An étude (said "ay-TOOD"; French for study) is a short piece of music written to help the player to become a better player. They are usually quite difficult. Sometimes they are just called "studies". Composers such as the pianist Carl Czerny and the violinist Otakar Ševčik wrote lots of études. Each one concentrates on a technical problem: fast scale passages, arpeggios, wide leaps, chords or, for string players, different ways of bowing.