I’d swear

Something similar happened to me in playing Beethoven 110. After a minute or so they said okay let’s jump to the fugue now….Probably one of the most difficult fugues to memorise too.

It is so...What he says is true. You practice the whole Bach Solo Sonate, which is some 25 mins of Music, start playing the Grave, they listen a few tonrs of it, and interrupt you to jump the the 2nd page of the Fuga!! From the 25 min you practiced, they listen maybe...3 mins..😊

Why do they that? I don't think that's a good thing to do, I could be wrong, but I don't see the point in doing that. If that's what they want, they could inform the performer beforehand to play up to, say, bar 40, and then jump to the coda. Why interrupt the performer midway and throw off their focus? You can achieve the same result by informing them what to play beforehand.

​@@thegreenpianist7683They can tell what your strengths and weaknesses are in the first few bars or a page of a piece, so they just skip right to the outer extent of what you can do after that. The purpose of jury recitals is not to practice only as much as you think they'll ask you to play. The jury is there to check that you're progressing as a pianist semester-to-semester. But you won't be any sort of pianist if you only know the first few bars and then the coda of a bunch of pieces. Music school, unlike STEM school, is not solely about credentialing. The jurors can tell if you've thought deeply about a piece and have an interesting (or at least arguable) artistic take on it basically immediately. But you wouldn't have been able to form that take without understanding (and having thoroughly learned) the entire piece. Also, juries can sometimes just be assholes.

Debussy studied piano with a professor who had been a student of Chopin.

You have Chopin already in Mozart's 27th piano concerto. (As Poulenc in his 17th and Brahms in the 23, and Beethoven else where), so the greatest is Mozart. What is romantic music, it's made with sorrow, half to Chopin's pieces are sad... While Beethoven is classic, so he's worse, for example his first sonata is made from a them from Mozart, but emphased to the end.. well, maybe one could play all that music less romantic and more joyful; my sorrow feelings are gone. I cannot activate inside myself, any romantic mode anymore... and shed tears, Also Nietzsche is sharing my thoughts.. : The "good old" days are gone. In Mozart they sang themselves out. (Nietzsche) One should be suspicious with romantic music... I agree with that.

kzfaq.infocTCTo5qNx38?feature=share

If your audience becomes weary... Grab them by Debussy.

Thank you for this quote. It underlines the privilege i experience, every time i listen to F. Chopin.

Technically romantic music, not classical, but classical, yes, to the lay person.

@@Great_PatBingsoo very down-to-earth comment 🥱😬

Yeah not really a culture known for encouraging humility and open-mindedness. Unless it’s blindly worshipping classical figures with an open mind. There’s plenty of that

@@Great_PatBingsoo🤓

I guess it depends on the culture you practice. People like Beethoven were not down to earth, and while no one today can compare themselves to that level of musical mastery, maybe music history and musicology studies are what sometimes drive big performers into arrogance. Nonetheless, many great performers are actually so unbelievably humble, with the arrogance increasing as the level of music decreases.

@esp ele prove what ?

Ay same here

@esp ele ???

@esp ele why'd u say prove it bro he made very reasonable claims lol

@esp ele what is there to be proved when nothing needs proof here . . .

Doesn't seem like a paradox, but breaking down technique and fundamentals.

Just curious if this applies to other difficult passages you've played as well? One of my biggest struggles at the piano is my hands getting tired. I feel like I got to the point where I knew Hungarian Rhapsody #2 or La Campanella fairly well, but my hands would always get tired halfway through the piece (or sooner, depending on the speed and volume of the passage) and I physically can't continue without just trainwrecking.

@@vladimirhorowitz Absolutely, it applies. You're definitely maintaining tension when it's not needed or you wouldn't be tiring (i.e. after you've already played a note/chord or too far ahead of it). Go back over your pieces with slow practice and identify those places that cause any apprehension. You might be surprised at how many there are. (One clue is that you're stretching to reach a note. Better to already have your whole arm in position when you need the finger so you don't have to stretch at all.) Then practice them until you can practically flop onto the notes without any risk of hitting the wrong ones. It takes a lot of practice, but little by little you make your way through the pile and each success rewards you with what seems like a bit more stamina. It's not actual stamina, just success. Abby Whiteside's book on how to play Chopin can be a help.

@@manyirons Thanks! I will check that out. I know I'm clearly doing something very wrong because I'm a fairly muscular guy but I watch these girls half my size play the complete Chopin etudes at competitions without a problem. I get a lot of wrist and elbow pain too. I want to get a teacher again to help with posture and technique, they're just really expensive.

ha! the lesson we pianists all have to learn. Usually the hard way haha. Congratulations.

kzfaq.infocTCTo5qNx38?feature=share

Limiting beliefs

I will spend my life becoming the best farter in history

You may already be closer to that 10 percent than you think.

