Am I practicing too much - Does this mean I am at the wrong level?

[simonjackson]

Hi,
This is the first time I have posted on this site. I began playing the Piano in March. I have two lessons a week with different teachers and I am making progress.

With one teacher I am lerning the ABRSM Grade 2 pieces - Rigadoon, get in step, etc. He is very good and we talk about movement etc.

The other teacher is very rigorous and I am going through a book of exercises and taking on specific pieces. Typically these are grade 3,4 and 5 (although I am halfway through Satie's Gymnpedie nr 1 at home).

I can now play a decent version of Bach's Prelude 1 from Book 1 and a variety of grade 3,2, and 1 pieces.

But I am working on Beethoven's Sonatina in G major at the minute and it is hard work. In the two weeks I have spent approximately 3-4 hours a night on this and have made real but slow progress. I can play the first 26 bars nice and evenly and in under 50 seconds.

I time my music to gauge my progress - When I am able to get near to my teachers recording reliably I feel I am able to move on.

But it has been a slog and I must have played part or all of the piece around 2,500 times! When I 'master' a piece (And I always do in the end) I am sick of it. So are my family.

These pieces sound like lovely music but I have butchered them so much in the process of learning them that the last thing I want to do is play them.

Is this normal and is this because I am a novice? All pieces whether they are grade 2 or 4 or whatever are a battle. Does it get easier?

Should I need to practice so hard and long? I will have learnt to play the Sonatina by the end of this week - So that will be nearly 3 hard weeks.

I hope it gets easier as I have set myself a 3 year goal:

 To be able to pick up a songbook (Robbie Williams etc) and play what I see.

But I hope that I don't need to learn each one for 3 weeks.

All comments appreciated,

Sam.

[maryruth]

If you want to be able to sightread songbooks you should be building your sightreading abilities, too.  The more difficult repertoire will build your technicque.  How much of your "learning" time is dedicated to finding the notes?  I would also find a book of EASY stuff and read through a lot of it per day.  Work through the first 4 books (in order) of a children's method.  THe pieces aren't always the most stimulating, but you will develop some decent pattern recognition skills.  Good sightreading abilities combine the ability to read musical patterns and good technique to do what you see.

That's my opinion anyways...

[simonjackson]

MaryRuth,
Thanks for your comment. I am concerned about my learning process in general.

I tend to recognise notes pretty well but the translation from eye to hand is often hit and miss.

So I usually spend time at the beginning playing each hand and then trying to do a bar at a time together. Then I spend ages practising the section hands togther.

But by then everything is in memory and the sheet music is never referred to. Which is not what I really want.

Once I have learnt a piece I can occasionally look at it whilst playing but I am not sight reading a new piece merely locating on the page where I am. It is all in memory. In the Sonatina there is quite a bit of keyboard movement that I cannot do blind.

By far the majority of my time is playing over and over again to remove sloppy finger mistakes and to quicken it up.

Sam.

[pianowelsh]

How much of your practice is PLAYING thru?  I always say to my students prepare THEN play and sections that are short enough for you to be able to play 100% correctly.  Analyse what it is you are about to do. ie LH bar one is an alberti Gmaj chord with finger 'blah' Rh I have a melody and its doing this so i want to use fingers  XYZ and my articluation is this etc etc - PREP the mind before you beging to tackle something or its like jumping of the diving platform without checking if there is any water in the pool - VERY MESSY!!!  it saves you making so many repetitions and reduces the amount of wrong notes etc you build in to the piece so the work is better played and is 'fresh'  Try it.

[g_s_223]

Can you explain why you have two teachers? Are they aware of each other?

IMO it is entirely counter-productive to flog to death a single piece in the way you have described. You would be much better off mastering simple pieces in a short space of time: each such different piece will build your technique in a different way and will develop your overall performance ability. Struggling over a single harder piece equips you only to play that piece and others extremely similar to it.

Play simple things well, and the rest will come.

