If it's not easy, you are doing something wrong !

[Mayla]

I have been very aggrevated between this idea and another, for awhile now.  And, I realize that to some degree I tend to think the way that the title of this thread suggests.  On some level I think that if whatever we are doing to gain the control of a passage is feeling very difficult, then we must look for another way to deal with the problem because it SHOULD feel EASY.

However, there are sometimes people who don't want to do things if it gets a little difficult -- they just want everything to be easy or are rather quickly discouraged if something takes some work (we often think of "talented" kids for whom everything seems to come quite easily, getting easily frustrated at something that may take a little work).

So, I am wondering how to tell the difference ?  How do we know when something just takes more work, vs something that is truly not working and needs to be exchanged for anoher approach ?  Is there a good time-frame to judge this by ?

Personally, I am having a difficult time knowing the difference sometimes and I find myself having an aversion to working certain parts out in a piece because I get trapped in this battle mentally.  So, any thoughts will be appreciated .


Thanks,
Mayla

[thalbergmad]

To me, somtimes learning a piece is like trench warfare. I keep battling away and eventually with sufficient effort, i get where i need to be.

Therefore, to me there is no timeframe. I take as long as is required. Nothing more and nothing less.

If i am doing something wrong, hopefully my teacher will tell me (when i see him).

What is hard today, will be easy tomorrow with work and proper application.

Thal

PS I gave up on the Godowsky/Strauss-Artists Life after 6 weeks.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Quick thoughts on it; maybe I've not thought deeply enough about it yet..

I think that, unless you have a truly transcendent technique, some things will always be more innately difficult than others. Sometimes a little self-knowledge comes in handy, knowing which figurations you deal with best, and sometimes it's because some pieces of writing are more pianistic than others (and hence easier to handle).

Of course, that doesn't apply in some cases, and the passage can simply be difficult because you are approaching it in the wrong way, whether mentally or physically.

So, if I'm honest with myself, I can generally work out whether the problem is

a) I'm not as good at this type of passagework as I would like/should be
b) The passage is inherently unpianistic or awkward
c) I don't think it's a) or b) therefore perhaps I am approaching it incorrectly in some way

I don't think it takes too much practice to decide which of these it is; maybe a few days - but it does require a certain level of detachment and honesty. (I'm sure I don't always reconsider how I should approach it, even when I feel c) is the situation..)

[rc]

hmmmm... Yer making me think agian!

My process:  tough spot ->  grind away at it a few days ->  lack of results, frustration ->  take a break and decide I've got to find a way to do it ->  patient experimentation ->  sporatic results ->  solution.

If this process takes too long I get bored and instead put it aside for something easier.

One thing that I've noticed about 'making it easy' is that we can often have the right physical solution but it takes a lot of mental concentration to make it come out right, and that's what takes time to become second nature...  Then it's a matter of not becoming mentally lazy.

Easier said than done

[bench warmer]

I think it was Art Tatum who said  " It's So Easy when you knows how!"

So maybe until  "you knows how" it's not all that easy. If it were, everybody would be able to do it.  Most of us need to work at this stuff.

And, it's all relative. What's easy or hard for you may be exactly the opposite for the next person, be it a passage or an entire opus.  It all depends on your skill-set at the moment.

[Mayla]

It all depends on your skill-set at the moment.

Well, I get the spirit here and I do agree, but that's just it.  My mind, for whatever reason, seems to automatically jump to the conclusion that since it's not easy as pie either right away or after a certain length of time, I must not have a skill-set at all, so I might as well give up the piano (I am actually not really exaggerating here, this is a common undertone or even front tone to what goes on with me in my daily practice).  So, I am just trying to figure out the difference because that frame-of-mind is really destructive for me.

But, I do appreciate the comments here.  As Thal is mentioning, perhaps sometimes it just really is some kind of warfare ?

And, ronde, actually what you wrote helps me detach myself quite a bit more.  I will admit, I tend to get extremely emotional over problems I am having at the piano, well, okay, about the piano in general, too.  Who'da thought ? 

