i have generally been a very impatient person for practically all my life. its lyk, when i set my mind to practise, i DO practise. its just tt, after playing my piece about 3 times through and running 2 pages of scales, i start getting distracted by all the other interesting things i could be doing. then i put down my violin and bow and go wandering off. Its not until a long while l8r tt im struck by the sudden realization (a sad one, actually) that i have yet to finish practice. thats how i always lack practice at every SINGLE violin lesson i attend. its the same at piano, too. im really angry at myself but i just cant keep the impatience frm descending in. as in, i stare at the clock as it goes ticktockticktock. wad can i do to help stay focused during practice? if i just continue by pushing myself to the limit, i will just be wasting time, playing while my mind is actually somewhere else, right? so how do i overcome this problem? its been bothering me for ions now. reply please, people! thank you so much!

I try to set myself targets for practice. When I've played a piece once through I decide on a part (from one bar up to a whole phrase) that needs attention and stick at it till either I can play it or it is worse than when it started (in the second case I know it will be better tomorrow!) I find doing this with a metronome helps, I'm not sure why but it helps me keep going.
Cat

Your entire practise needs to be more focussed.

Just waffling through your pieces a few times and playing a page of scales is a rather zombified method - and one which anyone of any standard would get bored with very quickly.

I'm sure if you're honest with yourself you know what NEEDS practising - in as much as any bars in your pieces where you either slow down or stumble because they are more difficult.

Direct your practise on getting a particular thing right, so that you are able to play it without making repeated mistakes. If that turns out to be all you practise in one session then that's fine, but at least it will have been constructive. Concentrating on getting something right will also take your mind off the 'clock-watching' too.

If there are particular skills in your playing which you lack, then work on some studies which will help improve your playing. Your teacher may have recommended this already, or can recommend a book that will suit your current ability and needs.

Amanda

Sixuan, it sounds as if you don't like playing your instruments! At its simplest practise is simply playing - it doesn't have to be a set formula of scales, sight-reading, pieces, etc (although this certainly helps many people to improve).

Perhaps you could give us more information - do you genuinely dislike playing your instruments, or is it only formal practise that you shy away from? For example, I can barely resist the temptation to stop and bash out a few tunes every time I pass the piano, but formal practise requires more discipline. Does this reflect your problem, or is it playing at all that you dislike? If the latter, perhaps you should reconsider why you are playing at all. If you would genuinely rather be doing "all the other intersting things" - perhaps you should?

Sorry if this sounds harsh - of course I don't know your own situation or feelings about your musical studies. Feel free to enlighten me!

Fred

My problem is that i have things to practice for my lessons, i might play them once or twice but then other things to play that I learnt previously or other pieces I prefer!! I can't stay focused on the things my teachers asked me to learn!!

Maybe the consequences don't bother you bubblegum...

I generally found it pretty awful to have to try to drag myself through something obviously not properly prepared in a lesson.
Maybe if your teacher made you do a lesson totally devoted to scales when you didn't practice it would be helpful in motivating you

As a parent I would not continue paying for lessons if this was happening on a regular basis and as a teacher I would get to a point of questioning whether someone was spending wisely in paying me.

I COMPLETELY disagree. Your supposed to enjoy what you play. If a teacher is setting piece to play that you don't like it's the teachers fault, not the pupils... And as for forcing a pupil to play scales for a whole lesson as punishment, I'm astounded! What is the point in that except to make someone resent playing the istrument even more. Music is supposed to be enjoyable, not a chore, and playing something you don't want to play IS a chore.

QUOTE (Hand, Toe, Knee @ Dec 19 2004, 09:09 PM)

I COMPLETELY disagree. Your supposed to enjoy what you play. If a teacher is setting piece to play that you don't like it's the teachers fault, not the pupils... And as for forcing a pupil to play scales for a whole lesson as punishment, I'm astounded! What is the point in that except to make someone resent playing the istrument even more. Music is supposed to be enjoyable, not a chore, and playing something you don't want to play IS a chore.

And I completely disagree. The reason most of the population listen to and enjoy music (but don't play) is because they have neither self-discipline to learn to play, nor the inclination.

In your rant, you forgot one thing - before you can enjoy playing, you have to learn to play. That takes self-discipline even for the geniuses among board members. Ok?