[pianowelsh]

you need both. Easy pieces that you can pick up and play quickly to build your confidence and dexterity in terms of style.  Harder pieces for your level with carefull picking over build attention to detail and quality of playing and develop more advanced techniques and practice methods.  A perfect programme should have a blend of both.

[simonjackson]

Thanks for all your comments...

I have two teachers because the opportunity presented itself by accident...
Initially I joined a waiting list for one and was told I would need to wait about a year! so I found another one.

However, then a slot appeared and so I decided to try them both out in parallel to see which I got on with better and then avoid making a mistake by choosing a teacher who I struggled to get on with and have this affect my learning process.

They are like chalk and cheese. One is a very rigorous exercise led teacher who picks up on all my mistakes and forces me to deal with them. It is he who is giving me these harder pieces. We are not focussed on grades but his exercise book and pieces.

My other teacher is just a lovely man and a wonderful player. We play easier pieces although he is happy if I bring my own discoveries to him. We don't have a workbook as such we are learning from the Grade 2 exam books. He spends time doing scales, pieces, sight reading etc. And we talk about movement and technique, textures and the like. Often I end up watching him play and talking about the music with him. Out of an hour I am at the keyboard about 40 minutes, but I don't mind because I learn other things besides the pieces.

So I am in a happy dilemma with them. They are so different they seem to complement each other in my learning curve at this time.

I want to do grades to keep focussed but if I just see the second teacher I lose out on the rigorous teaching and don't follow a programme to teach me different techniques (The Sonatina was chosen to introduce me to Alberti baselines). If I just follow the first teacher I miss out on many other areas at the moment and I can only have 30 minutes with him.

So I am seeing both at the moment and probably will for another 6 months at least. Do they know about each other - Yes but I don't labour the point as I don't want them  to get sensitive or offended. Since they don't know eachother they may not appreciate what I gain from them.

I appreciate what has been said and now I have broken the sonatina and have recovered it into a piece of fluent music. I am seeing the rigorous teacher tonight and will be talking to him about the whole process.

Many thanks,
Sam.

[fra ungdomsdagene]

Am I practicing too much - Does this mean I am at the wrong level?

Wrong level? I wouldn't care.
On the other hand practicing too much can be a sign of ineffective practicing.
What I mean by ineffective practicing is missing the goal over and over.
What I do for example is consider my practicing as an amount of 15 minutes sessions.
So each 15 minutes is a goal and at the end of the 15 minutes I know I have reached that goal
What if I need 60 minutes to reach a goal? Then my goal was too big and our mind can't effectively focus on something too large.
Think about a line which represents your practicing time

                                                                                                ______________________________
  A                         B                           C

You want to focus on A+B+C. What happenes is that you can't really focus on the three points at the same time, so you focus on A for some time then switch to B, while you're focused on B you have already forgotten A, then you switch on C and while you're focused on C you have already forgotten A+B. Now you switch again to A to see if you've learned something and you realize you have to focus and re-learn A and while you focus AGAIN on A you've completely forgotten C.
But if you say to yourself your goal for the next 15 minutes is just A and after you've mastered A you take some rest before switching to B then you're ready to focus on the next point but A won't be removed from your mind by B. Practicing too much is too me like playing A+B+C over and over and over never focusing enough on one small enough session, problem, concept, stimulus ...

Fra

[026497]

I have two teachers because the opportunity presented itself by accident...
Initially I joined a waiting list for one and was told I would need to wait about a year! so I found another one.

However, then a slot appeared and so I decided to try them both out in parallel to see which I got on with better and then avoid making a mistake by choosing a teacher who I struggled to get on with and have this affect my learning process.

Having lessons with two teachers won't do you any goodness.
Here is my story:
once, i had THREE teachers. because a competition was coming, my mother was very nervous and hiring "more" teachers to give "more" advice. However, it didn't do me any good. They gave me DIFFERENT advice on the same pieces. I was very confused. I practised in DIFFERENT methods, coz no teacher wants to hear the "wrong" method. it was very time consuming.    The most frustrating problem came, which method should i take in the competition? At last, i did very bad in the competition.    Lack of confidence