Technique Analysis | Chopin Ballade No.1 

Could you try the listz/pagannini étude no.6

Everyone at their own pace, playing harder pieces made me realise you have to enjoy your own journey of playing easier works and seeing your progress. Plus musically op 9 no 2 is pretty hard playing with expression and good articulation

Op 9 no 2 is lowkey a difficult piece. The piece requires precise articulation, phrasing, pedalling, etc. Rooting for your practice progress 💪

lol, I'm also performing this piece mid july

Big hand privilege

I second that Presto con fuoco section! Also the coda of the G minor Ballade where I usually crash and burn. Any practice ideas would be so appreciated. I couldn't live without these 4 Chopin Ballades. Each is so magnificent and beautiful.

good luck then!!

I think this app must be working for android as well :)

the very best

Well it's the only option for some of us :')

Hi! Thanks for the feedback! The question of holding a note with fingers vs holding it with pedal is one that divides us pianists into two teams 😅 I belong to the people who believe that piano playing is a lot about creating illusions - meaning: if you didn’t see what I was doing with my hands you would actually just hear what is written in the scores: a long note. My question in these cases is: would it make an acoustic difference if I kept my finger there or not? Since I am definitely using the pedal in this situation, the note will definitely stay longer. However, if I stay longer in the key with my fingers I won’t have as much time to relax the hand and prepare for the next octave run. So if you want you can say that it actually does make an acoustic difference on the fast octaves but not on the long note itself:) and still I come to the conclusion that I won’t keep my fingers on the keys ;)

@@heartofthekeys I think you can do both for different effects - I play the held notes with 2nd throughout the whole measure but I need to play it more slowly (with a more dramatic rubato that is probably incorrect but still sounds good) or I play in more in strict time with faster octaves and no held note (or at least not for the whole measure with the finger and held with pedal instead) like you and both sound pretty great to me

@@heartofthekeys Thanks for your reply, I think that pianists can be divided into a number of different teams. Those with big enough hands to hold the notes as written and those that can't. I can span an 11th (just kissing the 12th), so I can easily "walk" around the octaves in these measures with a "semi-legato" touch with my 3rd, 4th, and 5th fingers as needed. Others with smaller spans have no choice but to "let the pedal do the work". Sonically, I don't think it matters in the end, but for the pianist working on a "muscle memory" it will be a different experience. Also of significant note, the keys in Chopin's era are not the same as keys today in this respect: while the width of the keys are for all practical purposes the same width (ie: the octave is 6.5") the down weight and key dip is very different. Down Weight averaged 45 grams compared to nearly 55 grams today, and key dip was 8 mm compared to 10 mm today. This no doubt would have some influence how a composer may write their music as inspired by the typical instrument of their day. So holding the dotted whole note may have been a "touch" that Chopin use or desired to play through these passages, that with today's heavier and deeper keys may make it more awkward to play. Again, the size of hands changes the way many top pianists will play the same passages, and that's not a negative thing in and of itself, but a reality as old as time. Keep up the great work of inspiring many people today with your wonderful and honest content.

@@thomasjames7979 BTW, just for your interest (and others reading this) I'm a fairly accomplished pianist with one thing in common with Beethoven. Since birth nearly 60 years ago, I've been profoundly deaf, and need powerful hearing aids to lead a reasonably normal life. Without hearing aids, I cannot hear the thunder in a lightning storm even though I enjoy watching the flashes of lightning. I can't even hear a lawn mower running just in front of me without hearing aids, as my hearing loss is greater than 80 db in my lower frequencies, and more than 100 db in my higher frequencies. That amount of deafness is the threshold of not ever hearing at all, even with hearing aids. In spite of that "slight inconvenience", I've been on the piano bench ever since I got my first hearing aids, and with some formal lessons and many happy hours figuring things out that my teacher couldn't teach me, I became quite decent as a pianist, dabbling with lots of works by Chopin & Liszt for my own enjoyment. I also became very good at making concert arrangements of gospel hymns and for a time made my living as a concert pianist. I also taught myself how to tune, and rebuild pianos, with my own piano being a 1915 Steinway D that I completely rebuilt and refinished. I even installed the WNG composite action, which is a real game changer for the way an action feels and responds. Very highly recommended conversion. My main occupation is teaching piano lessons, with some tuning on the side. While it seems very contradictory, I've managed quite well over the years. It would be interesting for you to explore that topic in the future if such things intrigue you. I don't know of any other deaf pianists, or even other musicians for that matter. For anyone reading this with some degree of hearing losses, don't give up. If I can do it, you can too.

@@heartofthekeys I just looked at this passage with more scrutiny and found a "conflict of interest" while practicing this myself (haven't really touched it for decades). In the few measures with the dotted whole note held inside the octave passages, I noticed that the pedalling changes TWICE in the measures, meaning that the pedal does NOT hold the dotted whole note through the measures, but cancels it HALFWAY through the measures. That means the dotted whole note is intended to be held throughout the octave passages as written. The question that remains is this: Does anyone really hear the difference if the note is held or not? I'm inclined to think not, and so it is not really a big concern in the final performance, but nonetheless it is a conflict of execution and the "correct" option is to hold the note through if the hand span permits.

An octave is really not that hard

Are you a five year old girl? An octave is not a wide span unless you're a toddler.

​@@jessevallejo8797 there are people like me who need to stretch hard to make an octave and that add a lot of stress to the hand.