We are helping the original poster by pointing this out. I agree that practice shouldn't be a catharsis but it has to be done and concentrated on, if someone wants to play. Many students need help in this area of self-discpline.

It's as simple as that. K?

QUOTE (Rhapsodin @ Dec 19 2004, 09:52 PM)

QUOTE (Hand @ Toe, Knee,Dec 19 2004, 09:09 PM) I COMPLETELY disagree. Your supposed to enjoy what you play. If a teacher is setting piece to play that you don't like it's the teachers fault, not the pupils... And as for forcing a pupil to play scales for a whole lesson as punishment, I'm astounded! What is the point in that except to make someone resent playing the istrument even more. Music is supposed to be enjoyable, not a chore, and playing something you don't want to play IS a chore. And I completely disagree. The reason most of the population listen to and enjoy music (but don't play) is because they have neither self-discipline to learn to play, nor the inclination. In your rant, you forgot one thing - before you can enjoy playing, you have to learn to play. That takes self-discipline even for the geniuses among board members. Ok? We are helping the original poster by pointing this out. I agree that practice shouldn't be a catharsis but it has to be done and concentrated on, if someone wants to play. Many students need help in this area of self-discpline. It's as simple as that. K?

I agree. If people only play pieces they like, nobody would be able to play difficult pieces. Because, a piece might always be thought as boring when you start practicing it the first time (not always). And playing technique studies (purely technique like Czerny, Hanon, etc.) is boring but you'll be very happy when you've finished it. And, if someone hates Chopin and doesn't want to play any of it, he won't ever become a good pianist, won't he?
Practice may be boring at first, especially for a new piece that you don't know, but after you master that piece you'll usually like to play it. It's a matter of self discipline. Sometimes I find I can't do anything unless play the piano or cello, so I can practice for long hours.

To Fred:

I LIKE the piano, or at least i like it once i've got the hang of the pieces REALLY well. THEN i LOVE the piano. my prob is tt i just do not have the patience to sit down fo an hour or so on end and just keep running those monotonous scales. as for the pieces, they are quite nice, just that after i've run them through say, 2 times? (they are quite long) i just lose the patience. like, i suddenly think of going to read a book or use the computer instead, get what i mean? and then i make up these stupid excuses for self-comfort to moaself, lyk its ok, u can come back and finish up l8r. and then l8r i forget and stuff. groan. yeah, so its really not that i detest practice. its just i dun have the patience, u see? roughly this is what i mean.

-sixuan

i forgot to add; its the same wif my violin. haha.

Don't be so hard all of you. I am very sympathetic towards Sixuan as there are many people like me who are not so talented and take ages to learn. I am not saying that you are not talented but I do agree with you that sometimes the temptation is to play the easy pieces that you know and never stretch yourself with the more difficult parts of learning.

I am still coming to terms with the fact that as an adult in their mid fifties things take longer and I get sooooooo impatient with myself!

Remeber that we all progress at our own pace and should never compare ourselves with others. (Easier said than done!)

QUOTE (Silver pianist @ Dec 20 2004, 09:10 AM)

Don't be so hard all of you.  I am very sympathetic towards Sixuan as there are many people like me who are not so talented and take ages to learn. I am not saying that you are not talented but I do agree with you that sometimes the temptation is to play the easy pieces that you know and never stretch yourself with the more difficult parts of learning. I am still coming to terms with the fact that as an adult in their mid fifties things take longer and I get sooooooo impatient with myself! Remeber that we all progress at our own pace and should never compare ourselves with others.  (Easier said than done!)

Dear Silver Pianist.

Yes. I think the point is - if you want to play you have to do some work. It doesn't matter how much you do or how long you spread it over, you have to do it.
What is so good about music is the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. Someone wants to play easy pieces just for pleasure, no matter how long it takes - they won't need anything like the work of a wanabe virtuoso.

In so many walks of life you meet "armchair-xxxx's" for xxxx's substitute "adventurers" "musicians" "artists" "occultists" "authors" ad naus - who are the people who'd LOVE to do it, who are happy to READ about it but who can't discipline themselves into making a start. It does take mental energy (that takes physical energy). Some people can't cope with having to make an effort.

What surprised me was the original post. I read it as "I want to do music. I can't apply myself. What do I do?" I was going to answer "Simple - forget about anything special until some motivation grabs you then follow it up."