One thing that I've noticed about 'making it easy' is that we can often have the right physical solution but it takes a lot of mental concentration to make it come out right, and that's what takes time to become second nature... Then it's a matter of not becoming mentally lazy.

Actually, okay, this is a very good observation.  I have been known to let myself be a little mentally lazy from time to time  .  Sometimes it's the same sorta deal though, I think if I have to work at it, I must be doing something wrong.  So, I get all emotional and angry, and I get nowehere (really fastly, too  ).

Okay, now I go back to the piano 

Thanks and cheers !
Mayla

[danny elfboy]

I have been very aggrevated between this idea and another, for awhile now.  And, I realize that to some degree I tend to think the way that the title of this thread suggests.  On some level I think that if whatever we are doing to gain the control of a passage is feeling very difficult, then we must look for another way to deal with the problem because it SHOULD feel EASY.

However, there are sometimes people who don't want to do things if it gets a little difficult -- they just want everything to be easy or are rather quickly discouraged if something takes some work (we often think of "talented" kids for whom everything seems to come quite easily, getting easily frustrated at something that may take a little work).

So, I am wondering how to tell the difference ?  How do we know when something just takes more work, vs something that is truly not working and needs to be exchanged for anoher approach ?  Is there a good time-frame to judge this by ?

Personally, I am having a difficult time knowing the difference sometimes and I find myself having an aversion to working certain parts out in a piece because I get trapped in this battle mentally.  So, any thoughts will be appreciated .

I guess what you need in this instances is activating a very strong sense of kinestethic.
I do agree that if it is not easy then you're doing something wrong, and this is what Chopin would say to his students all the time.

The different here is not trying something for the first time and say "it's too hard" but whether something we consider mastered or perfected still feels kind of hard.

Think of this as thinking:
"I can do this but still it will always be a struggle because it's its nature"

But nothing is a "struggle" by nature and there's always an "easy" and "economical" way.
It's the same for the dancer. Even the most complex and complicated motions must be done as if it was second nature for the body and if it was as easy as lifting your arm.
If indeed the motion feels like opposing the nature of the most easy and simple motions we do daily there's indeed something wrong.

We can realize this thinking of the fact that for a baby a motion as simple as bringing the spoon to your mouth is a very struggle and complex motion.
This just to say that there are no harder or easier motions there are just assimilated and made-easy motions and non-assimilated motions.

The only to tell is to use your kinestethic sense and feel whether what you're doing is respecting the body/mind sense of ease or is opposing such nature.

[opus10no2]

Largely, there are 2 great areas of ability which constitute pianistic ability (seperated artistic ability), by that I mean being a 'note machine'.

1 - the brain's ability to mentally digest scores/musical information and translate to co-ordinational impulses to the playing apparatus. Largely this is *learning' a piece of music.

2 - the body's ability to execute these directions - with refined technique(efficiency of motion), and mechanique, which is a seperate thing. And largely this is 'playing' a piece of music.

Now, the expansion of 'brain' ability, as I call it, is gradual, and the brain must be constantly challenged, but with a degree of balance as not to discourage and fatigue the brain.

But I think the issue you're bringing up is the difficulty of 'playing', and this is where the distinction between mechanique and technique must be considered.

Technique, in pianism, is expanded and advanced by learning passages with the most efficient motion and the most appropriate mechanical apparatus, or 'touch'.etc.

This can be done very quickly, actually, simply by repeating the motions untill they are ingrained into the nervous subconcious.

Mechanique is the raw ability of the apparatus, sometimes also known as dexterity, and this takes a long time to gradually improve.

So, the flaw with the approach of many, including bernhard, is that they teach technique to do the best with what your body can presently do, they don't teach how to expand the raw facility of the fingers and arms.

So, when considering the issue of this topic, one must discern whether the passage you are struggling with corresponds to the present level of your mechanique.
If it doesn't - your technique for that passage is in need of refinement.
If it does, you just have to be patient and work on the long term pursuit of a superior mechanique.

