So there's this piece that OH and I used to play when we were noodling around for fun. I was probably murdering the music but it was fun.

Fast forwards a few months - it's become one of my lesson pieces as I wanted to do it justice. So we've been working on the piece for a couple of weeks and it's driving me nuts! It opens with an up-bow (G string) slur, B-D then a down-bow E. Can I get that smooth? Can I heck as like! It doesn't seem to matter how smooth I get it in the lesson it goes again five minutes after teacher drives off.

So last lesson we get round to the piece and I completely muck it up. Cue feelings of despair and frustration and that teacher will think I never practice and out come the tears. I'm sobbing into my hanky, when teacher says "Stop wasting that emotion on your hanky, woman, and pour it into your playing!" He was insistent enough that I did as I was told and though I say so myself there were (brief) moments where it was like someone else was playing. The last note took my breath away - it was like I had poured my emotions into the strings.

Afterwards - he apologised for being so pushy (he knew I could take it, but it was nice that he did explain his motivation for pushing me when I wanted to go and hide). But he was right to push though - when I'd stopped sniffling long enough to play the effect was amazing - I sounded like a real player who can channel emotion into a piece rather than just play the notes.

Of course I haven't replicated that and I'm still getting tense over the up bow, and maybe it wouldn't work for everyone, but it's really changed they way I view my lesson tears now. I've decided to embrace them as a learning tool rather than feeling silly.

Sorry if this is a bit of a ramble - I guess I'm just curious about how other players get from playing the notes to turning a piece into music which conveys their passion?

I love what your teacher said!
But it worked!
Learning is emotional and music is emotional so it stands to reason that there can be fireworks, but that it can also be used in a proactive way - if you (and your teacher) can cope with the trauma!
It takes me back to the days when I'd get so het up when it didn't work, tantrums, tears the lot. Then I'd pick up my stupid piece of wood and me and it would suddenly gel and all the music would spill out

Of course I'm ever so calm and sensible in these situations now

Hi BadStrad, i think you where very brave writing this as obviously very emotional for you. I am also an adult learner, but i have never cried in a lesson ---- i am not the type to cry! Well done on getting it really how you wanted it. Perhaps it might be worth trying to find out what exactly you do differently when the teacher is there compared to when he is not there. Just a thought!

you ask about how others do this --- turning notes into actual music. Its difficult to answer, as i don't cry (like i said), but maybe just listen to the actual music, rather than just a collection of notes. I do try to put feeling into things, again, not just play notes ---- but put feelings into my arm ---- not sure if that makes sense

Actually feel the bow, like when i play the piano i feel the keys and try and transfer feelings.


All very clear i am sure, well, you did ask!!

The only thing is it could be a bit tiring if you have to cry every time you play the violin.

Hopefully I'll learn how to channel my emotions without bursting into tears.

And strangely writing about it seems to have helped. I played the piece this afternoon and got the opening spot on! Fluffed it a few times too, but it's definitely improving. Yeah!

when I read the title of the thread I thought 'AH! HERE WE GO! another poor soul in the EXACT same dilemma as me!'

but no

my dilemma has been different.... and I can put emotions alright in my pieces, that is not my problem, my problem is that I can't play to begin with and I have a 'rotten' self esteem (or I have none at all shall I say)

I have hopefully found a solution with my teacher to try and have 'happier' times in lessons as the tears and horrible sad times in lessons were really getting me down too much and it's been much better lately, maybe teacher and I have found a way to dry those tears away (fingers crossed! )

poor teacher, how he copes with me I don't know, if I was him I would have overdosed on valium by now!

WOW, so that's great isn't it. Yes, sometimes i think telling some one does help, and even some times get another view point, as i expect you know. Well done!

A few years ago, I went through a really rough patch (won't go into details) and I was so numb with grief that I didn't care about anything and had literally switched off.

At that time, the only outlet I had was music because I had to pretend to everyone else that everything was ok when it wasn't and it became something that kept me going when I just wanted the world to stop.

During that period, both of my teachers (who I hadn't told what was going on) commented that my playing had developed and gone to a different level and I'm positive that it was because my brain had shut down and my body had taken over.

The problem I have now is that my brain won't shut down and my pieces are boring and clinical. In my last lesson, my brain did shut down (I was feeling quite low that day) and I did one of my exam pieces and it is the BEST I have ever played. Afterwards I looked at my teacher in complete shock and they looked at me and said "OMG, that was beautiful".

Now all I have to do now is to find a way to switch off during the exam!

I've only ever had a few tears in private when practising and they were tears of frustration. The pressure I was putting on myself when I started the violin a few years ago was the same pressure I put myself under when aiming to be a professional musician in my teens (on another instrument).

Then I took an entire year off to finish my degree and now I have removed that 'burdon' of perfectionism my playing has become something that makes me smile with joy.... NOT because I'm any good, but because I'm realistic. If I feel tears of frustration I put it away and come back later and the emotion is much healthier.

