Chords for Top 10 Most Difficult Piano Pieces | Pianist Reacts

As a pianist, [E] I've played my fair share of difficult pieces, [G] and I think when you're learning the piano,
all you really want to do [Abm] is impress everyone and play really [G] difficult, hard stuff.
But really, how difficult [Gb] are the most difficult pieces to play on the piano?
Well, in today's video, I'm going to react to the [G] 10 most difficult pieces to play.
So let's do it! _ _
_ _ _ I feel like that's okay.
_ [G]
That's [D] not too difficult so far, let's see how difficult it gets.
_ [E] _ _ _
[Cm] _ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ [Gm] _ _
_ [G] You just need to practice your [D] scales for that.
_ _ [Gm] _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ I mean, that's just broken down chords, so it's not as difficult as it actually looks.
_ [Cm] _ _ _
_ [A] _ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _
[Cm] Yeah, I think there's a lot more difficult pieces than that,
because Vivaldi tends to just use kind of arpeggios and scales, so_
If [Dbm] you know your scales, then you'll be alright.
_ _ _ _ [Ab] _ _
[Dbm] _ [C] This one is actually known for being quite difficult for [Dbm] pianists. _
Yeah, I've never played this one before,
and it would require some serious practice in order to be able to play it really well. _
_ [Abm] _ _ [Gbm] _ _ _ _ _
_ [B] _ _ [Gbm] _ There's something about how Chopin writes music,
it's very [Eb] pianistic because he was a pianist.
And it's got lots of like pushes and pulls with the time,
which is called rubato, and he uses that an awful lot.
_ [B] _ _ [Ab] _ _ [N] _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ [B] Flight of the Bumblebee is an absolute classic.
It's Rimsky-Korsakov, but Rachmaninoff did a piano arrangement of it. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ Very difficult. _
_ [G] _ _ [D] _ _ _ [Am] _ _
_ _ _ _ The difficulty with a piece like this is you've got to get those notes so [B] even.
It's so difficult, it just requires a lot of sitting there going like this. _
_ [Am] Making sure your fingers will do the right thing.
_ [G] _ _
_ [A] _ [Dbm] _ _ _ _ [Ab] Yeah, Moonlight Sonata Movement 3.
This one's another one that like aspiring pianists [B] want to be able to play,
because it sounds really impressive.
But I would probably put this in the less difficult out of [Dbm] the last couple of ones
that we've had because it is just, it's just chords broken down.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Ab] It just requires good [Dbm] knowledge of chords so that you can play them
and then separate out the notes _ _ like that.
So it's not as difficult as it sounds. _ _
[Db] _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _
_ [Em] _ [Dbm] Rachmaninoff was known for having massive hands,
so a lot of the stuff that you get for Rach is kind of like big chords.
One of my favourite pieces that I learned [Ab] in my youth
was the Rachmaninoff Prelude in C-sharp minor,
which in the second half it has massive hands. _ _ _ _
[E] And with Rachmaninoff you get that massive dramatic sound.
When you've got to play massive hand spans fast,
it's very difficult because you want to try and do it without tension
in order to get your hands to move.
Sometimes really hard.
_ _ [C] _ _
[Abm] _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Bb] _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
_ [Gb] _ Chopin Op.
10 No.
1.
I actually did this when I was [F] studying at music college
and it's such a hard piece to learn because it's all about accuracy.
And because it does that for [C] the entire piece,
it's so easy to make mistakes.
_ _ _ [F] _ So difficult.
_ [E] _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ [F] _ _ [Am] You would think that [Dbm] similar to the Moonlight Sonata,
it's all based around chords, so it shouldn't be too difficult.
But because those chords are [C] massive stretches,
so it's not just a C chord, for example,
it's C with a stretch so that you've got to get past an octave, _
[G] it makes it close to impossible to stay accurate for the entire piece.
_ [C] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Gm] _ _ _
[Eb] _ [G] _ _ _ _ [Ab] _ _ _
[Gb] This is another one from the same set of Etudes.
So Chopin did Etudes Op.
10 and then Op.
25
and both sets are so difficult.
There's actually competitions dedicated to playing all of them
because it's such a vast set of works.
[Db] _ _ _ [Dbm] _ _ [Eb] _ _ [Abm] _
_ [G] _ _ [Db] _ _ _ [Gbm] A lot of the scale work is actually not too bad,
but it's when you get these kind of repeating [D] paths
and you've got something else jumping around in the other hand,
it makes it hard to stay even in that hand
while worrying about where [Dbm] that hand's going. _ _ _
_ _ _ [Ab] _ _ [Dbm] _ _ _
_ _ _ [F] _ _ [E] A third one of Chopin's Etudes that's made it in here.
They skipped out the opening line of this piece, which is the easy part.
There's something like this. _
[Fm] _ [C] _ _ And [B] then it goes on to that crazy bit.
[E] _ _ _ _ _ _ [D] _
_ [F] _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _
I think that for anyone that aspires to learn this piece,
you've got to remember that the melody is actually in the left hand,
so that's the thing that should be the most important.
_ _ _ And the right hand is the thing that you're going to spend most time [Em] learning.
_ [F] _ _ _ _ _ [Abm] _ _
_ _ _ [Eb] La Campanella, this is another one that's incredibly hard
just because you've got these repeated notes.
[E] Kind of like Rush E where you've got the repeated E
that turns into like really fast
and you've got to repeat the same note lots of times.
This is kind of the [Ab] OG piece that did that.
_ _ [Gb] _ _
_ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ [N] _ _ [Eb] _ _
[E] _ _ [Gbm] Liszt has a very similar style to Chopin in the fact that he was also a pianist.
He was keen to [Gbm] be virtuosic,
so a lot of his pieces are just very difficult for the sake of being very difficult.
They're also very musical and amazing,
and Liszt is definitely one of my favourite composers.
_ _ [A] _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ The difficulty here is repeating those notes
and trying to make it musical while you've got something else going [F] on.
On its own, not too difficult,
but then as soon as you start trying to add all this left hand,
move around, make it musical, very hard.
_ _ [G] _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ [C] _ _ [N] _ _ _ _ _
_ [Gm] _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _
I do think there are harder piano pieces [N] like Rack 3 Piano Concerto
or Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto,
any piano concerto,
because they're trying to show off the instrument.
And there are so many solo piano pieces that are super difficult for different reasons.
I can definitely see why these have been chosen as the top 10 most difficult piano pieces,
because they are all very difficult.
Another piece that is very difficult is Rush E2,
and in this video I react to that.
So if you're interested in that, head on