Sorry if I don't make sense, I'm a little tired, but feel free to ask anything.

[marik]

On some level I think that if whatever we are doing to gain the control of a passage is feeling very difficult, then we must look for another way to deal with the problem because it SHOULD feel EASY.

Yes, this is true. Indeed, when we play piano we should feel that PHYSICAL ease, it is like a fish "breathing" in the water, or a bird flying in the sky.
ANY sense of physical discomfort suggests that you do something wrong.

(However, this should not be confused with mental aspect. From this standpoint it is indeed very hard job to play piano.)

How do we know when something just takes more work, vs something that is truly not working and needs to be exchanged for anoher approach ?  Is there a good time-frame to judge this by ?

It is hard to say and depends on many things, including knowing individual abilities, but as a quidance, if the piece is ready for performance, except of few spots you could not "figure out" and which "don't want to come out", that is quite a good indicator you are doing something wrong in those spots.
In those cases it is always a good idea just to trust your "guts". Very often the solution for those problems is so easy.
So many times it takes just a little comment from outside.

Heh...

[counterpoint]

"If it's not easy, you are doing something wrong"

There is some truth in this statement - but it's also a misleading statement.

When we practise a piece of music, the common experience is, that it get's easier and easier the more we (our mind, our ears and our fingers) get accustomed to the piece. But sometimes it gets even harder while practising. When understanding the piece better, we get more critical to the sound of our playing. So the playing gets better, but the dissatisfaction could get worse at the same time. The most conceited pianist is the one, who is not aware of the many lacks his playing is suffering from. So, if one thinks, playing is easy, this can mean two very different things:

1. he has really mastered the difficulties of the piece and has reached a very high level of playing

2. he is not able to see his drawbacks and is just proud of something, that's not there in reality.

That are the two extremes. Much more common is the case, that one is practising hard, achieves quite good improvements, but there's a long way to go until it feels really "easy". So the statement from above can become really depressing, if you take it too literally.

[opus10no2]

Counterpoint, that is true, and also holds true in general progress. As people get better, their standards get higher, and whilst there is always some satisfaction with progress, this is evenned out by the awareness of yet a new plateau to conquer.

True contentment is the enemy of an artist, but the neverending search for it can drive someone insane, but we all know how insanity and genius often go hand in hand 

[electrodoc]

Dear Mayla

I hope that you do not mind me adressing you personally- you sound a nice person going through the frustrations that we all go through!

You probably know all of the following but just a gentle reminder.

We all go through periods where we are on a plateau and do not seem to move forward no matter what we do. This may last for a week or so, or for a few months and then just as suddenly we move forward again. It's all part of the game.

Perhaps we have not disciplined our practices sufficiently. I have a tendency to want to start at the beginning of a new work and read through it time after time, perhaps breaking it into sections. I have to force myself to isolate the difficult areas and then to work on them. However, I do try to do hands separate with a metronome. I usually set the metronome at about 104 for the fastest notes of the passage being worked on. Obviously if this is too fast then I go a notch or two slower. When I can play the passage without mistakes at leasst six times then I take the speed up by one notch. It is slow to start with but it does get me over many problems. Also try blocking out chords; varying the rhythms etc.

Sometimes a work just does want to go into the old brain (not your brain but mine!) I am experiencing that difficulty at the moment with the agitatao section of a Chopin Nocturne (Op 62 No2). But, bu doing all of the above for a week it is now beginning to shape up albeit still at about half speed.

Finally, if a work really does hit a wall despite careful practice then I leave it for a while - perhaps a few months before going back to it. Maybe some contrasting works will help technique ready for the difficult one.

We also have the problem of performance. Of course we would like to give the perfect performance (even if only ourself). But what is perfection in art? No matter how well we play something it is bound to change over time becasue we change. To perform well we need to technical facility, the mental discipline, emotional maturity, and to be in the right mood for the work. Not always easy to bring these variable together all at the same time.

Hope that these few remarks will encourage you but please do not give up - it is a lifetime challenge.

Wishing you well and not too much frustration.

