There's more to this étude than meets the eye. Although many pianists treat Chopin's Étude in A-flat, Op. 10 No. 10 as a study in rotation, American maverick Frederic Chiu discerned the underlying principle that is the key to playing it successfully: it's a study all the different ways you can divide up 12 notes.

Chopin gives each 4-bar unit a unique subdivision of 12: here it's 4 groups of 3 notes, there it's 6 groups of 2 – and even 12 groups of 1! Since this applies to the left hand as well, Chopin creates an infinitely varied framework of accentuation. He uses all the means at his disposal to mark different groupings: barring, slurs, accents, articulation, and more.

In addition to being more captivating musically, this approach also solves the problem of constantly building tension: by changing up the groupings, you're constantly releasing tension in what Chiu calls the "three axes of tension": up and down, left to right, and rotation. To help you learn the notes, Chiu also offers insight on how to practice blocking (playing the chords together instead of as successive notes) and how it will help you make the hands more independent as well.

Chopin never explicitly wrote an etude for the pedal, but many of his studies give you the opportunity to create new challenges with your feet. For Frederic Chiu, the Etude in E-flat major, Op. 10 No. 11 is just such a piece. Chiu focuses on applying his "surgical shift pedal" technique to create the effect of an in-focus melody and out-of-focus accompaniment. He also takes liberty in interpreting Chopin's markings, turning the rolls in either hand into one long role from bottom to top, like a harp. The resulting arpeggios are challenging, but as Chiu shows, developing your pedal technique will actually free up your fingers to execute some of the trickier intervals in the right hand.

As with most revolutions, Chopin's C Minor Étude, Op. 10 No. 12, begins with a crisis. Join maverick American pianist Frederic Chiu as he deconstructs the drama of Chopin's "Revolutionary" study.

For Chiu, the rapid lefthand passagework is a diversion from the true technical and musical challenge of the etude, which is capturing the rhetorical drama latent in half note motif that dominates the score. In order to inform your physical inputs, you first have to develop a conception that depicts the struggle of the half steps in both left and right hands. Then, when larger intervals are introduced (even as small as a whole step), suddenly the entire landscape is altered and new horizons emerge. The dramatic arc of the piece arrives finally in a coda tinged with defeat and withdrawal before a final last outcry brings closure to the tumultuous events.