Hi guys,

I am currently studying for my grade 5 piano. So far I have learnt B1 Dream from Enfantines (this is the 2005-2006 syllabus).
At the moment I am practicing Gigue (A1) and I am finding it quite challenging.
We always go over little things in my piano lesson and he then says go away and practice one line or a few bars and get it perfect which is ok...and I go away and do it. I practice at home every night just one line to get it perfect and it is.
When I go to my piano lesson the follwing week and play it to him I keep making mistakes and I know I have done it at home. He then doesn't believe that I have done enough practice and then thinks I'm lying to him.

Are there any tips from anyone here please...I'm desperate to prove him wrong...somehow trying to contain what I have taught myself is proving mre difficult than I thought.

I have only been playing piano 1 + 1/2 years and I have passed grade 3 and now we are pushing onto grade 5...not the easiest thing to do.

Help please...

Thanks

Annetta xx

hi

I did A1 too. its awful! and i had exactly the same problems. i used to practice bits for hours over and over again but then when i got to the lesson it always seemed like I'd done nothing! i dont really know what advice to give...except to keep going and it will click in the end. Maybe try playing it in different ways - with different dynamics, to try and getit stuck in your head. another thing is to play it a few times, then have a short break - play a scale or something, and then go back to the few bars you played before to see if they have stuck... hope it helps! xxx

Try practising the bit you've to do - then go back and practise the run-up to it, until that is seamless and smooth too. It helps to get past the "oh, no, now the bit I had trouble with" feeling. You can learn a shortish piece from back to front - starting with the last three or four bars, then building on backwards toward the beginning!
My other tip is to go SLOWLY, so you don't make mistakes. Don't try to get it up to speed until it is secure at a slower pace, then build up the tempo gradually. I've listened to some very top musicians rehearsing, and they will do slow deliberate practice of any of the tougher sections of their music too.

I still have that problem but a lot of teachers can tell the difference between not enough practice and nervous errors.

I Agree...

Thanks for that advice... that is what my teacher has advised me to do and I do sit there and play it slowly and carefully for ages and then speed it up gradually and I get there...I continue to do this but when I get to my lesson I just can't play it as I have been at home.


I'm sure I do practice enough but maybe a little bit more and I know this is stupid but I do actually get quite nervous in front of my teacher

It's not stupid: I do too, and my teacher is one of my best friends!!

Try practising till you can play it faster than you need to, so that when you're playing in the lesson you're not at the limit of your ability but are playing within yourself.

Try getting someone to try and put you off whilst playing when you think you have it rock solid - talking to you, staring at you, whatever.

If you can try pressure games to make yourself nervous (ie, maybe "if I get it wrong this time I have to do 20 minutes more practice", or will yourself to get it right 8 times in a row, or whatever - anything which means that it's important to get it right and which applies pressure to you) you will simulate how you feel in lessons and maybe get a more accurate picture of what to expect. It's different playing when someone is watching you like a hawk!

Play more slowly in lessons. Obviously you need to get to the stage of playing up to speed in lessons, but the nerves may well make you play faster than you're used to/faster than you think you are playing for one thing, and for another a slower but accurate rendition will at least prove to your teacher that you have practised. I am sure that going into the lesson feeling that you have to prove that you have, and being aware that you have fallen apart before, only add to the pressure and make it more difficult - a vicious circle!

Hope some of this helps.

That really helped thanks sarah

Hey, I'm doing The gigue too...My teacher changes the articulation every lesson...So once i have managed to play it legato he will decide he prefers it staccato and then after a bit of both and the other way round. But I think it is good practice changing bits of pieces, probably helps with sight reading. Its a nice piece when played well though...Good Luck anyone doing Grade 5 Piano

Ben

This happens to me sometimes & it's so frustrating as when you've worked hard on something all week, you want to play it as well as you can for your teacher. Unfortunately, when we really want to do our best we usually get nervous & therefore make silly errors. My teacher is one of my closest friends & although most of the time I'm fine with her, when I've worked particularly hard on something, I make stupid mistakes that have never happened before. It's annoying but she tells me not to worry as she knows I practise enough & that I'm probably just having a bad day. I'm sorry to hear that your teacher isn't as understanding but if he keeps making you nervous by saying you're lying to him then how does he expect you to ever feel comfortable around him? It's a tricky situation as you don't want to over-step the mark with your teacher but if it were me, I'd say something like, "I know it looks as though I haven't practised but I really have worked hard this week & for some reason I make mistakes when I play for you. I think it could be because I want to do my best in front of you & that makes me feel pressured to get everything perfect." Just get your point over & maybe things will improve.

Good luck with your exam.