Electrodoc

[pianistimo]

why do jazz musicians never struggle with this?  as i see it - just pretend if you can't remember.  put some notes in there and be done with it.  don't stop.  (easier said than done - esp. with chopin).  now that i've played piano a good many years - i kinda wished i'd taken a jazz class, too.

have you ever seen a jazz musician get stressed out over a few notes.  no.  so why do classical musicians.  because that is the way we are trained.  attempt to play all the perfectly.  we don't know how to fudge (well, some do). 

as i see it - nobody knows if you took the passage twice and then finally remembered the notes.  tehy only remember if you stop and look up at the ceiling.  that is the problem for me although it didn't used to be. 

mayla - i think easy = consistent practice and efficient practice.  and, what opus10#2 said about thinking beyond the comfort zone of technique into territory that we can give an 'illusion' with.  my hands are fairly medium/small compared to others who play chopin - but once i learned the 'zip' technique - i could hit two notes almost together and make them sound like they were hit together.  sometimes it's an illusion that you are perfect. 

[counterpoint]

why do jazz musicians never struggle with this? 

Because Jazz musicians only play, what's comfortable to their hands. They are not forced to play extreme unpianistic and weird figures, as the classic pianist is expected to.  Is there any classical piano piece that is comfortable to play? The composers seem to include ugly traps in every piece they write. Perhaps some sort of malicious delight or just a precaution, that not everyone will be able to play their precious works...? 

[danny elfboy]

Because Jazz musicians only play, what's comfortable to their hands.

I'm not sure ... there are kinds of jazz virtuosism that imo even exceed the virtuosismo in classical playing. I think Mayla is right. It's all a matter of how you're trained.
The classical musician is required to ingrain a sternness and emotional inhibition that it's actually harmful to the music and the practicing.
Jazz pianists are also often exceptionally talented classical pianists who struggle way less with what classical pianists themselves struggles. In fact I know of pianists that suddenly realized piano playing can and should be comfortable even in classical virtuoso music after they had learned the "jazz" approach.
We can even make an analogy with brain emispheres.

Classical piano training other than teaching inhibition of oneness of the body with the instrument, other than inhibiting the physical transportation of rhythm also focus a lot on the left emisphere destroying an equilibrium which is needed. The jazz approach other than non suffering from these un-humane and unmusical trainings focus more on the right ephismere functions.

I read lately a quote which I find extremely important:
"it's a disaster to teach rhythm as an intellectual aspect (left emisphere) because rhythm is physical and ingraining rhythm intellectually kills real music making"

Mayla the great american teacher Abby Whiteside considered jazz pianists better musicians because she said they were trained to be less motionally and emotionally repressed as such they're the best example of the kind of "holistic playing" that according to her was the solution to many pianists struggles as the results obtained by those following her method show. So maybe you'll find certain answers to your dilemma in her book

.

They are not forced to play extreme unpianistic and weird figures, as the classic pianist is expected to.  Is there any classical piano piece that is comfortable to play?   

This is the "gist" of Mayla dilemma.
The subject of her thread should be rephrased:

"If it is not comfortable, you're doing something wrong!"

And this is absolutely true.
It may be hard at the beginning, it may require more works to be perfected but the goal is "comfortable playing".

The goal of all coordinative tasks is not to learn how to bear the struggle, but making them as comfortable as if they were second nature.

[counterpoint]

The goal of all coordinative tasks is not to learn how to bear the struggle, but making them as comfortable as if they were second nature.

So you say: "It doesn't interest me, what the composer wanted to express (sic! ex-press!) in his work." If composers wanted to express comfortableness in all their music, they had composed other music. In many pieces, they want to express struggle, conflict, suffering, despair, sadness. If you don't feel this, you will play all music as it was a sort of lullaby or wellness sound. I said some weeks ago, that I think, Perhia is on this "trip" now  - and I'm very sad about that.

