I am feeling pretty chuffed with myself, I have just [layed Chopin's Etude in Emajor straight from sight reading. Only once I started playing did I realise what piece it was, so I know that I was playing it fairly well as it was sounding right.

My teacher is going to be impressed with me I am sure when I have my lesson on Wednesday. I will get her to go through with me parts that she thinks that I need to work on.

It is so lovely. I love it now that I am able to manage lovely pieces, it is what I have always wanted to do, just so exciting, just wish that there were more hours so that I can spend more time just playing around.

Of course I had previously done all my study pieces, scales, contrary scales and arpeggios, so I was a good girl! lol

Anyone else learning this Etude at the moment?

ET

Chanson de l'adieu?

That's been on my list for a while but don't think I'd do it justice anytime soon (plus the middle onwards is tricky with those runs) so it's staying at the bottom

I have a lot like that, keep going to the bottom, it is nice when they finally surface to the top though. lol

Well I've had a few goes through the Burgmuller Tarantella, which seemed impossible when I bought the book, so yes, you're absolutely right - it's visible progress

That is really a beautiful piece, I used to love that one. Funnily enough I brought that out again last week and had a go.

You could sightread Chopin Etude in E op.10!!! *faint* (While it's probably one of the easier etudes, it's quite vicious to "sing" the melody above the semiquaver middle voice and the syncopated lower voice, not to mention the middle section -- especially for small hands. In fact Chopin Etudes are on the LRSM list...)

That makes me feel good then. I think I did all of rythmn correctly, my teacher will confirm tomorrow. But as I say, I didn't know what piece of music it was until I started playing it and then i recognised it. Will have to have a go at some more.

I have to say though that my sight reading is pretty good, always has been, and I reckon that the reason for this is that I have always picked up a piece and had a go. Obviously it isn't like a polished piece, I am not professing to that. I actually quite often find it harder once I start to know a piece as I stop concentrating (not consciously) quite as much and then I will make a mistake.

I am pleased as I have tried Chopin's on various occasions and just put it back to the bottom thinking, I can't do that, was scared just looking at it. So must be moving on. I think I have moved on further this year since I started playing sonatas and sonatinas, and what used to feel like a hike to play 3 pages now seems quite quick.

My younger sister is helping to organise an arts festival and suggested I may play, hmm I don't think so, I have a long way to go before I could do something like that. The first thing I have to do is tackle the nerves and make sure that I can play something out of home the same as I do in it! But I am not beaten and determined to get there - that has to be half of the battle, doesn't it?

ET

I am also incredibly impressed - seeing as (if I did not know it already) sight-reading the whole thing would be beyond my own abilities. It is NOT one of the easier etudes. Apart from the difficult section in the middle that Panthera refers to ... it simply has difficulties of a different kind from many of the others - balance and control and tone, rather than tempo and stretches aand sustained ferocity..

I am going to feel really stupid and embarrassed now, as I obviously only have part of the Etude in my book for all these comments, because this really isn't that hard. I must just have one of the movements? I am in Emjaor and Lento ma non troppo. I suspect the really difficult parts that you and Panthera are talking about come later. I am playing this from the Essential Collection Chopin Gold.

Hope that all the lovely compliments are not all going to disappear. as I was pleased with myself managing this!

ET blushes and wishes that she hadn't started this thread!

Sounds like an arrangement then I've had that a few times, downloaded a score, thought "wow, I can play this", then realised it was vastly simplified and/or in the wrong key...

Still, you're happy and feel that you've achieved something - that's what matters!

This is my favourite piece by Chopin, just wish I could play it and of course do it justice.
Well done for sight-reading this, even if it is an arrangement.

Well done ET! I'm really impressed! Such a beautiful piece of music (hard to believe it's an etude!!). I remember mentioning it to my teacher a while back and she had told me then that I wasn't ready to learn it so WELL DONE for sight reading it!!!!

The central section is very chromatic, and thats the difficult part. It's at least a Grade 8 piece, probably a Dip.
Ive never really played it properly.

At first I got a nice warm feeling of well-being on your behalf for this achievement - well done.

Then I read some of the posts suggesting that what you were playing might have been an abridged or simplified version and I felt a diminished response

Then I thought again, and I thought: Who am I to disparage an achievement? So what if it might not be the full-blooded fire and brimstone sparks-flying-from-your-fingertips original? It's a lovely piece of music & if you found that you could play it & enjoyed doing so, then great: Reinstall the nice warm feeling of well-being on your behalf, with bells on!

Hi ET

Well done - yes looking at your signature it probably is an abridged version or shortened one,(page 1 is quite approachable), but so what - you played it, it sounded right and you enjoyed it.

I have hashed my way through the original before but it wasn't great, as the great Eric Morecambe said, right notes not necessarily in the right order (and certainly not at the right speed). I wouldn't want to put a level on it, lets just say very post grade 8.

ET - I can imagine how you feel. It's a great feeling. I learnt an arrangement of Chopin's Prelude Op. 28 No. 7 from Carol Barratt's classical piano course, book 3, and I felt SO SO proud of myself. I had heard people talking about Chopin and it was so pleasing to me to get a flavour of what they were on about. And pedal too - pedal is a novelty for me; I love it!

I also have a book called Chopin - An introductory album ("Easier piano pieces" - erm - well, not that easy!; ABRSM) but unfortunately that's way beyond me at present - but here's hoping ...

Maybe someone could recommend the easiest pieces to give us an inkling?

