are lacking time to develop repertoire and skills and musicianship and artistry as a professional pianist; then maybe you might reconsider this point. On my side, that's something I am always trying to improve. I also understood that many successful concertists (V Horowitz, S Richter, M Argerich...) actually have something in common: incredible memory and ability to learn a piece quickly. I came to the conclusion that there are actually many excellent musicians who deserve to have a "bigger career", but things are not happening that quickly or at all because of this "slowness" to learn; I am not claiming it is everything, but it's an important factor. My claim was actually: you might experience huge progress every days with say 10-20 high quality passes on a tricky part (a piece could be made only of tricky parts ;) ); and observe that you can't improve much beyond that number, so you need to move to another part and give it a day to rest and come back the next day. One extremely important other point I observed is to be extremely regular: work every single day, never drop one day. Sometimes, having 2-3 days break can help, but I did not figure out why/when is the right moment to do that.
@@MathieuPrevotbut I don't have problems with that.... Maybe you don't know that I learned all Chopin's music for piano in nearly 2 years during COVID-19, I'm a concert pianist and I have a few hundred pieces in my repertoire, all in memory......
@@gregniemczuk I understand. I did not know, I just saw 2-3 videos from you. Congratulations ! That quite a big repertoire ! I hope to be able to listen to your art and albums sometime soon. I am also very curious about your Mazeppa, which you quickly mentionned in one of your videos. You are lucky to have studied music and piano from Poland, which is might be the best place in the world to learn and perfect one's piano art; even though I'm not so familiar with the details (who is who, etc). I was thinking sometime to go there for a travel and discover more about artists and teachers/teaching; but I think I'll need to learn polish first, which is something.
@@MathieuPrevot find me on Spotify: Grzegorz Niemczuk
❤️❤️
Paul Barton's lecture:
ua-cam.com/video/dRxJ5qq5wS8/v-deo.html
.....you must be delusional if you think that's practical and helpful.....
What for you is not, can be for somebody else. Thanks for the comment though.
The number 100 may be a bit arbitrary, although if the unit being practised is small (5 notes) doing it right 100 times does not take very long, so is not impractical. It is much more sound to practise more repetitions of something that is correct than of something that isn't. It is what neurologists tell us is needed to reinforce the good version rather than the bad. The bad habit of practising long stretches with many mistakes is a perfect way of entrenching the bad habit of making the same mistakes hundreds more times. Being quite a fluent sight-reader, I have spent decades doing the latter. Only quite recently have I taken the trouble to follow the advice to get it right and repeat, away from the score. The advice is both practical and helpful.