We live in times when most people expect instant-everything for slapping
a piece of plastic on the shop counter...but in music and most creative arts it doesn't work like that. So the OP can be as impatient as he or she wants - it'll achieve nothing.

QUOTE (sixuan @ Dec 20 2004, 06:45 AM)

I LIKE the piano, or at least i like it once i've got the hang of the pieces REALLY well. THEN i LOVE the piano. my prob is tt i just do not have the patience to sit down fo an hour or so on end and just keep running those monotonous scales. as for the pieces, they are quite nice, just that after i've run them through say, 2 times? (they are quite long) i just lose the patience. like, i suddenly think of going to read  a book or use the computer instead, get what i mean?

There is a technique to practising, and others will add to what I write, and possibly disagree with some of it.

I wonder whether you listen carefully when you play through. If you do, are you always satisfied with what you hear? The general principle in our household (when all the offspring visit three of the others are performers to professional standard) is that if you make a technical mistake, you isolate the phrase and play it correctly more times than you have played it wrong. If you can't do that at the performance speed, then you slow it down (piano or bass in my case) or possibly take a smaller chunk (horn, on which slowing down may make a long phrase more difficult) until you can. Then you repeat, perhaps speeding up, until you are no longer making progress. Don't get obsessive about it: two moderate sessions, with a gap of an hour or two, are more effective than one long one.

If you can play everything accurately for notes, rhythms and coordination, you ask the questions, "Is this as interesting and affecting as I can make it without doing violence to the composer's intentions? Do I play the quiet parts quietly enough? the loud parts loudly enough? Am I interpreting the speed instructions (rit, rall, accel, più lento, più mosso, etc.) and the articulations (accents, staccato, etc.) correctly? Should there be any variation in speed, dynamic or length of notes where there is no marking in the part?* Do I put all of these together to shape the phrases, and the whole piece, in a satisfactory manner? ...".

If you think the fifth question should be answered "Yes" or any of the others "No", you have something else to work at; if you are not confident that you know the answers, you have discovered something to ask your teacher at the next lesson.

* Most well-known pieces have performance traditions, and some have recordings by the composer, that can add to the information on the copy, but don't have to be followed precisely if you can justify ignoring them.

Why does so many people keep talking about the average piano player as if they are working towards being stunning concert pianists. If u enjoy playing, then play. Why does everything in music have to be about impressing others with your talent. So what if your not that good, if you want to play something then play it! ENJOY MUSIC, it's not a competition. Wjhy do you have to be able to play a piece of music brilliantly to enjoy playing it. For almost every piano player, you play to enjoy yourself, not to please an aidience. I wish people wouldn't take music so seriously all the time.

Oh and one more thing, Rhapsodin : "before you can enjoy playing you have to learn to play" and how does playing scales for a whole lesson help you to improve?

QUOTE (Hand @ Toe, Knee,Dec 20 2004, 02:08 PM)

Why does so many people keep talking about the average piano player as if they are working towards being stunning concert pianists. If u enjoy playing, then play. Why does everything in music have to be about impressing others with your talent. So what if your not that good, if you want to play something then play it! ENJOY MUSIC, it's not a competition. Wjhy do you have to be able to play a piece of music brilliantly to enjoy playing it. For almost every piano player, you play to enjoy yourself, not to please an aidience. I wish people wouldn't take music so seriously all the time.

Some of us seem to be saying just that.

QUOTE

What is so good about music is the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. Someone wants to play easy pieces just for pleasure, no matter how long it takes - they won't need anything like the work of a wanabe virtuoso.

in agreement with Silver pianist.

But the AB Board does embrace a mix of musicians some of whom are aiming high, some lucky for them, are there. Some - not me, alas - are extremely talented. I'm of your view though the sort of things I like to play do take a bit of work - doesn't mean they're flashy or that I'm good / bad - just that if I want the enjoyment of playing this or that piece, I'll have to do some work.

Your "One more thing..." I can hardly answer knowing nothing of the circumstances. I'll bet we agree...if on the whimsy of a teacher then it'll do no more than improve their scale-playing. But I can't cope with teachers who do nothing more than supervise practice. No need to play a scale in a lesson more than getting all aspects of playing it right. .. With some students that might take a whole lesson I suppose.

