Thanks, guys. I didn't consider rolling both chords. That's something to think about.
And Rainer, I tried putting more pinky finger on the top A-flat but I still can't get it to sound very much. Too bad I can't just use a Janko keyboard! Have you seen these?
Here is a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK4REjqGc9w
listen beginning at 4:17 to hear the maker explain how it works. I was certainly interested in the part about being able to reach wide chords!

Anyway, I've just had another idea....is it allowable to rearrange notes in Chopin's chords? What if I take the low G-flat (RH) and move it up an octave? Again, here is another short 17-second sample. Can you tell that I changed the chord in the second version? I don't want to make Chopin mad....

That's a pity. How do you manage in the rest of the piece? There are plenty of Gb-Ab ninths. Are they less of a problem for you when there are no other notes inbetween?
Yep, there was a guy posting here about it some months back. I think he had emigrated to Santiago de Chile.
Trouble with this is that it has two different and essentially (it seems) unrelated properties which tend to be conflated. One is the layout, the primary purpose of which is to make transposition easy without changing fingering. The other is the increased reach, but this does not seem particularly related to the layout, it's just that they made all the keys smaller, and there's no reason why you couldn't do that while retaining the conventional keyboard layout. Aren't piano-accordion keys slighty narrower than piano keys, for example?
Surprisingly, that sounds reasonably convincing. I can only tell if I really concentrate hard. The effect of the chord containing the "wrong" Gb is much weaker than that of the top Ab coming out stronger. Another thing you might like to try instead is losing the very bottom Ab, and to play the other LH Ab with 5, and the original Gb with your left thumb, or do you think that would sacrifice too much sonority?
Well, it boils down to your deciding which option would be least likely to make him turn in his grave. Since you visited it, you'll probably have some insight there.

Speaking of which, you also mentioned recently that you had visited Poulenc's grave nearby, but that mention, together with your photo, seems to have vanished without trace almost as soon as you posted it, as if you had decided you were unhappy with your re-recording of that novelette. No matter. It's just that I had been meaning to ask you about who that was in there with him. So I had to work it out for myself. It's his niece, sole heiress to his estate, who sadly died only a few months after him.

If you were playing for an exam or audition I'd agree with this: you don't want to do anything unexpected in those circumstances. But there's plenty of evidence that 19th century pianists respected the score a lot less than we do now--even Chopin didn't play his own pieces exactly as written--and in particular, people rolled chords whenever they felt like it. For me, rolling the chords is definitely the lesser evil compared with being unable to balance the notes the way you want.


I can hear the difference, and I think some of the warmth of the A flat chord is lost. There certainly are situations where you can get away with rearranging or leaving out notes, but usually in passages that are a bit more active rhythmically (I left out quite a few notes when I played the Schubert-Liszt Erlkonig, and noone was any the wiser); for my taste, it doesn't work so well here. It's a good idea though, and I'm sure you'll make use of it another time.

Yes, that's correct.




Oh yes, I knew I heard about this somewhere before.





Yes, I took the photo down and another one I had recently posted. I don't like seeing myself and I often have second thoughts and delete things soon after I post them. I am happy with my re-recording, but seemed like no one showed interest and so after 24-hours I deleted the thread. I am an impatient person.

Maybe I'll post a Chopin grave photo when I make my two new Chopin recordings in a couple days. We'll see how brave I feel then.

If you are on Facebook, you can 'friend' me and then you can see ALL my Paris photos (and Venice and Rome too). That goes for anybody here (that is if I recognize your name). I'm not as active on Facebook as I used to be - it goes in waves. But I do enjoy keeping up with my 'interesting' friends and seeing peoples photos.



Ok, thanks, Alexander. I guess then I'll stick with the way the chord is written. I'll probably have to roll both chords to make everything sound logical.