Wow its musical basics

I have never heard you play the Ballade or am I wrong

nvm

Yoo

Bro fell off hard

this comment captured my thoughts perfectly, it was an incredible piece to learn and very rewarding even though it was so difficult and i definitely did not play the coda as well as i wished i could.

It’s also so risky live. I can almost always nail the coda in practice, but the moment I have to play it live it falls apart. No other piece I play is like this lol

​, I know the feeling.

This is the most important in your advice: To have successful "slow" practice, you absolutely MUST replicate what it will feel like at the faster tempo when playing. Students are often baffled at the lack of success during fast passages after having practiced slowly. My response is often, "because you didn't practice the fast-tempo technical requirements at that slower tempo." To keep the "octave span" may be a bad idea if you mean keeping a tension, that is what Garrick tries to explain is wearing out your fingers (or should I say "movable parts").

@@dibaldgyfm9933 For some, tension might be an issue at first, but to play Chopin "correctly" (if that even exists) is to keep everything in the arm mechanism quiet down to the big knuckles where the palm meets the fingers. From there, everything flutters to the fingertip to avoid any excess motion. Students are most likely told that they have to rotate and twist and turn and all kinds of other unnecessary (and debilitating) gestures to make things work, and it is frustrating. As I progressed onwards with piano playing, I realized that one should not watch the fingers of someone playing, but their palm mechanism at the big knuckles. If it is motionless or near motionless, they are doing things correctly. Just watch any Argerich video, especially from her youth (I recommend the Scherzo No. 3 from the Chopin competition) and you'll see exactly what I mean. Keeping the octave span is not a bad idea if the player remains conscious of the shape of that interval and uses the finger as opposed to the forcing of things to occur through the wrist and forearm. An exercise given to me by Evelyn Brancart at IU when I was learning the Op. 10 set for recital helped understand this feeling. She had us rest our hands on a pivot (such as a highlighter or a dry-erase pen) by placing it directly in the center of the palm and allowing the hand/arm to be as supple as possible while resting upon it a desk or hard surface at the sort of angle that would be similar to the position at the piano. We would then activate the fingers by wiggling them at the big knuckle as if playing a faster passage. The feeling of separation between the activity of the finger and the rest of the arm upwards to the elbow is what you are looking for with regards to accuracy and consistency when actually playing. Once this feeling becomes natural and somewhat subconscious, the technique is certainly on the right pathway. Passages like the one mentioned in the video suddenly become quite manageable.

@@AlexAlcyone Thank you! It was demanding but good practice techniques and specific goal setting for each practice session were very helpful. I connected quite quickly with the 4th one. That was a definite dream piece even though I do this every day for my career. Took about a month or so to learn...not sure why it was so quick. Honestly, it was the 2nd that gave me the most trouble. There is just so much that can go wrong in those "Fuoco" passages and it took actually longer to get those down than the coda of the 4th. I played the 2nd way back in undergrad school, and quite frankly I shouldn't have been given that piece. In some ways it is more treacherous than the 4th. If a student were to ask if they could learn the 2nd Ballade I would deny that request. It's just too difficult until you've got your technical skill developed enough to handle the chaos.

I will practice a difficult passage slowly only a few times to understand the music and the challenges. Then I break it into very short segments and practice each at or near tempo for exactly the reasons you cite. The technique at tempo simply isn't the same .

@@RaineStudio Yes. Note grouping (whether they are beam groups or position groups) are a terrific way to train the brain and body to accept the technical requirements of moving about. I tell my students that the transitions between positions on the keyboard is almost always the reason for errors in performance, which is why it is crucial to understand the mechanics of each gesture. I love group practicing at tempo as well.

I commend your persistence and willingness to do what it takes to learn a piece just for the joy of playing! I have eleven years on you, and I may not be "going strong", but I'm still "going"! -- -- P.S. My bet is that you also compose.

Have you read Alan Rusbridger's 'Play It Again'? All about his project of learning the G minor Ballade as a serious, but definitely amateur, adult player. It's very good. Your story is not unlike mine: I resumed serious practicing in early 2020 at age 63, having given up lessons at age 17 and not playing at all for 40+ years. After two years of work I think I'm back to where I was then, and hope to progress further. It's been by far the best thing I've done for myself in recent years. Best wishes to you for a joyful and rewarding experience with the Ballade, and with your re-discovery of piano generally!