Very true, and I should have been more specific. Someone earlier had said something about students not practicing, so the teacher should make them play scales for a whole lesson as punishment for wasting the teachers time and parents money... can't really think of a bigger waste of parents money to be honest

Sixuan,

I understand. An hour of solid technical work can be very daunting! Perhaps the answer is to simply keep track of what you have practised (perhaps by keeping a list of your scales, and ticking each off as you do it) - and popping back to the piano/violin throughout the day as you feel like it. If I do all my scales in one go, I often find the first 15 or so go fine, but after that I get bored and distracted and start to go faster and make mistakes. The answer, I think, is NOT to try and do it all at once. Many people on this board have suggested that 6 lots of ten minutes practise is as valuable as/more valuable than one solid hour.

Another suggestion, if you only want to do a tiny bit of practise, is to limit yourself to only doing the scale/phrase or whatever that is most difficult for you, as this obviously needs the most practise. The worst kind of practise (of which I have been guilty!) is simply to play through everything once or twice at full speed without stopping to work over problems. This way, you will practise playing it wrong, and learn it wrong, and the results of all your hard work will be very disheartening. Better to practise one or two 8-bar phrases to perfection, than an entire piece to a mediocre standard with problems.

Hope this helps. Good luck with your practising - patience may come in time, as you see the results of your work. In the mean time enjoy yourself!

Fred

QUOTE (Fred @ Dec 20 2004, 04:30 PM)

Sixuan, I understand. An hour of solid technical work can be very daunting! Perhaps the answer is to simply keep track of what you have practised (perhaps by keeping a list of your scales, and ticking each off as you do it) - and popping back to the piano/violin throughout the day as you feel like it. If I do all my scales in one go, I often find the first 15 or so go fine, but after that I get bored and distracted and start to go faster and make mistakes. The answer, I think, is NOT to try and do it all at once. Many people on this board have suggested that 6 lots of ten minutes practise is as valuable as/more valuable than one solid hour. Another suggestion, if you only want to do a tiny bit of practise, is to limit yourself to only doing the scale/phrase or whatever that is most difficult for you, as this obviously needs the most practise. The worst kind of practise (of which I have been guilty!) is simply to play through everything once or twice at full speed without stopping to work over problems. This way, you will practise playing it wrong, and learn it wrong, and the results of all your hard work will be very disheartening. Better to practise one or two 8-bar phrases to perfection, than an entire piece to a mediocre standard with problems. Hope this helps. Good luck with your practising - patience may come in time, as you see the results of your work. In the mean time enjoy yourself! Fred

Well put !!

I'm still amazed at how many times I see the question "How should I practice?" on these boards. (Ha-ha-ha - I've asked but in relation to a particular technical problem, tentatively offering my solution).

Either some teachers are plain crooked (or don't know how to teach) if they can't guide their students...
If the student is self-teaching then surely it's the things that need most attention that should be practiced the most, re-evaluated as they go along.

I subscribe to a basic belief that there is no such thing as a bad student, only a bad teacher, but I admit this is a mere cliché and won't work in 100% of cases. There probably are those students who can't take in simple instructions / guidelines in which case asking on this board won't help unless they're actually comparing advice here with that of their teachers - fair enough.

And there are those making small-talk no doubt.

I am the person who came up with the idea of a whole lesson on scales if no work was prepared (just to save you looking back).
Could just a easily be a whole lesson on sight reading, or a whole lesson on the first 2 bars of whatever was meant to have been practiced at home.
I have heard of one teacher who, fed up with pupils arriving for lessons and happily announcing their lack of practice, just sent them home until they had done some. There are others who give a warning and then stop lessons if the warning is not acted upon.
Sometimes children do need a wake up call!
Personally I always found that just messing up in a lesson because of not enough practice was bad enough to get me back on track. I would feel really uncomfortable with the consequences of my action and so try to avoid it happening again if I could.

Rhapsodin mentioned teachers just supervising practice. Although this is what tends to happen in the beginning as you train people to work more independantly it is not good to be having to teach like that because someone didn't bother to do anything between lessons (and I know the difference between real problems because of the way life sometimes is unpredictable and just not bothering).

