Chopin Etude Op. 25 No. 2 - EFFECTIVE EXERCISES to learn it // Practice TUTORIAL // Danae Dörken

And today's video is all about Chopin study opus 25 number two. This is a very requested video. I did two videos on Chopin studies in the past, one about opus 10 number one and the other about opus 10 number two. I can link both of them in the description box down below if you haven't seen them yet. And many of you asked me if I could do some more videos on other Chopin studies. So today I decided to make the next one on opus 25 number two. I find that this study is a great study to start with. This one and also opus 25 number one, so basically those first two from the opus 25 cycle, I find are on the easier side compared to the other Chopin studies. They're also not easy but compared to the other ones they are more doable I would say. I also think that you can make kind of the fastest progress there and you can get them to a pretty high level and a pretty fast tempo rather quickly compared to some other studies in the cycle. Opus 10 number one and two for example I find are not beginner pieces at all. I would suggest that you start practicing them with the exercises from very early on but don't expect to be able to play through them in a matter of one month. That would be pretty amazing if you're able to do that. But today I'm going to be talking about opus 25 number two. For me personally this was also the first study that I ever played by Chopin. I was pretty young when I started it and today I'm going to be getting a little more into the exercises that I did that I find helped me the most to get it to a final tempo and the exercises that I find were most effective. So to begin with I think it's important to get an overview of the structure of this study and I mean specifically the rhythmical structure because the right hand is playing triplet and the left hand is playing triplets but the one hand is playing them in eighth notes and the other one in quarter notes. This means that for every quarter note that the left hand is playing the right hand is playing two notes. So for a triplet of the left hand the right hand has six notes. However you can divide a group of six notes in two ways. You can either do two times three or three times two and what the score says is two times three. There are two triplets written so three plus three while the left hand is playing quarter triplets and the danger when you play this study is that you then fall into the pattern of playing three times two since you're playing two notes in the right hand for each of the left hand notes. So I think it's important that when you're practicing it when you're doing your slow run-throughs you consciously try to remember the right hand is supposed to be playing triplets as well. It's not supposed to end up sounding like it's supposed to be one two three one two three one two three one two three and not one two three one two three one two three one two three. When you play it through of course it's inevitable that at some points and in some bars it's going to somehow sound like that but it's good if you have a basic feeling of two different rhythms. Triplets of eight notes in the right hand and then quarter triplets in the left hand. So this is just a general thing to keep in mind when you're doing all the exercises for this. I usually start with some exercises for the right hand. The first one is that I divide up the group of six notes into two plus four and I play two slow notes and then four fast notes. I do this for the entire study and then I turn it around and I play four fast notes and then two slow notes. That I do a very similar exercise only that I take the entire bar which is a total of 12 notes and I divide it into three slow notes and nine fast notes. The nine notes I try to play as fast as I play the three slow ones so for each slow one I play three fast ones. I do this with the entire study as well and then I switch it around and I play nine fast ones and three slow ones. I find that this exercise is rather uncomfortable but I think it very helpful because it also puts your mind toward the direction of playing triplets. What I mentioned in the beginning rather than playing three groups of two to playing two groups of three since you're dividing it up into triplets and not into two notes at a time. The next exercise that I do is that I stop on one note of the triplet. So this I alternate each day. So on one day for example I will stop on the first note and play until the next first note of the triplet and so on. And then on other days I will stop on the second note and again on the next day I will stop on the third note. After having done these exercises for the right hand I usually take a break for my right hand and focus on the left hand. As it is so often the case in Chopin studies I think it is essential that the the hand that seems quote-unquote easier which would be the left hand in this one is very very secure and is not neglected at all. This is why I always put a big emphasis on practicing it separately on practicing it properly as well so that when you have the harder hand joining this one is definitely going to be perfect and you won't be wasting any energy and too many thoughts on that one. So I practice the left hand separately slow and also a bit faster. Then I have an exercise where I try to make a point of pressing my fifth finger or if it is another finger the lowest note of the triplet which is usually first one and keeping it pressed while playing the other notes. So kind of forming a chord and I do this because I find that it gives me more security in which keys I'm pressing. If I'm holding it there while pressing the other two fingers my hand is kind of getting used to this chord position and then when I'm playing through and of course not holding the fifth finger I feel like that my hand and my muscles in general know where to go rather than if I hadn't been doing this exercise. I play through the entire left hand and I try to be very musical when I do it. I try to imagine exactly what it would be like having the right hand on top sometimes even playing it silently on my leg or in the air just so that I feel what maybe little weird things my hand is doing when the right hand would join and then correcting them in time before they turn into some kind of permanent mistake that I don't notice anymore. After that I go back to the right hand and basically the next exercise is dividing it up into sections that keep growing and playing it in your tempo of that time. So I would suggest using the metronome for this exercise and if your tempo let's say would be 120 for one of the triplets which is pretty slow I would then put it to 120 and then first play a group of one triplet for the entire study then a group of two triplets then a group of four triplets which would mean one bar and then two bars in the end. Again this exercise I would suggest doing at the fastest tempo that is possible for you at the moment. If for example when you're playing through the study you're at a slower tempo that doesn't matter at all as long as you're kind of pushing yourself on this exercise. So when I started learning the study and couldn't play through it in tempo yet I would practice the right hand in tempo with the metronome for this exercise. For example for let's say the half bar I would already be in tempo playing and then when going to the two bar I'd be a bit slower but my fingers were already going into the direction of that fast tempo by playing the little sections in tempo so I think it's very helpful to set a tempo for each exercise that works for you. First of all just so that you can put on the metronome and make sure that you're playing in time very well but also as a kind of orientation for you so that you know okay I've been at let's say 160 for the past week I feel pretty secure now I can increase it to 168 and if you have your maximum tempo for each exercise which will obviously be a faster tempo for the smaller section and then probably a slower tempo for the bigger sections then the bigger sections are also going to get into the tempo faster because you've already been practicing it for the small sections. The goal of course is to get all of the exercises into the final tempo but please don't be impatient or expect that this is going to happen in within a couple of days. It does take time and it's important that you let some time pass by so that all these notes and all these movements can really sink into your hand into your muscle memory and that you can mentally really digest them I would say so that you are very secure when you go into the higher speed. And then as the final exercise I would play through the study completely as I said at the tempo that was possible for me at the time now of course I've reached the final tempo so I'm going to play through it in the final tempo but if you are at a half speed right now that's totally fine play through it at your tempo and increase it slowly as you go. I really hope that you enjoyed this video about Chopin study opus 25 number 2 and I'll see you again in the next video. Bye!