Do not doubt. Your story resonates - similar age, but an even larger gap, not playing. To get to Mr. Ohlsson's level, a person needs 10,000 hours of practice and research indicates - in absence of handicaps - that the only thing a human needs is persistence. Not getting frustrated by mistakes. Becoming predictably good starts above 9,950 and the road to perfection is littered with mistakes. To learn just this piece, no doubt, needs a lot less hours. But still, persistence. There's a German very advanced piano student's YT channel "Heart of the keys" and in her videos she has discussed "fingering". Often printed in sheet music, indicating which finger should play which note, she has a natural logic that frequently comes to different fingering - making pianistic life easier. As you love this piece, let's go back to its "ballade" title that sends mixed messages. The word, in its base meaning, references "dance", but then it also became to mean "epic poem" and as good poems have meter and rhyme, they can easily be set to music, so a ballad may also be a song. As to Chopin's #1, some people say it musically tells Mickiewicz's epic story of Konrad (or Conrad) Wallenrod in which a 14th century hero rebels against an occupation force - clearly as a metaphor for the Polish fate, being occupied alternating by Prussians/Germans and Russians and each time torn apart in different pieces. I guess the challenge in playing this piece is to (a) make it sing, (b) keep it "dance-able" and (c) tell the epic story - and this is more about your imagination than about deep music theory. If you have 12 months for this piece, I'd say you need an adult version of the Suzuki method, create your own that is, that only uses this piece. Extremely serious discussions of that method generally leave the pivotal concept of the method out: to have fun with it. Maybe you can ask an advanced piano student to extract a simplified version of the piece that leaves embellishments out, but retains melody and rhythm, only using notes (in proper sequence) that are in the original piece. Then rehearse this for, say, 6 months, then for months 7~9 add complexity, repeat. In the end it boils down to "just effing doin' it" - watching YT videos only takes time away from that.

@@jpdj2715 You are so kind to leave me such a detailed and encouraging response! Thank you! Agreed….it’s mileage with the piece (or any piece) that will do it. I’ve been working on it since November and I have it pretty clean till p. 10. I have a good ear, and repeatedly listening to the piece has helped me tremendously. (Wish I had the benefit of KZfaq and streaming 50 yrs ago….would have made a huge difference in my progress!). Actually the only thing I’m really worried about is the speedy parts….not sure at my age that the speed and agility required for the agitato and con fuocco sections is within reach, but that’s ok. I am familiar with Heart of the Keys, thank you, will see if she has anything on this ballade. Thanks again for your reply to my comment! Wish me luck!

@@kathleena4038 - I sincerely wish you luck. My point with Heart of the Keys was not the ballade necessarily, but rather her approach to fingering that might make it easier especially in the fast parts. About the fast parts, practice the fast (in your perception) parts first and adapt you speed for the rest to what you are capable of in the fast parts. Chopin made a big point of a steady meter/rhythm in the left hand and felt the right hand could use the left hand part to more freely play on, so in that sense consistency is more important than speed. And then you get to bar 208 Presto con Fuoco ("Fast with Fire") - chips, there goes the neighborhood ;)

That's brilliant! I hope you're still going. This would be your 5th year?

Still playing, my technique has improved massively.

disagree. this american presents like some sort of shabby truck driver, unshaven, unprofessional, like he just came from some kind of yeehaw bbq. plays like it too

​@@user-su6qf9kb7lyou attack him on his body because you have no idea about how to play what he is teaching.

@@user-su6qf9kb7l "This American" is a champion in International Chopin Competition, Busconi Italy Piano Competition, Avery Fisher Prize, etc.

@@user-su6qf9kb7l "This American" is Garrick Ohlsson. Instead of posting ignorant comments, why don't you go and look him up?

This is because they have of their students is that the technical aspects do not need addressing with the student. Therefore, they can focus on the music without the technique getting in the way.

I can play up until 2:12😅

@@benpietrzykowski9216 I’m

@@SuperGustavo65 what Gustavo?

same here

I know, but did you see the thumbnail?

Wow that's a huge jump in difficulty. Good luck and take it at a healthy pace. It's hard both technically and musically

@@Talent2find98 thank you :) I’m taking it day by day with slow progress but it’ll be done lol

For context, this piece is LRSM level. I'm currently preparing for my LLCM exam and I avoided this piece like an oncoming train lol. All of Chopin's Ballades are technically not so bad (except for the coda of the 4th), yet they're so musically difficult yet so famous that giving a unique interpretation is very tricky since practically everyone knows this piece. And it takes great maturity to be able to bring out the best of these pieces.

@@brent3522 You think the coda of the fourth ballade is more technically difficult than that of the first or second?

​@@InfluxDeclineYes, by a large margin as well. The 4th ballade coda is one of the most difficult things he wrote