A whole lesson of scales? yep thats already happened to me once by my piano teacher and i have to say it worked cos my piano teacher is really strict and i found that out through this and it worked becuase i got 18/21 for my exam!!
I don't have quite as much motivation for the flute though!!

k thanks everyone for their responses. im a little muddle-headed now after all the varying replies. lyk dun take it all so seriously, and why am i even learning music and i need techniques in practice and blahblahblah. well, all i can say is i really dunno as much as i think i do. lyk i think yup, i really should start working on the hard parts. yeah, but tts gonna take a long time to adjust to. but yup, gotta try. wadeverr. anyway, really hope i can mend my problems. --.-- ah wells. my problems, my solutions. thanks everyone, tho.

oh btw, its definitely EASIER SAID THAN DONE!!!!! so many of u keep insisting tt as long as there is technique incorporated in ur practice sessions, it'll all work out. YEAH RIGHT, IN THE FIRST PLACE, THAT iSN'T SUCH AN EASY FEAT!!!!!!!!

You're wasting people's time here, winding em up. Suggest you change your ID. I won't waste any more time on your nonsense.

If you can't be bothered to learn music, try to learn english if you're going to message an english site. Get yourself sorted out.
Cheers.

QUOTE (kenm @ Dec 20 2004, 11:35 AM)

if you make a technical mistake, you isolate the phrase and play it correctly more times than you have played it wrong. If you can't do that at the performance speed, then you slow it down (piano or bass in my case) or possibly take a smaller chunk (horn, on which slowing down may make a long phrase more difficult) until you can. Then you repeat, perhaps speeding up, until you are no longer making progress. Don't get obsessive about it: two moderate sessions, with a gap of an hour or two, are more effective than one long one.

better still, isolate the phrases that are likely to give problems, and play them slow to start with, and ACCURATELY!, then you won't give yourself a chance to learn them wrong.

as to the whole playing scales/doing technique/learning to enjoy music... if you practice technical stuff in a wise way, then you will see your progress, and technical practice becomes rewarding. the technical work will also help you when you come to pieces... so much music is based on scales, arpeggios, etc, if you know your technical stuff really well, you then have a huge headstart on those pieces. for flute, for me, this means doing tonal work, scales and arpeggios, articulartion, breathing exercises... etc etc... and when I come to play a piece, all the stuff I've learned in technical work is brought to bear on that piece.

For the piano I'd guess you need to practice scales and arpeggios, different articulations (staccato, legato)... different dynamics. Scales may not be fun (though you can make them so with imagination) but they will help make other things fun.

Those technical things will help you play the fun stuff better, it's as simple as that. If I were to start trying to learn a piece that was beyond my technical capability, I would struggle and strain and get nowehere fast. Eventually I would get to know it, but it would be hard.

If I learn the technical side first, and then go to that piece - suddenly all those scale passages look easy, the tone in my top register soars, the crazy articulations are less crazy than the ones I was practising the other day... hey presto, that piece is a pleasure to learn. THAT is why learning technical stuff is necessary... because that is what makes the fun stuff FUN! Otherwise even the nicest piece can turn into one technical battleground where you don't know which way is up. And though I ain't much of a pianist, I know things aren't that different for the piano than the flute when it comes to knowing, understanding, and being able to use the mechanics, techniques, etc fo your chosen instrument.

Like someone said before, there isn't a short cut... or actually, there is, and technical stuff is IT. LOL. If you choose the "short cut" of doing pieces and ignoring scales, you're making life harder for yourself. If you know your scales etc brilliantly, then you are making life easier for yourself. If you learn how to practice intelligently, you will progress faster, learn better, and enjoy yourself more... not to mention the satisfaction of ending a practice session knowing you are a better instrumentalist than when it started.

QUOTE

if you practice technical stuff in a wise way, then you will see your progress, and technical practice becomes rewarding

I can agree to this, from the beginning of the Xmas holidays I had decided I wanted to improve faster, and so would change my approach to practicing. Before, my practice was when I felt I had to and was either me whizzing through my scales and playing my pieces or setting myself an hour of work, where I would do technical exercises for 40 minutes and my pieces for 20. This didn't help as I would go through my exercises bookat get bored and the practice would become a chore. So, after one particularly bad practice, and several experiments (how I learnt best), I have now made a new practice regieme which incorporates technical exercises, pieces, tuning, sight-reading and I am not getting fed up. I can now find I can do an hour of practice at a time, but whenever I have some time which I think I can be used more effeciently I go and practice my flute. I agree that starting new practice regiemes are the hardest but once you see the benefits you won't want to stop