[danny elfboy]

So you say: "It doesn't interest me, what the composer wanted to express (sic! ex-press!) in his work." If composers wanted to express comfortableness in all their music, they had composed other music. In many pieces, they want to express struggle, conflict, suffering, despair, sadness. If you don't feel this, you will play all music as it was a sort of lullaby or wellness sound. I said some weeks ago, that I think, Perhia is on this "trip" now  - and I'm very sad about that.

You've already been replied about that.
Your way of expression is music not your body.
When you make music your body is the tool you use to make music and you can't really distract it with letting it feel feelings that should be expressed to the music and not the body.

[counterpoint]

Danny, I know, you will not agree, but I say it nevertheless:

- one cannot feel comfortable and despaired at the same time

- one cannot express despair, if the self is not in a vivid state of despair

- feelings and body are completely linked, and there is no way to take them apart

[danny elfboy]

- You cannot have a despaired body and play efficiently at the same time

I have seen pianists playing even the most virtuoso pieces with ease and comfort and their playing is still remarkable, extremely emotional, beautiful and praised. I have seen pianists feeling the music with their body feeling the despair, the rage, the tension. They mostly are seeing hand surgeons now.

[pianowolfi]

My body can feel completely comfortable while I express extreme despair or delight or whatever feeling through my music. Welcome to the art of piano playing . You need to get the balance after all.

[counterpoint]

I have seen pianists playing even the most virtuoso pieces with ease and comfort and their playing is still remarkable, extremely emotional, beautiful and praised.

I didn't talk about beautiful playing with ease and comfort - but expressing despair 

Perhaps you never have tried that 

[danny elfboy]

I didn't talk about beautiful playing with ease and comfort - but expressing despair 

Perhaps you never have tried that 

I meant what pianowolfi said; expressing all kind of emotions through music when your body is focused on efficiently play the piano. I have seen pianists who express those feelings perfectly while maintaning ease and comfort of playing. I have also known pianist who did try to express those feelings with the body as they play and indeed most of them had a short career or are seeing hand surgeons. You don't need at all to express body despair (literally destroying any chance of healthy non-injurying playing) in order to express that dispair with your music.

According to Mark data the rate of injuried (sometimes irreversibly) pianits/teachers is 70%.
At the Taubman center they realized that the first cause for most injuries they see daily from severe nerve damage to epicondilitis is "physical overexpression"

[lostinidlewonder]

There is no passage of music which a student cannot learn to play. If there are more than 5 instances throughout the entire score from which the student has no experience playing then the piece is too hard in my opinion. I cannot understand why people try to play pieces which is full of movements which they have no experience with. Of course you should try things you never played but do not expect a fast learning curve, in fact you are pretty much in inefficient grounds when studying music with movements you have never tried before.

But if the score has movements you have tried before and you still have difficulty producing the effortless movement then you must identify between which 2 notes does the tension begin. If you pinpoint and keep doing that and correcting yourself on these micro scale moments you will improve the overall sound. I find with my advanced students I will hear perhaps one note in a techinical tough section which is unbalanced, I will usually ask them to play it one more time to hear if it was just a random chance or a consistient error. When it is a consisitent error much more often than not there is an inefficient movement associated with the inaccuratly played note. Work on the note by note scale, find out exactly where the problem begins, there is no use trying to tackle the problem in the middle and forget about where it actually begins. Work on where the problem begins and it will smooth out quicker.

I have gone so far with many students who cannot play a passage effortlessly that I write up a number of steps to achieve the desired sound. I have gone so far as to breaking a passage into 10 different ways of playing. Removing notes then slowly adding them, but constantly play the phrase as it should be musically. This is a fail safe way of working through difficulties, even though it can be inefficient if you write it all down, the process should be in the head and you should be able to play through simpler variations of the difficult passage then slowly add notes understanding what effect the added notes have on your hand.

Everything you play should be effortless and feel comfortable, you should be even more relaxed in difficult complicated passages which are ffff and mad and crazy. I am totally inimpressed seeing someone bounce all over the keyboard uncontrollably creating a huge monster sound. But if I hear the same and the person looks totally in control, that is when you say, wow, how controlled is that!

