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So I was realizing the other day that my octaves kind of suck. What are some good exercises or pieces that I could look at to really improve my octaves? They're definitely something I need to get better since octaves play a huge basis in a lot of the more mature piano works, and I want to be able to play those at some point!
Thanks!

Try Schumann's Important Event from his Kinderscenen or(much harder)Chopin's g minor Prelude for LH octave practice. For RH maybe the octave passages in Mozart's Rondo a la Turca or the theme from Schumann's Abegg Variations.

Wow, Bach Two parts in octaves? That's intense. I'm assuming you need to leave out the trills, yeah? Haha. thanks for the Schumann suggestion also, I'll check it out.

The requirements differ depending on dynamics, articulation and tempo, the only common element being the handspan itself. Do you mean octaves generally in all contexts, or something more specific?

Steven

Well, I guess I mean generally in all contexts. I'm not doing any pieces that have any difficult octave passages, but I want to in the future and want to know what I need to do now to prepare for that. The octaves in the Schumann seem like great LH work. I should probably start doing scales in double octaves also...
I realize that each piece has different requirements on what to do with octaves, but I want stuff that'll help prepare me for all of them in general.

Doing scales and arpeggios in octaves is always one simple option for working on them, at least as a start. Of course, there are a zillion octave etudes, too.

With your teacher's permission (and only so), I might recommend Dohnanyi's octave exercises in his Essential Finger Exercises. But don't worry too much about practicing all the octaves with 1/4 as opposed to 1/5, it can lead to unnecessary fatigue.

Hanon certainly covers octaves (if more generally), and Rafael Joseffy's School of Advanced Piano Playing addresses the issue also, though his exercises cannot be memorized -all important for concentration- as quickly as Dohnanyi.

Well my teacher has me doing Hanon right now....but I'm only at the beginning, nowhere near the octaves part. Although, I could just got ahead and look at the octaves exercises now and then ask her more specifically at my next lesson what to do for octaves.

Chopin etude 25/10 - although it's for legato octaves. Just practice octaves. In scales, arpeggios, repeated, make up your own patterns, etc. My philosophy is, if you can't play something, play it.

Hm, although the Chopin Etudes are a bit above me right now, perhaps after I get a basic proficiency in my octaves [can play scales without mistakes, go through the hanon exercise 51 at a good speed with no mistakes] I could start playing with 25/10, just as a technical study for now.

I should have known that Czerny penned some octave studies! IMSLP doesn't have them, but the Henselt Library does:

http://www.henseltlibrary.org/Czerny-op553-Octave_Studies.pdf

Steven

Thanks! I've got plenty of stuff to use now. I think I'm gonna start with the Hanon exercise 51, the preliminary octave studies, then perhaps move the the Czerny and then do the Chopin Etude just as a technical study, not as a performance piece. I'll probably only do the first page or so of the Chopin, not even the whole thing..unless my teacher wants me to do the whole thing. I'll also do all my scale of the weeks in octaves. My octaves really aren't terrible, they're just no where near as good as they need to be.

Chopin's etude is the best for this. I tackled it as a teen, and while I couldn't play it to tempo or at all well, it helped my octaves tremendously. The key will be doing it slowly enough so there is NO tension when you play the study and VERY gradually moving the metronome up one click at a time so the tension doesn't creep in. Another piece you can probably do that will help you with octaves is Brahms' Op. 79 No. 2.

Play your scales as octaves? That's what I do.

Czerny's Art of Finger Dexterity (#33) has an effective octave etude. Josef Llevinne played it frequently as an encore, and one can only imagine what he would have done with it.

I don't know, I might be wrong, but I think Prelude in G Minor (Rachmaninoff)would be very good for improving octaves/chords. I finished a few months ago and it's seemed to have made my octaves/chords better. It's quite a demanding piece though.

I am always surprised that some posters make suggestions without it seems to me considering the level of the the pianist involved. Although not specified by the OP, my recollection from other of his posts is that he is nowhere near the level where pieces like the Chopin Etude or even the Czerny would be appropriate. Of course, one could play these pieces half speed or even less and they would be of some benefit, but I don't think they are pedagogically sound at this point.

I agree with pianoloverus. Most of the replies in this topic are just lists of things that involve octaves.

The first thing that popped into my mind was:

"What do you mean by make octaves better? Do you mean articulation, voicing, speed, changes of direction, repeated octaves, or the different techniques involved?" Until the original poster answers some of those questions, none of the exercises will do any good.


Frycek's suggestion is very good - at the early stages, simply playing octave scales can be very useful. Another great exercise that can help you practice the wrist and arm motions is playing slurred scales:

CD DE EF FG GA AB BC C

I say start with what you have in your Hanon book. Start with those "detached" and "wrist" exercises like 48 & 51 that precede the actual octave scales, and I recommend exaggerating the looseness of your wrist to start until it becomes second nature.

Daniel