well-temperedforum.groupee.net The Well-Tempered Forum The Soundboard What do you do when nothing but carp comes from your fingers?|
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high maintenance What Life?  |
When your best just isn't good enough - when you make mistake after mistake after mistake - when you lose your place - when something you've played dozens of times falls apart...what the heck do you do??
Do you slog onward, or stop? I have had this type of session now for two days in a row - I'm trying out Chopin's C# minor waltz - something I can read, but my fingers won't oblige me. So I switch to something familiar and the same thing happens. It's so frustrating and self-defeating. What do you do??? 
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Foregoing Practicing to Post Beatification Candidate  |
Stop playing. Go have a Scotch.
Try again tomorrow.  We all have those days (or series of them).
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Gadfly |
I like "Go Tell Aunt Rhody", "Mary Had a Little Lamb"...
Sometimes it helps to step WAY back and play something simple - but play it beautifully. (A glass of wine might help too!) |
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The Feral Pianist Beatification Candidate  |
Start reworking passages playing legato stacatto and vice versa - doing it measure by measure - about 3-5 minutes per measure
Or you can just go to bed - -
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Beatification Candidate |
I have days when nothing seems to play right as well. Usually when I am over tired. It passes.
Might it be that the piece just needs some more time, or is this a relearn? If you are slipping up on the faster section on Chopin's C# m Waltz, I can slip on the best of days, so understand. Slow practice with accents on finger 4 or 5 help.
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Foregoing Vacation to Post |
Yep, I think that happens to everyone. You just have to step back - practice smaller sections, in different ways (slower, in rhythmns, etc.).
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"The Veiled Male" Foregoing Vacation to Post  |
It happens to all performing artists. There are times when I feel that I'm dancing about 3 inches above the floor and can do *anything* - there's magic in the air.
Then there are times when I couldn't dance a Tsamiko (very simple Greek line dance) without tripping over four left feet. Same goes for music - if you're making 10,000 mistakes, take a break and come back. Taking a walk can help. When you come back, try again. It most likely will be better - but if it isn't, call it a day. Tell the piano "You're gonna be matchwood if you don't straighten out by tomorrow!". Its amazing how telling an inanimate object that it better behave produces results. I've been known to punish my veils by leaving them in the garage overnite! Straightens them out and shows 'em who's boss!  As coincidence would have it, I'm online right now as I'm trying to learn a new dance routine, and have had a bit of frustration. I stopped for lunch, and even plinked on the piano a bit, but I'll be back on the floor within another 10 minutes.
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high maintenance What Life? |
Thanks, everyone. I stepped away from the
 Nobody's perfect. Not even Alfred Brendel.
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Poseur Extraordinaire Beatification Candidate  |
When that happens to me I play something that is easy for me. Then quit for the day or maybe try a bit more.
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Beatification Candidate |
i'm pretty well, regimented.
when frustrated at my lack of progress, if time permits, i play thru my repertoire. i keep a travelling binder of pieces to play and review. i put everything current away and just go thru them. it is always refreshing to see how far i've come and it pulls me out of the doldrums usually |
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Chatty Kathy Beatification Candidate  |
That self-defeating beast - know it well. I just started reading *This is your brain on music* and almost immediately one of the things that struck me was the author's discussion of how we have set up a class of performers that didn't exist for most of humankind's existence. That is - everyone performed music and it was just part of life. Now of course there is so much emphasis on *how well we play* and we have lost the ability to just enjoy what we can make ourselves. I'm going to try and keep that in mind. Of course, it is not unimportant to *play well*, but few of us are actual professionals, so we shouldn't beat up on ourselves so much? Just a thought... s
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Beatification Candidate |
Ya, but... she can't very well leave her fingers in the garage!!! Glove them, Plays...that'll teach em to misbehave!
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well-temperedforum.groupee.net The Well-Tempered Forum The Soundboard What do you do when nothing but carp comes from your fingers?