I'm about to start seriously learning the Waldstein (Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 21, Op. 53). I've been sight-reading the piece somewhat regularly the past few months mainly just for fun and it seems to fit very nicely under my fingers and almost seems "built" for me.

The facts:

I currently am not under instruction at all, although I am looking.

I know no Beethoven Sonata well enough to play in public.

My technique is garbage. I mean, I can play say, the 3rd movement of the Appassionata or the Moonlight well enough to where I can bring someone with an untrained ear to their feet...but anybody who really knows the piece would enjoy a hearty laugh at my weak attempt.

I am taking 17 units in school this semester (which I need to finish with at the VERY least a 3.7), which means I can spare maybe 2-3 hours a day Mon-Thu and almost no time Fri-Sun due to work.


So basically I've fallen in love with this piece recently and I am feeling a "calling" to learn it. I'm sure many of you can identify. Now. Someone please tell me why I should not learn this piece and I am about to make a tragic mistake.

Deus ex Pianoforte (love your name btw),

I identify with what you describe, all right, so I'll encourage you to pursue the Waldstein! Though I'd be more confident of my advice if I knew more about you and what else you play, you certainly haven't said anything at all that makes me think you should be discouraged or deterred (or that convinces me that you actually want to be!):

• You've read through it numerous times at this point, and it feels right.
• Plenty of pianists learn on their own.
• Two to three hours on most days of the week is a lot!

I can't quite believe your technique is, realistically speaking, "garbage" if you can play the final movements of the Moonlight or Appassionata even as well as you describe. Without reasonable speed and accuracy, no one would be brought to their feet—so it sounds like you're underestimating yourself.

Who is someone who "really knows" those pieces? A professional? Unless you aspire to be one, you shouldn't think you must play like one in order for advanced repertoire to be a musical and satisfying experience for you. Indeed, it sounds like it already is.

I'm sure that many people here are in a circumstances similar to yours, as I am. If I were to be dissuaded instead of concentrating on what instead are reasonable goals, I would never have learned Chopin's Op. 49 or nearly half the etudes at this point.

How could this endeavor be a "tragic mistake"? Are you worried that, if your technique were truly dreadful (which I doubt), bad habits will be worsened and become ingrained in this piece such that it will be hard ever to relearn it "correctly" in the future? Are you concerned about misspent time and effort? If these were really obstacles, they would be considerations for anything you choose to learn.

Your reach should exceed your grasp—not by a quantum leap, obviously, but a reasonable increment, certainly—so go for it!

Steven

Bravo, Sotto Voce!

Sotto Voce's right in every respect; I simply hope to add emphasis.

- Silence

I've got no issues with what you're saying, but one thing you mentioned jumped right at me! "My technique is garbage!"

To be honest, if you're technique is wrong, badly learning any piece is a mistake. Once you do find a teacher who will see all your technique mistakes, he'll have you correct them after which, playing the aforementioned piece while using the proper technique will be almost impossible for you by that point.

Which means, you'll need to re-learn the song!

I'd suggested you follow these steps in the chronological order.

1) Find a qualified teacher.
2) Fix your technique.
3) Learn that piece while under his/her tutolage.

You'll end up learning the piece only once and well, too.

Good luck!

I definitely agree with that, which is why I mentioned that this would be an issue with any piece chosen.

But I don't think the OP could have advanced to the level he's at with wrong technique. There's a tendency among pianists, especially amateurs, to downplay our strengths and talents to the point of self-deprecation. I don't know if it's accounted for by desire for circumspection, modesty and avoiding anything that suggests self-aggrandizement or simply erring on the side of caution in our self-assessment, but not wanting to appear prideful does frequently rob us of a legitimate source of pride.

Another thing to consider, too, is that (in my limited experience, and based on what I read here), many teachers have specific and idiosyncratic ideas about what constitutes "correct" technique. It's not uncommon for the student whose technique was thus "corrected" to change teachers and learn that it needs to be corrected anew—and thence find another teacher with another opinion still.

There's no specific standard or consensus among teachers on this subject and never has been, as an examination of the history of teaching methods demonstrates. Unfortunately, there's no lack of idiosyncratic and sometimes peculiar ideas, and many teachers would insist a student conform to their particular dogma.

It doesn't help that there are no standards for who's entitled to teach piano in the U.S., but that's another story.