Now the pressure is off I find the emotion much more accessible because I'm not strangling it with self-criticism and self-doubt! If I hear that little voice saying "you're no good at this" I just think "so what" and playing becomes so much more fun.

It's the tiny little achievements that make me grin too - like you starting your piece beautifully - DOESN'T that feel BRILLIANT!!??? And once you've done it once it does get EASIER. Every technical improvement accesses more emotion: I have a stiff index finger so vibrato is tricky with it but as it improves it makes me feel more like a 'real' player because I can put emotion into a single note - that feeling someone else is playing!

I'm by no means overconfident, if anything I am still too shy and nervous but I've swapped tears for smiles and I reckon THAT has improved my playing no end. Now when I play a piece I picture it perfect in my head and the emotion just flows!



oh, just a thought... upgrading my viola to something fabulously more beautiful has accessed a far greater range of emotion because the instrument itself is capable of far greater subtleties and musical 'colours'.

p.p.s... I'm still rubbish

When I was little I often used to cry and wail and throw a temper tantrum during my practice sessions. My parents discussed my violin teacher and he asked, "Was she upset upset or angry upset?" and my Mum said "angry upset". He said "That's ok then".
He went on to say that if I was upset upset then I should be told to take a break from the practice and do something else. On the other hand he reckoned that angry upset was a good thing in small doses and that if I was angry upset I should be encouraged to channel the anger into the practise.
My anger was all to do with frustration at knowing what I wanted to be able to do but not being able to do it yet.

I don't do angry upset any more when I'm practising - I just get on with it - but I'm old now and I've have years of angry practice behind me.

So go on people, scream and wail and cry as much as you like!

Thanks for the replies. It's so great to read how other players are dealing with the emotional side of playing.

I think there is definitely something in the idea of switching of the conscious control and letting the body/feelings have more of a free rein. It definitely seems to be the case from what I've been reading here.

I guess one thing I could try is to do focussed attentive work on scales and exercises and on the bars of my pieces that need work (kind of like going to the gym). Then take a few minutes off to think about the emotion of the piece - what I want to channel into it and then just go for it (like running down the beach and into the sea).

Then maybe over time those two extremes will come together. Hmm - now I think of it I'm sure my teacher suggested something along those lines about six months back. Maybe I should listen more instead of weeping and wailing. Duh!

This will sound strange, but I was glad to read this! I have cried twice in my lessons, on both occasions at the (to me, at the time) utter despair of having left learning to play the classical guitar "too late" to be "any good", and the feeling that it is my primary way of expressing myself and letting people "know who I am", yet I know don't "move in the right circles" to be able to share that feeling with anyone else. Before anyone else says it, I totally hear how pathetic that sounds! But on both occasions, my teacher was great about it. I don't plan to do it again, but if it did happen, it would be a sympton of my strength of feeling about music, and I would rather cry than feel dead from the neck up! Cry away!

whenever I cry I am 'upset upset' NOT 'angry upset' ie: 'I am not good, I was not born to ever be able to be good on the violin, why am I fooling myself....what an idiot to ever think I could do this....and blah blah blah Feeling 'miserable' for myself, wanting someone (I think it's my teacher in this case), to hold my hand, give me a hug and tell me 'it's ok jo, don't worry YOU ARE ok, YOU ARE good, you CAN do this, I BELIEVE IN YOU...there there

what an idiot I am! why do I keep getting into this state of mind over and over again? then I come out of it/snap out of it and I am ok again, then I get back into it and then I come out of it and then back into it, like a spinning circle and I keep wondering will it ever end???? whenever I come out of it I am DREADING for the day I will get back into the emotional trap again as I have been in and out of it a few times, how do I stop going back into it? it's like some stupid addiction! geeeeeeee! I am beginning to really dislike myself, well, not really myself but this vicious mental cycle of self destruction!

I know I have officially gone 'psycho'

Hi Pluckygirl. I totally sympathise with the "moving in right circles" in that where I used to live there are something like four or five amateur orchestra's and weekend music schools and the like. Here in Outer-sticksville there are two orchestras - about an hour's drive away, each and they only take grade 7+ players - which I'm definitely not. I'm just lucky that I have my OH and teacher to talk to and the forum for additional support as an adult learner.

I also feel the upset of being "too old" or starting "too late" to be any good, and I know there are lots of other forumites who feel the same so I'm sure no one here would think you pathetic. There are also plenty of examples here of people who've made huge progress in their musical lives to be inspired by. I don't know where you are but if you can get to any of the forum adult learner days I would highly recommend going alone. I did and it was wonderful to feel the support of the other learners and to have a chance to perform in a supportive environment.

As for crying - I also agree - better to have some feelings than to feel nothing and have nothing to put into the music.