Makes me again think about the Tai Chi master pushing hands (form of sparring) with some challenger. The challenger manages to strike the Tai Chi master tearing their sleeve. The Tai Chi master then says to the challenger you have lost. The lack of control of a strike is as bad as missing all together. So in piano I see it, if you are flailing all over the place you are wasting energy thus missing the point of what you practice for. Everything should look effortless and nice. I am sure Mozart said your fingers should be  "Like honey"

[danny elfboy]

There is no passage of music which a student cannot learn to play. If there are more than 5 instances throughout the entire score from which the student has no experience playing then the piece is too hard in my opinion. I cannot understand why people try to play pieces which is full of movements which they have no experience with. Of course you should try things you never played but do not expect a fast learning curve, in fact you are pretty much in inefficient grounds when studying music with movements you have never tried before.

I'm not sure about that.
I'm think the point is approaching everything mindfullnessly and swowly (as in not-rushing)
Of course is someone approach a piece where 80% is patterns/motions he/she has never played before with rush, fury and mindless repetition this is a disaster.

But let's imagine someone whether the piece is easy or very hard approach it with control, slow progression and mindfull work.

If you have a piece with only 4 instances the student has never seen before you can learn it in (just an example for the sake of it) a week.
So in 4 months you have learned 64 instances.

Imagine now you have a piece which presents 150 instances the student had never played before. If the same piece is approach with mindful and progressive work instance after instance in 4 months it could be learned.

So in the first case we've spent 4 months learning more pieces but advanting less, in the second case we've spent 4 month learning just once piece but advanting more.

I still believe that the challenge of doing something you can't do and is really above your level is the best way to activate the body and mind learning path at their full potential.
When you follow the imo flawed modern pedagogical way you're always withholding the true brain and body power, you're constraining the steam of a pressure-cooking pot and forbidding adaptation to works its magic.

The brain seems to learn better when it is given lot of different non progressive and non linear stimulus. Learning is hardly a mechanical and linear focusing on the material you can easily play or understand and move to the "next level" after months or years stuck on that t, but providing your mind with something hard you can't do and let your curiosity, dedication, instinct, trials and errors, subconscious sorting it out for you.That's how we learn our native language too, no progressive education stuff.

John Holt used to say that "learning is making sense of the millions of things around us, the pattern is free and unpredictable--governed by circumstances-- and the trigger is innate curiosity and joy, education is being forced to digest and regurgitate what someone else dictates, the pattern is stagnant and unfree, the trigger is fear, subjection and authority"

It's like a child swimming with life-belt.
Knowing when the child is ready to just swim without those requires a "leap of faith".
In fact the whole flawed concept of readiness requires a leap of faith.
Because eventually what you need to learn to actually swim without life-belt can only be learned by practicing swimming without life-belt.

It's like sun tunning. The only way to activate the melanin protection is by actually exposing ourselves to the damage. If we don't the body doesn't produce melanin and we're actually more in danger anytime we expose even incidentally ourselves to the sun.

The worst part is that the necessary "leap of faith" doesn't come from well thought calculated principles. Even in school or other form of education the leap is just random and occurs when those in control allow it to occur because they suddenly feel like allowing it AND no because a scrupolous needed preparation occurred. And the biggest danger is that years are passed and the child is still swimming with the life-belt.

It's what I call "the risk of not risking" and lostinindlewonder seems to know a lot about it  . Life is nothing but pure risk because universal stages are just illusion of the people that are willing to ruin everything as long as they can delude themselves into believing life and the world are/should be predictable and there are cut formulas for everything.

[timothy42b]

Mayla is the master of raising thought provoking questions!

Originally you asked something about when to decide to look for an easier way, early or late.  (I'm paraphrasing).  I suggest that our work ethic and our determination not to take the easy way out makes most of us decide way to late.  Would there be harm in seeking to make that decision absolutely as early as possible?

