Etudes means piano studies. technical studies that focuses on piano technicalities. like playing huge arppegios, cross counter, scaling, splitting, sweeping and ,many others.
Chopin's etudes for example, focuses on fingering and dexterity.
Liszt's etudes focuses on cross countering and chordall emphasis.
Czerny School of velocity focuses on scales and harmony. Fingering and dexterity is a given and dynamics is a must.
So etudes is a creation of a new set of piano techniques meant to train a pianist on certain skills. Most classical trained pianist would have gone through the big 4. Namely, School of velocity, training speed. School of dexterity, training fingering and clearity. School of Emphasis and style training flair and content. School of Peserverance, training knowledge and pianistic accquaintance..
Yup... there you go...
