I can never seem to play without mistakes and it really annoys me. Once I've made one little tiny slip the whole piece falls apart for some reason. I really need to sort it because I can't keep going on making mistakes because it obviously doesn't sound brill..and it gets on my nerves! Especially in performances I've done in school concerts, once I've made one mistake I am ok for a few bars and they I do loads more obvious ones. I get away with it mostly because 99% of the people listening aren't musical! But I won't at uni.

Is it the way I prepare and practice, nerves or experience or something else?! Iw want to be able to play and perform with confidence that a mistake is going to be rare.

Suggestions?!

Possibly a combination of the above. Are you talking about piano, sax, clarinet or flute? Most of us are nervous performing - its only natural. If you're nervous and make a mistake it will make you more nervous so there are more mistakes and so on. Its a matter of discipline in a way to be able to ignore a mistake and continue but its something we need to do - just like in sight-reading. A secure technique will also help, don't forget in some of your instruments you have taken a considerable short cut. Don't worry too much Nat, I'm sure your new teacher(s) will sort you out at uni.

I think that you're seeing mistakes as more important than they are, so that when you make one you become stressed and more likely to make others.

Everyone makes mistakes. If you go to live performances and listen very closely you'll spot loads. But normally we don't notice them, because being mistake-free is not the most important thing about a good, memorable performance.

The way to deal with them is to ignore them. Practise keeping going through mistakes, and leave them behind. That bit is over. It's what is to come that matters; you can't change what has been.

As someone once said, 'Play the music, not the notes'.

I think this may be the most important thing for you to try focusing on.

I suspect that it could be your frustration with the mistake that gets in the way of the next few notes, then the next few bars and so on. If you can concentrate on riding over the slips it might be a way forward. No promises mind - but it's worth a try.

If you are simply making too many mistakes to continue, it could be that you are playing just a fraction too quickly. If you push the speed a bit too soon it can actually set you back.

Sometimes something that seems like a massive mistake to you may be unnoticeable - I know because I often record recitals, and sometimes I've felt like I've made a complete ######-up yet on the recording you scarcely notice it - often a split second and then it's gone. Everyone makes the odd mistake here and there - it's whether or not you recover from it that makes the difference. I've even got a recording of Maurizio Pollini - wow!!- except that there's one splat in the middle of his Chopin Etude in C sharp minor and I look out for it every time as it makes me feel good to hear it!! So take heart - even my concert pianist piano teacher admits to the occasional bluff!

I agree with everything said, it's nothing to do with you making mistakes (everyone does) but its how you deal with it and how it affects the overall performance. The irony being, the less experienced performers tend to be more perfectionist to the point where they will breakdown/lose concentration at the slightest of errors. I had a pupil who would actively show frustration during his performances, grunting and groaning and stopping when he made the slightest of slips. As an exercise, I asked him to just play the piece without any emotional reaction while I recorded him. He was surprised to hear how unnoticeable those slips were when he didn't let them affect him and he eventually went on to get a distinction at Grade 7.
Obviously, you have to be able to distinguish the difference between performance slips during a piece that is learnt and mistakes that are being made due to technical problems and/or unlearnt music. It is determining the distinction between the two that can cause problems and I suppose for a pupil, constantly used to having their playing scrutinised, it must be difficult for them to seperate the two in their own minds and in their playing. That's one of the things that we, as teachers, are there for aren't we?

Gae

I think you've hit the nail on the head there. Personally, this may seem like an odd comparision but its literally how i deal with memory lapses / mistakes etc in performances. Think of performing like life. You go through life, make many mistakes but good things still happen. So, with a piece, yup I make a mistake, I falter, I have a memory lapse, whatever. But I know people will understand because I'm only human, so I concentrate on instantly letting it go, putting it behind me and moving on .... Anybody else think like that?

Oooo... the times I've been in bother for doing that....

'What did you stop for?' is a killer question.

Was very pleased with myself when a momentary panic DIDN'T throw me at the adult learners concert. I think most people wouldn't have noticed...

Thanks for all the comments. Mainly piano, I'm awful with that. I'm surprisingly ok with performing sax, but when it comes to piano...one mistake and that's it.

Nat, I have never performed anything note-perfectly in my life.

In different threads on these forums, people have been very kind about examples of my playing they heard via my website. These extracts come from my promo cd, which is a recording of a live recital I gave in Lincoln a few years ago.

My recital, hence my cd, hence my website extracts, are full of bloopers.

Monumentally huge bloopers. Nobody seems to mind.

The greatest live performances I have sat through have been full of bloopers. I have described them in earlier threads, so will not do so again.

The mistakes we make do not matter. It is what we do about them that counts.

When we perform, our job is not to play all the right notes; this is impossible. Our job is to communicate the music to our audience. The next bit sounds harsh. I promise I do not mean it unkindly. Allowing ourselves to fall apart after a few insignificant wrong notes is childish self-indulgence. Children do this. Adult performers do not allow it to happen.

How do we stop it happening? 2 things, really:
1) Practise and preparation. We cannot expect to play fluently in public anything we cannot do in private. We need such total control over the technical aspects of the music we are playing that mistakes come as a surprise, not as the norm. That's the theory, anyway, but I have never achieved this, so:
2) We give ourselves permission to make mistakes. We accept that technical perfection can only be achieved with editing in the recording studios. We accept that: a) most people cannot tell, and therefore do not care, when we hit wrong notes b ) those that can tell sympathise; c) the least significant mistake we can make is to hit a wrong note

Here is Steve's descending order of performers' musical crimes:
3) Unmusical playing - unbearable.
2) Rhythm mistakes - alter the character of the music to an unacceptable degree.
1) Wrong notes - so join the rest of the human race.

Hope this helps.

Steve

I quite agree - I once had a nerve-racking few minutes before going on to perform a particular Rachmaninov prelude half way through a full-length recital. For some reason I had problems memorizing this one piece - it seemed so hit and miss even after months of practice, whereas everything else was solid memory-wise. In the end I gave myself permission to fail (silly as that sounds!) - after all, if I totally messed up I could always joke about my memory not being what it was and excuse myself to fetch the music from behind the stage. Guess what? Best memory performance of that piece ever! But I think the secret was that permission to fail.

Whenever I'm playing at a concert i find that i don't play perfectly but am less inclined to make drastic mistakes...if i make one, im panicking in my head but my fingers just carry on playing without me...weird...and at my last concert i played without mistakes but was shaking before and afterwards!

This is absolutely the basis of everything we do, I have taken on Students from other teachers who were unable to complete a piece of music because they stopped every time they hit a wrong note, because the previous teacher stopped them and pointed it out. Consequently their playing was unmusical and mechanical because they were on edge thinking 'I'm not going to get through this'.

Relax, and perform the music.

Practise slowly so you can practise correctly - that way you won't keep practising your mistakes. The source of much mistake-making is because we keep practising them!

Violinia