Secondly, I think there may be a major difference in the way jazz pianists practice, in that they play a much higher percentage in "real time."  I think that time pressure causes a forced randomization that makes it more likely to come up with the easier solution, and the real time nature produces faster learning through a linking process.  I realize I didn't explain that very well, maybe i'll try to amplify later if anybody is interested.   

[lostinidlewonder]

But let's imagine someone whether the piece is easy or very hard approach it with control, slow progression and mindfull work.

You can study anything you want no matter how difficult it is, but for the matter of efficiency you should not study pieces which have too many new movements in them. You highlight that slow progression and mindfull work will work and that is true, but it sets you up for a slower learning curve. Of course this is a matter of teaching principle rather than personal exploration into music. Why study only one piece which trains say 20 different movements and spend 3 months doing that where you could have learnt 20 different movements in 3 different pieces.

I still believe that the challenge of doing something you can't do and is really above your level is the best way to activate the body and mind learning path at their full potential.

The trap that this sets you up in is playing hard music badly. You do not have the chance to play "easier" music but very well. To have the hands completely in control in my opinion is much more important than playing pieces which stretch you. We must generate a complete understanding of what it means to have balanced, relaxed, controlled hands, then we can tackle any acrobatic movement thrown at us.

The brain seems to learn better when it is given lot of different non progressive and non linear stimulus. Learning is hardly a mechanical and linear focusing on the material you can easily play or understand and move to the "next level" after months or years stuck on that t, but providing your mind with something hard you can't do and let your curiosity, dedication, instinct, trials and errors, subconscious sorting it out for you.That's how we learn our native language too, no progressive education stuff.

Sometimes when trying to perfect a movement and spending weeks or months even on it, a student might think that it is boring and linear and you are not doing anything differently. This of course depends on the student but most do take interest in the multiple steps leading to an effortlessness of touch to produce their difficult passage.

It is infinitely more times enjoyable to play something controlled than to struggle through a passage. As Mayla points out, if it is not easy you are doing something wrong, this is very true but many young aspiring musicians like to feel that a passage they play is difficult and they must tense up and bash the keys. This is musical immaturity, letting the music play you not the other way around.

You also are not learning too much more by playing music you consider difficult for yourself. It is many times more effective learning many smaller pieces than trying to push yourself and learn a tougher one and many teachers will support that. You should push yourself now and again learning something harder than what you are use to, but this should be an aside study, not your main focus because you can simply learn to play difficult music badly which is approaching your music backwards. Playing badly and try to achieve control, where you should have the control already and aim to further push the control and positively effect the sound production. But we should never neglect studying something harder than what we are use to, we must ALWAYS stretch ourselves but it should not be the main focus, it is not efficient enough.

It's what I call "the risk of not risking" and lostinindlewonder seems to know a lot about it  . Life is nothing but pure risk because universal stages are just illusion of the people that are willing to ruin everything as long as they can delude themselves into believing life and the world are/should be predictable and there are cut formulas for everything.

You must risk things in your life, you can never be prepared enough. But you should always have a backup plan, so if you fail you don't die. It is a scary truth and I have seen many musical students do this for many years of their life, simply get trapped into a circle of studying music too difficult for themselves. When they realise that they cannot play these monsters easily they accept their fate, that they are not good enough to play difficult music with the effortlessness a master plays it with. Their hands get so used to being tensed that it ends up feeling comfortable for them to play with tension. It then becomes very difficult to untrain bad habits, although they can be ironed out of course. The truth is that everyone can achieve the effortless touch for any piece they attempt, but there must be a disiplined study and a pathway into understanding what it means to play with efficient techinque. This comes from understanding multiple instances of controlled playing and musical expression. This comes from playing pieces you can play well.

[Bob]

I think things can always be improved.   I see a continuum to your skill set and a continuum of the difficulties of pieces.  There's no end to the things a performer can improve which will make playing a piece easier.  I don't see it as necessarily "wrong" but more "in the way."


I had a professor who said Beethoven wrote the voice parts in his ninth symphony so that they strained the singer's voices, the straining being part of the effect he was looking for.  I don't know how true that is, but there may be something to that idea.