ive recently just started learning to play the fantasie impromptu, i can play all of it slow but when i try to speed it up it becomes messy, ive tryed using metronome but that doesnt help

Speed it up slowly. Knock the metronome up a few BPM each time - making sure that you can play it fluidly and effectively at each speed - when you can play it at the current speed, knock the metronome up again until you get a speed you are happy with

Congratulations! I just finished learning this; I love it and play it through every day for pleasure. The most important thing, once the notes are secure hands separately, is to get the 3 against 4 completely correct. My teacher made me do it in ultra-slow motion over and over again on my knees, one hand clapping each part, and I HATED it - but god, did it make me learn it or what! This, and playing the piece VERY SLOWLY hands together with the timing correct, for around a month, enabled me to really get the rhythm into my head. With some technical work on some right hand sections, it was then quite easy to speed up. Good luck!

Ok (for everyone out there) , when playing this piece, you need to have a fair bit of experience behind you. For instance, if you attempt this piece to early on, it can be all over the place.

Try and get the fingering perfect and adjusted so it suits you and the piece. Also, practise the right hand on its own, just to get the main fiddly bits perfect.

Thats all for now. Hope it helped!

If you do a search in viva piano you'll find a thread on this - "Fantasie Impromptu - your interpretation", started by chopincloud. (Sorry - I haven't figured out how to put something here that you can just click on!) I found a recording of this that I particularly liked on the internet - I think it was "classical archives" - the exact details are in the other thread. One of the things I liked about this performance was the fact that it wasn't relentless, as many performances of this piece are. It makes use of rubato a lot, and allows the music to breathe between "sections", and at cadence points. If you're like me, and can play it at speed for a line or two, and then come to grief it might be worth looking at "letting it breathe" more, like this.

When I played this for my ex-teacher recently he pointed out how easy it is to hang on too long to the "pivot" finger of the LH in those big arpeggios, which blurs the clarity. If you feel that it's "messy", think about whether you might be doing this too! Somebody in the other thread suggested staccato practice at a slower speed for a while; this helps too. Have fun!

Very well done YP
You should not push yourself to play it ast right now. Like said above , raise your speed bit by bit.

Enjoy!

cheers for the comments and tips guy some usefull info there,

You may find this useful

http://members.aol.com/mccc8888/chapter1_4.htm

The author uses FI to illustrate many of his ideas on learning/memorising techniques.

The above may be good advice on general playing, but I'm not sure how much it specifically relates to this piece. Others may slate me for this, but my advice is - do not use a metronome - this is Chopin, not Mozart - and I'd say he'd turn in his grave if he thought you were using a metronome to practise this piece. How you portray it will depend on what mood you're in at the time; do NOT make it a classically rhythmic performance. (Although it goes without saying that you've got the hang of the three against four...) Rubato is hard to deal with in complex rhythms, but this piece depends, for its mood, more on rubato, than it does on precise timing.

Really liked the way you put that , Patricia

Why, thank you - did you agree with it, though?

I do agree with it.
I don't play the Fantasie -Impromptu *YET* but it is one of the pieces who urged me to play the piano the most . It has a special mood that applies to it only.

"Mozart should be played as if it were Chopin and Chopin as if it was Mozart." - Not me.

eh?

A little tasteful Romanticising (in my humble opinion) works for some of Mozart's slow movements, as for Haydn's; Alfred Brendel gets away with it! (But I didn't in my diploma! They still gave me a good mark, but commented that I had a "tendency to romanticise...")

But playing Chopin like a classical composer - NO WAY!

really sorry, but.. err.. what do HS and HT stand for? thanks

Hands seperately and hands together?

oh haha, yeah. sorry, i'm really stupid

anyone knows where to get the music sheets for this piece free from the internet? can anyone PM me the website/url?

No, but it's only $3.75 on virtualsheetmusic.com.

I hate playing anything lengthy from loads of sheets; they end up everywhere and "page-turning" is a nightmare. My copy of this is in a big white book called "The Library of Piano Classics", which for about £12 is a bargain. It has lots of repertoire in it by numerous composers, and the pages are easy to turn as it's ring-bound. Most shops will have it.

You cant really get that kind of music for free on the internet... but you can buy it

About the actual piece young_pianist, i havent actually played the fantasie impromptu, and this may sound crazy, but it applies for every technically demanding piece: practise all the parts that are inadequate at a slow speed 50 times a day and i can guarantee that you'll have it perfected for life...*dont hurt me*

Does anyone in Malaysia has it? I'm hoping that someone can mail them to me. I can't afford it because i'm still a student! hehe..

Hi,
Instead of playing the whole piece through you could get the bits you find hardest at playing fast and practise them firstly slow, then speeding up. It may work!
Bye, Chocolate Girl

You can get the sheetmusic for free from The Sheet Music Archive . However, if you're going to invest so much of your time in learning this piece then it may well be wise to spend a small amount of money on a good edition to play from . (I assume we're still talking about the piece in the topic title...).

yea you are right.. it's me who started to ask about how to get the piece! haha..

finally got a copy.. will print it after my end of year exams that last for 3 weeks.

hi,

I learnt Fantasie Impromptu for my A Level. I remember having the same problem speeding it up. I didn't use a metronome either but found just increasing the speed little by little helped. Also, one of the key things in getting the speed up in my experience was just relaxing into it and not getting up tense. Let your fingers just do the work and almost separate yourself from it. When I tensed up, not only could I not get up to speed, i also struggled with muscle pain. Not good!

Have fun learning it - it's a fab piece,

L

Private Piano Teacher.