Hey everyone!

-What's your biggest problem with practicing piano?

Just thought I'd put the question out there, so that we could help each other overcome our challenges. If we see another member's problem that we know how to solve, or have solved in the past, we can reply to their thread and help them out. Hopefully someone will do the same for our problem's as well!

We can use this thread to help out our fellow members, and also get guidance from other members too. Let?s see how many fellow members we can help! =D

Jie

My biggest problem right now is that my piano is wrapped up in blankets and polythene sheeting, as we're having the damp proof course downstairs repaired again!

Normally my issue is simply one of time and priorities - life has so many other pleasures.

This sums it up in a nutshell for me. Working full time, trying to keep fit and active, family, friends, housework, partner, other hobbies...shall I go on?

Maintaining concentration!

Biggest problem? Trying to gain (and maintain!) a firm grip and stability while playing arpeggios on black keys (i.e. G flat major and/or E flat minor) or when there are arpeggios which involve many black keys.I seem to be rather imprecise in the leaps when the surface to hit is smaller (that is, black keys).
Another even greater problem, which I guess I'll have to learn to come to terms with, is speed. It takes me ages to get things up to a decent speed even when the notes and dynamics have been learnt quite well and the piece is quite secure. A recent example is Kabalevsky's Presto (from a Sonatina in D minor, a set piece for List C in the Grade 7 2011-2012 syllabus). I can play this quite fluently at dotted crotchet 120 but the speed required is a staggering 152 (!!) and I still don't know if I'll ever be able to achieve that speed.

I suspect these two problems have to do with age (I'm 54) but since no perfectly reliable comparisons can be made because we are all different, I can live under the illusion that everybody finds these things hard.

I can't seem to maintain consistent fingering. I sit and work it out, sometimes with the help of my teacher, but at speed it all goes to the wall and I suspect this is one reason why I find it difficult to memorize things. A mistake will occur and then even if I recover in real time I'm losing concentration wondering how it happened - and then comes the inevitable collapse.

I know about starting slowly and building up but still the digits take on a life of their own in the stress of performance, dam' it.

Have you tried E flat minor (right hand) with fingering 2 1 2 3 ?

I find it really diffult to slow down the bits I can do, to accommodate eg. the changes in hand postion - so I do say 3 bars OK at a reasonable speed, then a lo-o-o-ong pause getting organised for the next section. As an example - I am working on piano grade 5 Allegro by Fiocco, and getting my LH from bar 2 to bar 3 (Dsharp Fsharp B to the E - E chord) takes me ages. Part of the problem is I try hard not to look at my fingers, but in today's lesson my teacher said sometimes that's the best option.

But it's great trying!

PatC

My biggest problem is that I'm easily convinced that playing piece A ( that I enjoy and can play) counts as practice so I have less time for struggling with pieces B, C and D (that I find hard work).
I know that I should have more self discipline and keep A for last after the hard work has been done, but often I just think "I'll just have a little play of A first...."

My biggest problem is managing practice.
If I'm working on one thing I'm not working on something else.
Obvious I know but as most of the time nothing is ever actually finished I find it very difficult to juggle. Only working on one piece at a time would be rather boring but I've not really found the balance. I try to prioritise in some way so that I've actually made some noticeable progress on whatever I've worked on and this usually means not doing at least one of the tasks my teacher has asked for.

I think my biggest problem (other than the obvious time management issues!) is that I always seem to be learning the next accompaniment for someone else rather than pieces for meee
I am building a list of things I want to play, but whether I'll get round to them is a different matter!

Playing it after a hard night shift when youve also got a house to run etc on top of other activities !!

It never sounds as good as I would like it to

That's already better than 'it never sounds as good as I think it does'.

I was going to write that. I'll just quote you instead

My biggest problem...I'm rubbish at piano hahahahahaha

On a serious note, my problem is that I don't practice properly. Time can sometimes be a bit tight too, but for the most part I don't practice smartly. I really need to get back into the habit of proper practice rather than just playing things through over and over and learning things the lazy way.

Dynamics... My p is ok, pp is just like p. f is loud, ff sounds like everything is accented.

Knowing where to start again. I'm just returning to the piano after an 18 month gap where work left me just enough time to stand still with one instrument. I chose the recorder and now I have a bit of time to get back to the piano and it's difficult to know what I should be able to do and what is unrealistic.

Choosing pieces that are too difficult for me to achieve in a sensible time frame.

That is my problem, but my gap was 25 years! At the moment I'm mostly doing scales - I figure they will help with finger strength and dexterity again....

I'd find something nice to play. There is no 'what you should be able to play'. Try some things and if you are finding them too difficult try something that looks easier.
You can add scales and exercises to help to build up mobility but I wouldn't spend a lot of time doing that. Even if you particularly enjoy that it needs building slowly.

Since I wrote on this thread (post 9) I have had something of a practice revolution. I now go straight to the most difficult bit of a piece and work on that first, instead of allowing myself the indulgence of playing some easy Mozart first "because I love it". I am also weeding out all the "easy-peasy" scales out of my scale practice cards so that I will mostly work on the more difficult scales. I knew that I should do these things before but just never got round to doing them.

So thank you J Lim, this thread has changed my life.

Biggest problem is not being able to play anything properly yet, not having enough time to learn to play properly, not being able to sightread, not being able to use the pedals properly...maybe I should stop writing and go and start practising...