This is somewhat related to practice I guess - although it seems futile. When I get to my lesson sometimes it seems to me as if I never practiced at all - so I must not be practicing in a constructive manner.

It is frustrating to spend 1 1/2 - 2 hours doing scales, hannon, plus chopin's easy waltz in a minor and an old piece loch lomond (I usually play this piece without to much trouble at home) than comes the lesson and I screw up. Chopin is new and seems to be coming along. Now starting Fur Elise (spelling is off) but it's late.


I tried using a tape recorder, but find it is distracting. There are times when I feel like walking away from this - that I'll never, never do. Anyway, does anyone out there go through this and what did you do to solve this craziness. Thanks.

Hi Suzym

I've just started the piano but have played classical guitar for the last 3 years. Sometimes it's good to just not touch the instrument for a week and only concentrate on the mental aspects of playing. I felt this to help at times and even felt like an improvement was noticed by taking a couple of days off.
Hope this will help.

Peter

Hi SuzyM,

I go through this, too, although I'm afraid I haven't found a magic answer yet. What does help, though, is that my teacher is very sympathetic and says it is totally normal. She says there are a few people who perform better in front of an audience (and your teacher, however personal and familiar, and however you don't think s/he makes you nervous, is still an audience), but most of us perform worse.

I find the first time each lesson I play a piece through for my teacher to listen to I make loads of slips, which she tactfully ignores. Then she makes suggestions for parts that could be improved (ignoring the slips - more pianissimo here, keep the tempo even in this part, sort of thing). Then we go over some phrases in detail to work on those specifics. Then I play it again - and because I am now concentrating on incorporating the new information, or maybe because I've played badly and nobody died, I don't get nervous and slip up like before.

My teacher says when you practise a piece the first time you play it bits will go wrong, then you'll work on it a few times and it will be better. Then the next practise session it will seem all wrong again - but the improvement will come more quickly. And so on, until eventually you can play it perfectly first time. Me, I have yet to reach this point! But I live in hope.

The other thing I would say is it seems like you're doing a huge amount of work with scales, Hanon and pieces every day. Maybe if you alternated pieces one day and scales/technical work the next your mind would have time to absorb what you'd learned from pieces, and your muscles would have time to recover from exercises. I seem to remember hearing that even athletes usually don't work every single day - bodies and minds need rest. I hope you get the improvement you're looking for - if you find the holy grail, let me know!

Fred x

No, Suzym, don't walk away from it.

things often get worse before they get better and practicing music is in that league. fact is youre now better at some of these pieces than a week after you started but youre more self-critical about the details.

be patient with yourself, don't get stressed with practice, if anything, go back to a slower speed and tidy things up in a relaxed way.

explain the problem to your teacher in your sincerest way and seek her support. may be the pressure of having a lesson and having to show what you done is the root.

try to learn fur elise so you can play it from memory or almost.
takes courage at first. do the first two bars then the next two and maybe a couple more. once you can play from memory you throw yourself into it, no worry about having to read sheet music. it won't happen overnight and keep the music there in case you get stuck but it's worth the try. and relax!

I don't know Loch Lomond (is it "I'll Take the high road...?") but Chopin's walz in A minor must be a *lot* harder than Fur Elise!! Fur Elise is a tough grade 4, whilst the Chopin Walz must be grade 6 / 7???

I think the basic problem is that playing the piano is fundementally a difficult thing to do, and it takes enormous amounts of time and effort to be able to do it well. It is never going to be easy!!!

However, it may be that pieces which interest you musically are too hard for you to play, but that pieces that are easy enough for you to play don't interest you musically. I was like that, and spent a long time struggling with pieces that were too hard for me.

I'm currently practising for Trinity Board 1st Concert certificate, which is supposed to be an exam taken between grade 5 and grade 6. You get a much longer list of pieces to choose from but have to present them as a concert perfomance, with spoken intoductions. I recon it's the best thing I ever did for my piano playing because it forced me to put all my effort into playing 4 pieces that were all at about the right standard for me. I've been realy surprised how much I enjoy playing pieces that I can actually learn quite quickly, feel as if I've "caught up with myself" and now find I like stuff that is at a standard that I can actually play.

If I'd have been left to my own devises I would probably have been struggling with much harder things.

Why don't you ask you teacher to play through a load of pieces at grade 4 / 5 level (same as Fur Elise) and try to find some that really grab your attention. If you like Chopin, you may respond well to Satie's gnossiennes, which are pure piano music with very strange haunting meoldies but not that hard.

I've just begun taping all my practice sessions. I'm hoping it helps me perform a little better. At least maybe I'll "nail" one piece and can save it.

I've been with the same teacher for 3 years and still go through this. He kindly leaves the room in the beginning (making some lame excuse) to let me warm up. If he returns half way through a piece I'll inevitably fumble....

I find starting the lesson with an exercise that doesn't require as much musicality sometimes helps the jitters and when I'm ready to play a piece it sometimes goes better.

Thankyou everyone for your great advice and most of all your support. It helps to know that others have/are going through the same thing.

I really enjoy learning the Chopin and Beethoven pieces - never ever thought I'd be doing this when I first sat down at the piano approx. 4-5 years ago.

The idea of alternating scales, hanon, arpeggions and all the fun stuff is a good idea and I'll give it a try. I mentioned to my teacher yesterday that I didn't have the same trouble with Loch Lomond at home and didn't understand why I did when taking a lesson. She said "I know". Guess it must come with the territory.

I'm not familiar with the grading system, grade 4,5.6 - does that refer to the number of years spent studying music?

Well, for some it may well do, but it refers to the Associated Board's exam system. Candidates learning instruments can enter graded exams at levels 1-8 (arranged by difficulty), as well as a prep test (pre-grade one), and the post-grade eight diplomas. So, the pieces on grade 1 you would find easy and the diplomas go to about as hard as it gets at the highest level. You can find info about them, along with syllabuses listing what pieces can be played at each level, by clicking the "Exams" tab on the front page of this website: www.abrsm.org.

From what you've said, I'd guess you're about grade 6 level, but it's hard to tell as you're playing a range of pieces of varying difficulty and we've never heard you play. I took my grade 6 exam recently and am nervously awaiting results . I'm now learning an uber-hard (I optimistically suspect diploma level ) Schumann Impromptu, which is way above my "grade" level, but very exciting to learn. I agree, it's wonderful to be able to tackle the really rich pieces of music like this - just a shame they're so hard! Still, if they were easy everyone would be doing it and there'd be no challenge.