this is one of the best videos that i have ever found about learning a new piece i will apply all of your strategies to my practice thank you so much! love from brazil
You’re incredible. I just recently discovered this nocturne and it’s full so many emotions, but there is something beautifully nihilistic about it. To me it’s almost like one is accepting their perpetual despair while still acknowledging the hypothetical reality of beauty, happiness, and contentment that will always be just out of reach and therefore creates frustration. Music really is a situational phenomenon. One day a piece could be null and the next day it speaks existential volumes.
Well said! I totally agree. I think this complex, conflicting twist between struggle and surrender reflects the reality of a life journey. When I picked up this piece, I was in a dark place. Every day playing it is like therapy for me. I went through my negative emotions again and again, and then it's gone.
@@pianorewind I too was in a dark and destitute mental place when I heard Chopin’s music for the first time and it articulated so many thoughts and feelings about things that words don’t even exist for yet. I am still in that place now, but this nocturne helps me find that there is beauty and truth in despair. You expressed it perfectly. It’s a dance between struggle and surrender, and one will never successfully usurp the other. They are in a continuous paradox and one cannot exist without the other.
Just started working on this nocturne today. I'll definitely be coming back to this video as I work through each section. Hopefully, I can get the whole piece down roughly in the same time frame as you did.
It's very satisfactory to see your improvements. Despite the very high difficulty level of this impressive nocturne you achieved a nice interpretation. Keep it up!! And congratulations for your passion! A very didactic video on how to approach difficult pieces.
Thank you for your kind words and encouragement! I've been distracted lately (and thus no upload) and seeing your comments motivated me again! Thank YOU :)
This is pretty much exactly what I’m going through right now! I’m almost done with learning to play the notes, only thing missing is fluency in the last 12 or so bars, but musically the doppio section is going to take forever to learn… I have an embarrassing recording on my channel where I just improvise the doppio instead of playing the notes because I couldn’t bring myself to stop at where I’ve learned hahah I share your passion for this piece, and your journey is really inspiring , great job!!!
I liked the video before even watching because of that A++ description box. But seriously, great video and progress. Words cannot express how helpful those "sources" were for self taught players who can get a sense of techniques that need to be used, things that can't necessarily be shown simply from the sheet music. Once again, great video, I appreciate it!
Awesome! I'm practicing this piece and this helped me a lot since I watched this video, such an incredible piece i wonder why no many people know about it
Incredible video, thank you algorithm for sending it to me. I'm working through the thrird section currently, so I appreciate all of the resources to help me with me practice!
Congratulations! I just started on this piece and this video makes it seem less daunting, thank you for explaining your process! I have short fingers too so i find this very useful :)
Chopin's pieces are not very friendly to people with small hands or short fingers :P I'm glad you find this video helpful. I started this piece without fully knowing how difficult it can be. I just kept telling myself: practice makes perfect...
I absolutely adore this piece too, but have always found that last section just so hard to play, I often give up. Thank you for sharing your advice, I hope to come back to it one day.
Wow good job! Just one thing though, there are a lot of technical challenges in the flashy sections so it's easy to overlook the ones that are in sections that seem simple like the chorale (Section B). You have to coherently voice the melody in the top line, the top notes should sound more than the lower notes. You do this by shifting weight to the fifth finger. This is easier if you don't have to stretch your hand, but becomes difficult in passages like you play from 4:05 where you need to stretch your hand. Without training, the tendency is that your thumb ends up accenting the bottom line in the unbroken chords, and then in the broken chords you accidentally accent the upper notes. One exercise is to repeatedly play a C major chord with your right hand but shift the accent between the different notes in the chord, so that the loudest note you hear goes CEGECEGECEGEC...
Very well said! I just realised after read this. Thanks for spotting the problem and your suggestion. When I go back to this piece (which I think definitely will), I'll pay attention to this.
Thanks for this video,, I am trying to master the C section but I only started playing in 2020 so it’s a struggle. Your video has really helped me especially with the polynomial section which I have yet to get close to. I am using the ghosting technique you have used and hope to get results that way. I love this section so don’t plan to give up on it but I have set myself a goal of getting it right (albeit slow) within 6 months. This video will really help. Thanks again.
Im so dead I was supposed to play this piece as the one I had choosen for the entrance exam at my conservatory to finally begin studying music, focusing on what I love, and here I am, 9 days left until the competition and just arriving to the C part finding out how much works it needs, I don't even know if 10 hours a day can save me at this point and I doubt I can clear this until the exam even tho it may still be possible that I can present it being just good enough ... I already put big efforts into it and I really want to play it I don't really know if I should leave it here and just play a nocturne I know
I admire your determination, methodical approach and resourcefulness. However, I have some reservations and suggestions. Don’t try to mimic another pianist, because they are playing from their understanding and communicating their deepest feelings. Put the piece away for at least several months or so. When you return to it, you will have fresh ears and mind. Next, approach the “technique” from an expressive and musical-meaning foundation. The natural flow and unfolding of music will guide you. And then you can search your own soul for your own personal interpretation. When it belongs to you, it’s magic.
Thanks a lot for your advice John :) I know where you come from. I think I'm not that advanced than you thought. That's why I don't really have much idea how to express. Mostly, I'm trying to deliver how other pianists make me feel. I may not be able to do exactly how they did and I'll have to add something from me. I think I'll park some of the pieces like this one that I really like for a while and come back again when my techniques no longer hinder me and give it another go. I may be one step closer to where I want to it sounds like.
This is amazing. Terrific work. Patience to the max. The beautiful "tedium" of practice. This is what hard work looks like. Many thanks for the inspiration.