Best wishes for lots more happy Chopinning

PatC

Well thank you for all your comments. I can now confirm that it is an arrangement and although it isn't as hard as some of your brilliant pianists thought, it was still hard for my Grade 5 standard and I felt that I still deserve to give myself a pat on the back for my accomplishment.

I played it to my teacher in my piano lesson that I have just had and she was very impressed at what I did. I can see now though Panthera why you mentioned the hard bits with small hands as to play this as it should be played is very tricky. My hands are just not big enough, somehow I have got to practice some exercises to stretch my hands so that I can keep the tied G down whilst moving up an octave G and then to the B, my hands just don't want to do it. My teacher and I compared hands and whereas she has short stubby fingers and I have lovely piano fingers, her distance between the thumb and index finger has a much wider area, whereas mine has a small area. I found that I was getting cramps in my hands and actually twisted my wrists. So some practice exercises learning to stretch these more is on the cards.

I played all my Grade 5 pieces and teacher was really impressed with them and just loves the Schumann, got that down to a T now. They Haydn is coming on really well, and I really like that now. Did some more scales. Unoftunately ran out of time so didn't get a chance to do my Mozart K545 today.

ET

I saw that book in a shop and was tempted, but reading these forums and doing a bit of research has turned me into a snob, I won't touch anything but Peter's or Henle now...

Also, I've been burnt a few times before where I've downloaded an arrangement that's transposed into C or F for example, which has made me look a bit stupid when playing a piece to someone who knows what they're looking at/hearing..

I think what I'm getting at is that I don't want to learn an arrangement, and then have to "unlearn" it at a later stage. I still have a simplified arrangement of "The Entertainer" stuck in my head and it's put me off even contemplating having a go at the proper version

If I have a pupil who wants to play something well known that's really beyond their capabilities I encourage them to play a section of the original rather than an arrangement, and leave it that we'll tackle the nastier bits once they're up to them in later years.

This definitely works, and it's amazing how motivating it can be to learn a section of a piece you love... I'm planning on doing exactly this with some of the new books I've got

I remember as a child sitting playing the easier bits of things, in my own world, imagining I was a concert pianist. And then I hit the nasty bit and the dream faded. So I just went back to the beginning....

But there does come a time when you feel up to tackling the rest, and you have one heck of a head start.

I think that is a bit too sweeping a generalization.

Liszt wrote some rather good arrangements of, amongst other things, Schubert Songs, Rossini Operas and Beethoven symphonies. I would not call those pointless.

And Horowitz's piano arrangement of tunes from Carmen is amazing.

As for simplified arrangements - they have a place too, so long as they are done sympathetically, and are not too simplifed. When I was about 13 I learned what I thought was Chopin's Fantaisie Impromptu from the Harmsworth Children's Music Portfolio (bought at a jumble sale!).

I was horrified a few years later when I found that it was not the real thing. But it still sounded pretty good and in any case it was not that much easier than the original.

Sorry, what I meant was: "over-simplified arrangements are pointless"..

I just don't see the point in putting the effort in twice when I could use the time to learn a proper version of something more manageable.

Chopin's Fantaisie Impromptu from the Harmsworth Children's Music Portfolio

Wow, I remember that series, I think they were my granny's. My favourite was The Sugar Plum Fairy, as I imagined the sound of a real Celesta. There were pictures of girls playing harps or piano's by candle light. I was quite taken with the books.

Not so keen on my Granny's huge collection of Woman's Weekly Sweet Memories series 'tho. There's a limit to how many songs entitled 'Lovely Lady' or similar I could bear...

Simplified versions definitely fuelled my hunger for pieces when I was little, especially in the patches when I was without a teacher.

Well I played this at my suggestion and not my teachers. And to my defence when I purchased my Chopin, Handel, Mozart, Debussy, Beethoven Gold books I was not aware that they were the real thing.

They are for intermediate level and that is where I am at, it means that I can play some nice music and tackle more difficult things.

I do play the real things too, I am working on Mozart K545 and I have other individual pieces of music too. I also wouldn't say that they were over simplified as they are still quite hard to do and have the big stretches and awkward rhythms to tackle - so what is wrong with it?

It can't be all that bad, otherwise why do these books get published.

ET

I wasn't suggesting that what you'd played was oversimplified Just that some arrangements are and I don't see the point in learning those myself as it means working on a piece twice - others may feel differently!

As long as you feel you have achieved something, that's great.

I wasn't saying there was anything wrong with playing simplified versions! I'm just saying that the above is what I try to encourage pupils pupils to do instead if at all possible - for my sake as well as theirs, if I'm honest. Some simplified versions work, but many don't, and the music often loses its character. I really didn't see the point (to use an expression from above that was apologised for by ianopiano ) in a version of the Moonlight Sonata that a pupil wanted to play once. The key was changed, and there was only one note in the left hand at a time, the depth that the piece depends on was just not there, and it was just broken RH chords. It bore no resemblance to the original at all, and I really felt the person would be better to tackle even three bars of the original to get a feel for what it really entailed.

In another instance I had a pupil arrive able to muck through most of a 'simplified' version of the Maple Leaf Rag. All that resulted from this was tremendous difficulty in attempting the original, as it was in a different key - and it wasn't actually a huge amount harder! Sometimes arrangements can have difficulties of their own, and students can think they 're easier than they are because they're often spread out on the page, while the original may be more squashed up. And it can be the smallest amount of notes that can be the hardest to play convincingly! Chopin's Etudes have all those notes in there for a reason; when they're not there, it's up to the pianist to create the same work of art with less colours available! Worth a thought - would we rather see the whole of the Sistine Chapel in black and white, or would we rather see a part of it in its full glory?