can anyone out there help me? ive been working on chopin`s etude in g flat but i cant seem to get my wrist to rotate fast enough to play full tempo (116-120bpm)ive been playing piano about 4 years, and only lately am i concentrating more on my technique. Will it just require a lot of practice to get it down, or should i be able to do it now if i could just get the motion right? anyone have any suggestions...

I don`t have any specific advice (I`m not quite good enough yet for the Black Key Etude), but are you taking lessons from an advanced teacher? That REEAALLY helped me with my piano pieces. Every single one of them benifited and all of the pieces I begin to work on are much easier now that I`ve joined Peabody.

i havent played the black key etude yet but i think you probably need to just keep your wrists as loose as possible and your fingers loose to that alsays helps me play things faster or at least keeps my hands from getting tired.i hope it helps.

Black keys are small, and might be hard to hit. You might have a tendency (sp?) to flatten your fingers to make them easier to hit. Try not to.

P.S. Do you have your own fingering or you`re following Chopin`s fingering?

This piece is very difficult and you may not be ready for it yet, not after 4 years playing, its a highly advanced piece, because its so fast and tricky, its hard to develop the technique to play it and perhaps just as hard to play it well. I can play it quite well but it took me so long to learn it I became sick of it.

My advice is leave it well alone for a while, Its easy to make a lot of cock ups in it as well. Look how hard the end is!! did Chopin intend the player to do them double octaves as fast as the rest of the triplets in the piece? hope not.

Don`t have to do the octaves that fast. What`s the "Octave" etude for?

The "Octave Etude" (Etude Op25 No10) is just a bunch of chromatic octave movements in both hands (both hands together to make a four-note ocatve), or at least for the birst and last bit of the piece. It is very, very violent sounding, you should hear it.

By the way, you can listen to the Octave Etude at Chopinfiles.net or .com (I can`t remember)