...when it feels like your pieces will never be good enough, your playing sounds terrible, you feel like you're not getting anywhere, practicing feels like a chore. How do you deal with this? Play other non-exam pieces for a bit, listen to music rather than practicing, study for Viva Voce (for diplomas), practice another instrument... what are your ideas?

I usually either play through one of the pieces that I know well and love just to remind myself how much fun playing can be, or, walk away from the instrument for 24hours or so. Unless the performance is so close there isn't time to take a break I've never found forcing myself to practise on days when I'm really not into it worth the pain and heartache.

When I was a music student I didn't know the answer to this, I'd just get dragged down by it and get depressed. It took a few years to learn that studying music was about ups and downs and that bad days would eventually end.

Now, I just go and do something else to try and forget about it for a bit.

Hi Lilly,
I have two ways with dealing with this. If I'm REALLY not in the mood, or struggling with something, I'll take some time away from it and play things I know I can play well, or at least more easily, and also some of the pieces from a year ago that I used to struggle with. I find the sense of achievement from feeling how much easier those pieces are (now) a motivator to keep going. Sometimes I'll even feel that I might spend a bit of time on the troublesome piece during that session, but it might be the next or the day after. What ever I'm practicing or playing I always make sure I finish a session with a piece I enjoy and can play comfortably, so that I have positive associations with playing after I put my violin back on its stand.

If I'm just feeling a bit "meh" and don't feel like playing I imagine that I'm a really good violinist, and must, therefore have the discipline to play no matter how badly I feel mood wise as people have paid for their tickets. I suppose that's a mind trick to help me create the self discipline to practice when I don't feel like it, but it seems to work.

Cheers.

I usually take a couple of days away from the piece that's giving me the most trouble and play something else for fun for a couple of days. I usually find having that 48 hours or so away actually let's my mind absorb whatever I was learning and I can play it better having had a break.
PSL

No. It just never happens. Yes I sound terrible sometimes, but not always, I know that on average I am improving. Practicing is always a joy, never a chore. Feeling discouraged - it just doesn't happen. I know that I'll never be a Horowitz or a Rubinstein (or Argerich or Hamelin) ... but now and again I'll play better than I thought I ever could, and move someone, and reveal to them something of the beauty and power that is in the music that we are so lucky to have at our fingertips. And that is enough.

That was very well said MadTom. It's good to be reminded why we became so passionate about music to begin with. Thanks

I also take time out - just playing something fun (musical sing-alongs are great for a bit of a laugh) for a bit and if I still don't feel like it, then I just take a break until I feel like practising again -- see friends, catch a film etc (I never feel guilty about not practising, though; I didn't touch the piano for about 3 weeks after coming back from Chets.)

Another thing I do is to play really self-indulgently - whatever the heck I want, even if it's cheesy. Sometimes I just need to feel like I'm not practicing, but playing things that sound nice and that I know I won't have to work hard to play. This is where stuff like Cantonese songs played by ear comes in, or Disney tunes (I'm not kidding), Christmas carols, etc.

hmm, can I ever show my face at a forum event now =D oops too late. got one this Saturday.

Talk to my musical friends and to my teachers.
Between them they put me straight.

Go for a walk, or a run. Get some space to let the subconscious unscramble what the conscious mind has been trying so hard to do.

En route have stern (or gentle, depending on my fragility) talking to self along the lines of being self-critical but not self-destructive. Acknowledge that the more I learn the more I will appreciate how much more there is that can still be learnt. Accept I am a work in progress and vow not to hate myself for failing to achieve perfection.

Or if that fails, jog to cafe and buy big sticky bun.

I am a lucky person in that I rarely get discouraged. But I do get immensely frustrated at times when my clarinet doesn't understand what my fingers are asking.

Sometimes I turn to a well loved piece but my usual approach, encouraged by my teacher, is to take the tempo back to very slow, get every note and articulation right and gradually increase tempo until I have real improvement - then my frustration evaporates and this becomes a new loved piece.

I have to say, it took appassionata a very long time to get me to play so slowly because I am also impatient and don't find it easy to do this. But I now know the benefit from experience and it has helped tremendously.

But if I really do get p****d off then a good walk freshens the grey cells and my next practice is with new spirit.

well, I never feel like practicing is a chore, I have been practicing daily now for a year and a half I now feel 'lost' if I don't pick up the violin every day, I just HAVE TO! even if it's just a quick 30 minutes scales/arpeggios I just have to stroke my little darling then I sleep better

but I do get frustrated with myself and my slow progress (or what seems to me slow anyway) with learning/refining pieces and sometimes I get to a point I just have to 'let them go', in the past I have decided to let them go not just for a week but 'for good' ie to be picked up again in 6 monhts or a year when my technique has improved.
Of course one can't do this if it's an exam piece you are trying to perfect, in that case I'd let it rest for a day or 2 instead.

I would just dust off all my troubles and tell myself "i'm wrong, I can do this, I can do this, I know I can".


I know that may makes me sound a bit loopy mind ...


I hope you feel better soon