Steven

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Strat:
[QB] I've got no issues with what you're saying, but one thing you mentioned jumped right at me! "My technique is garbage!"

To be honest, if you're technique is wrong, badly learning any piece is a mistake. Once you do find a teacher who will see all your technique mistakes, he'll have you correct them after which, playing the aforementioned piece while using the proper technique will be almost impossible for you by that point."

If deus' technique really is garbage as claimed, then any piece learnt (even a Bach invention) will be scarred by the use of the wrong technique.
However, there is something to be said for "falling in love" with a piece and crawling over hot coals to obtain your desire.
When I was seventeen I "fell in love " with Balakirev's Islamey and practised it until my neighbours must have been sick of it. I'd never tackled a piece of such difficulty before and the piece was not in the experience of the sort of provincial piano teachers I was studying with. Nevertheless, by dint of hard work, I managed to get it to the standard, despite technical deficiencies, where I used it as my audition piece for the entry exam to The Royal College of Music.
I wish deus the best of luck in working on the Waldstein...just be warned, if you intend to play the octave glissandi as written don't dig too hard into the keys; think more of skating lightly on the surface to obtain the correct effect.

How can one play the third movement of Appassionata and have a "garbage" technique?

It's called "faking". It is interesting that most people who know how to do it recognize what it is, but I don't think I've ever heard a good description of how it works, exactly. Maybe instead of "faking", a better word for it might be "approximation".

Whatever it is, I think it involves a lot of pedal.

There's a possibility you will end up with some bad technical habits if you approach it casually. But if you play cleanly and in tempo there's nothing to stop you. But get a teacher. Some amateur pianists spend years trying to get things corrected.

Like you I am now considering learning sonata No. 28 in D Major. I know I can sightread some of the movements and it is intriguing as it follows the Moonlight. But, I am not going to sightread it. If I sightread it I am going to learn bad habits. Instead I am going to work on it with a teacher and use my metronome intelligently. When Beethoven wrote this his deafness was already advancing. One just wonders at what an arduous task the composing must have been.

Waldstein seems like a good choice for a project like this.

It's different than something like a Liszt etude or the Fourth Chopin Ballade. Those pieces are very difficult from beginning to end, and you can either play it or you can't.

The Waldstein has much more variety. Just about any pianist is sure to find things that fit like a glove and things that are quite awkward, so enjoy the gloves and spend some quality time organizing your technique with the challenges.

First off, thank you for the replies. My Internet has been very shaky lately and I haven't been able to check the forums.

Just to clarify about my technique...when I said untrained ear, I generally meant that anybody that has heard the piece more than a few times would hear several mistakes throughout the piece. Wrong notes, omissions, dynamic injustices, and so on. I would be able to play say Hungarian Rhapsody #2 at half tempo no problem, but when I bring it up to tempo I would (as one poster pointed out) need to fake quite a bit. Lots of pedal and tempo changes. When I said I didn't want to make a tragic mistake, I meant that I didn't want to have to relearn the piece at a later date because I wasn't ready for it. I didn't start using my fourth finger on black-key octaves until a few years after I had the reach for them, and to this day, my fifth finger still jerks toward the key when I do this.


Another thing is that my theory is extremely weak. I don't know key signatures off hand, and even though I have 15+ years of classical piano experience, if someone told me to play a chord (an f major chord) for example, I would just stare dumbly at the keys like a chimp being told to write Hamlet. So when I look at the extended trill sections of the 3rd Movement with the sweeping sixteenth note scale in the left hand, I don't really know how many notes are in the trill or which note is meant to line up with the simultaneous melody.

I read a post by Kreisler saying he left the "A" out, so I suppose that means that the melody is supposed to coincide with the A note of the trill, but I still don't know how to calculate the rate of trill or the amount of notes. Anyway, I think I'll give it a try anyway. I plan to find a teacher soon, but it's really hard when you either go to school or work every day. But like they say...where there's a will, there's a way.

You would be well-advised to undertake a course of study to improve your theory...it really will assist you in learning pieces.
As for the trills in the last movement of the Waldstein many pianists play a "false trill" in which the trill figure momentarily ceases as the melody note is sounded. This sounds more complex than it actually is and I would advise you to try to get hold of an older edition like the Steingraber or Augener (edited by Buonamici) where the trill is written out in full in this fashion.