Lisa xxx

Hello Annetta- You don't come from Kent by any chance do you?? My tutor accuses me of not practicing all the time!! I now teach so can see both sides of how students feel when sitting with the tutor. Yes, nerves play a part. It's a psychological thing of playing alone all week and then suddenly having someone beside you watching every move you make I encourage my students to try playing pieces hands seperately to start with. Then when you're feeling confident, put it all together. Pulling the tricky bits out to practice seperately from the rest of the piece is also a good idea. I'm almost ready for Gde 7 this winter, and still find practicing hands separately works well for me. Of course, it's a personal choice and lots of students prefer to take the bull by the horns and plow straight in!
You've done very well to get as far as you have in such a short time, so be pleased with your achievements so far. Good luck to you!

No I don't come from Kent, my music teacher actually appeared on TV in April in That'll teach em, he was the music master...Mr Stanley!
It is a psycholoical thing. He pushes me because he wants me to do the best I can in the short amount of time we have and is watching my every move. I do practice hands separately first and then put it together but I obviuosly need to practice in more detail if it isnt working.

Thanks

Annetta xx

i had that too! apparently the articulation is just by the editor, and so the teachers can change it. mine loved changing it. every week. yay. got me very confused. still not really sure what i played in the exam...

May i make a suggestion to the A piece, get the clementi book!!! not only is there some loverly sonatinas in there the grade 5 piece is really nice!!!!! I did it for my grade 5 in 2004 and really enjoyed it!

Ok thanks...I will go and look at those pieces

Thanks for your advice

Annetta xx

Annetta, two bits of Sarah's advice I'll re-iterate (and bear in mind I've just done Grade 5 piano so I know exactly what you are going through)

The first is to do slow practice on a metronome not only of the bit with the issue in it, but the phrase before and the phrase after (so go through it rather than just playing it on its own). I'll give an example of how I did slow practice:

I did the Hook Rondo not the Gigue, but the same principle applies. I set it at the pace of semiquaver = 60, and worked at that pace until I could do the phrase before the problem, the problem phrase and the phrase after all without an error. Only then did I move the metronome up a notch and play it all again. And so-on moving the metronome up when I could play at the new pace.

When I got to semiquaver = 120, I changed to using quaver = 60 instead. This is the same speed, but fewer metronome clicks, and oddly enough it was quite tricky to change from one to the other! But once I was comfortable with the metronome doing quavers, I did the same move up trick.

Then at quaver = 80, I swapped to using crotchet = 40, stabilised at that and then moved up until I finally reached playing speed of crotchet = 88.

It only took me a few minutes to type that. Doing it would take a week or more - I used to pencil in how fast I'd got the metronome the previous day so I knew where to start the next day in moving the speed up.

The other thing I'd agree with is not playing it flat-out fast in a lesson. Whenever I do that, I end up with tangled fingers, regardless of how I play at home. I always play a bit slow in lessons.

Hope some of this ramble helps.

Cheers

Katyjay

That happens to me, too - strange, isn't it?


Oooh yes, very true, keeping track is so helpful. I have been known to divide a piece into several sections and keep track of how fast each one was secure... it was a good indication of which bits needed more practice... though if you do that remember you also need to remember to practice the linking sections so that you don't end up being able to play the different bits fluently but not how to join them together.

Yes that really helped thanks Katjay,

I shall do that with my metronome...something has got to work!

Thanks for all your advice

Annetta xx

Absolutely. Thanks for reminding me, I forgot to say that

Annetta - one little thing to bear in mind. If you work with a metronome, every note has to be on its beat - getting ahead of the metronome is as naughty as being behind it. It took me a while to suss this out, and it came back to bite me when I speeded up a bit.

Two brain cells are better than one You did the same for the things I missed out






Heh, I think I should bookmark this thread for good explanations of slow practice and the like!!

If you are really struggling with the work why not tell your teacher and see if he will slow down a bit. Grade five in a year and a half is quite rapid and there is no rush is there? I would spend a few months longer working at technical stuff, and improving sight reading skills and playing easier pieces perhaps. If your playing sounds as if you really have not practised it seems to me that the work is a little too hard for you at the moment. Don't let the fun go out of it by being pushed too much and then being accused of not working when plainly you have been. Good luck.

Shame the teacher can't make their mind up

Annetta

It is my experience that in performing that it is unproductive to throw too much energy at too little much effort at too little music.

I have found it better to have a range of music at various stages and spread the effort. Great for sight reading and great for improving across the board.

Don't get too obsessed with just a few bars, they should eventually settle.

Thanks that is a really good piece of advice, the only one thing I would say is that there is a bit of a rush, and no-one said it was going to be easy, because I am hoping to go off to university next september and alot of them ask for keyboard skills at a grade 5 level, I know I can play pieces at that level I just think that it is something completely different to sitting an exam.