Thank you so much for your kind comments :) I'm a bit slacking lately on the practice as I'm stuck... What you said reminded me to get my head space together and get back on track to the routine. I guess the "inspiration" is mutual!
I already finished this piece recently. I thought i reached my life goal and has a hard time to choose another piece that i liked as much as this one. Niw I am currently learning an Etude, op10 no6 i think.
Incredible. Can I ask. How many hours a day do you practice? And do you only practice one piece till perfection or many pieces at the same time? Thanks
I practiced on average 1h per day, sometimes less sometimes more. I got frustrated too :) For this piece, I only did one piece at the time. All my later pieces, I have multiple going at the same time at different difficulty levels as my sight reading is pretty bad... I think I can do one piece for so long is only because I love it so much and I want to do as best I can. Till the end, tbh I was a bit sick of it even though my teacher thought I could still improve. I tried the Ballard No.1 for 3 months did half of it but parked it as I lost the motivation. So I guess the motivation is the key.
@@pianorewind Thanks. On the issue of sight reading, can I ask.... Given that playing from memory is the goal (and always sounds better!), is it better to learn small bits (one or 2 bars max) to memory and move on to the next few bars? Or is better to sight read longer passages till it is memorised naturally? Thx
@@slyowusu99 IMO, sight reading is a different skill than memorisation. Sight reading is when someone reads and plays a new piece close to the expected speed. One can usually sight read less difficult pieces. For memorisation, I never push myself too hard on that so I let it come naturally. I think this way is better as you want to have a good understanding of how to phrase, dynamic changes, voicing, tempo changes etc. and reading the sheet carefully is essential to get you to think. Memorisation is like the last step. I hope this makes sense.
Thanks a lot! I spent a lot of time to fix individual issues. The Doppio section is hard. My best advice is start slow. There will be a speed that you can handle without any mistakes. It's really about the muscle memory. Once your hands are used to the movement, you increase the speed a little bit and repeat the process. Your muscle memory needs a bit update to get used to the new speed. It can be tedious and not much fun, but worked for me.
Thanks for your kind words. Honestly, I think I can play ABRSM grade 8 without too much trouble. However, my sight reading is pretty bad. I think what I learnt from school and work taught me how to quickly identify and solve a problem, which helps a lot.
At 2:55 you play G - C with the left hand, but the score shows B natural - C. However, in the edition that I have, it's G instead of B natural. I suppose it's a mistake in the edition you show in the video.
Because of school I didn't have enough time to play as I wanted to. All day long it was not suitable for a school girl.....so I quit. All or nothing....😢
@@afrodite1832 It was similar to me and I also didn't like playing the piano back then. It was more my parents' expectation. So when the school work got worse, I was relieved as I stopped playing.
I usually like Rubenstein's interpretations as much as the next guy but after listening to Ashkenazy's interpretation of this piece I cannot stand Rubenstein's. I don't think any interpretation of this piece comes close to Ashkenazy's, and I've listened to quite a few.
I actually found my teacher online. He's a concert pianist with a lot of good reviews. He made me focus a lot on the musicality. I guess if I'm not playing beautifully, I just play a bunch of notes, which is pointless.
Wow.I’m learning this now and it’s about 5 month amd I think I’m very similar to your stage… I think from now on is the exciting time. Real music making stage.. how are you going with this piece now? You should upload the more “matured”version. Thank you for the great video… I feel very connected…
Thanks for the great suggestion! TBH, after several months of practicing, I was a bit burnt out by this piece so I've not touched it for a while. I may get back to it when the fire comes back :)
I'm sure you've improved since this video but I'll leave you with this advice. When playing the octaves, try not to move your hands in and out of the keyboard too much. You want to minimize movement as much as possible. Playing thumb barely on black and then barely below black on white as you move chromatically.
I'm so happy that you got inspired. It's a beautiful piece, even after playing and listening to so many times. As it has all sorts of challenges so can be really fulfilling and rewarding. I hope you enjoy your practice!
This video is really well made. The only thing I didn't like was how you let go of the melody note in the broken chords B section so early, you didnt voice the whole 1/4th note. Other than that, really well done its sucha difficult piece that grows with you trhough years of practise
@@pianorewind i havent been playing that long, and this is the FIRST thing my teacher pointed out during lessons 😂. Is wierd how even though you hold the pedal, the sound fades faster if you let go of the key
I like using pedal in the octaves section. I know its not in the sheet music - but consider that pianos and accoustics are always different. You can repedal a lot but no pedal sounds odd to me
Point taken. My practice room/living room is all tiled no carpet or rug due to dogs so with the pedal, it will sound like a mess...also could be my pedalling technique isn't good enough to be subtle.
Thank you for putting this together. I just did a read-thru of this piece and came searching for tips on section C. (I like the tips for A and B sections as well 😉). Videos like these are great for restarters (or 10x restarter like me - kids/work, right?) to coach us thru the tricky bits.
Please, please don't suggest that anyone puts a coin on their hand and tries to stop it from falling off! This leads to awful tension in the hand. Check out Cedarville Music's 10 things to never do when practising! (I think it's 10, but maybe more!)
I guess it depends on how to achieve the objective (coin not falling off). The intention of this practice is to minimise the up and down movement which probably doesn't increase the tension (at least to me). But, agree, minimising the tension should be high priority.
That only occurs if one makes the categorical mistake of believing the goal should be solely for the coin to fall off; one is to minimize tension while maintaining the coin’s stability; then to include full motion; there is no room for tension when practiced correctly, rather a reduction of final tension, granted by the increased dynamo in motion’s completeness.
@@monsieur171 i think its pretty Common, I once needed 10 months for Chopin Scherzo. In gerenal, you are never finished with a piece at all. You can always improve
