Motivation

[bella musica]

Does anyone have any tips for motivating yourself when you feel really swamped?  Every once in a while I seem to get into a vicious cycle where I miss a day of practice, then practice the next day but sound awful so I get discouraged and do something else, then sound even worse the next day...  Does this ever happen to anyone else?

[le_poete_mourant]

It happens to the best of us, bella!  We've all heard stories of famous performers (who I won't name here) who didn't like to practice... some who even didn't like to perform.  It's not going to kill you to miss one day, but put it into perspective.  One day isn't going to make you sound awful.  I think what you really should ask yourself is why you are playing the piano?  Is it for someone else, or for your own love of it?  Because if you really love it, it shouldn't matter if you're good or not, as long as you play for your own enjoyment.  Of course, there's always the desire to become better, and so on. 

I had a particularly bad day once when I went for a lesson with a nutsy Russian teacher who completely tore me apart and made me feel like sh!t about my playing, but the next day I was able to get back into it.  I mean, in the long run, you can take one of two attitudes: you can either become easily discouraged by what others tell you and by your own expectations based on what you have seen or heard; or, you can say, to hell with the rest of the world, I'm going to do it my way and love it. 

Keep at it.    

[ivoryplayer_amf]

Does anyone have any tips for motivating yourself when you feel really swamped?  Every once in a while I seem to get into a vicious cycle where I miss a day of practice, then practice the next day but sound awful so I get discouraged and do something else, then sound even worse the next day...  Does this ever happen to anyone else?

I'm going to talk specifically from my perspective.

This happens to me a lot.  But I find that its because of other stress in my life, or because of my emotions.  My playing is directly attached to my emotions.  If someone tears my self esteem apart or says something that really gets to me, my playing is SHOT!  When I'm depressed about stuff like love and life, for some reason I play great!  And when I'm stressed and just playing cause I know I need to, i SUCK.  Its like I put "Practicing" in with the folder that says "Stressful things you have to do."  And I don't believe it should ever be like that.  It should be something you want to do and something you can give the full extention of your emotions to.  If you aree not willing to commit all you have to the thing you love then wait until you can and are ready.  Some days  I am just too stressed out to give my piano and playing the respect I want to give it, so I just dont even try.  All it would be like is forcing myself.

What I'm trying to say is...it happens to all of us, you've just got to work how to deal with it.  Don't make yourself hate it.  You know, you should practice everyday for a week and try to pay attention to what you did on those days.  If ther eare somedays that you have really beat up your playing skills, check what you did that day.  Was it a stressful & hectic day?  Was it nice and relaxed.  Did you WANT to practice, or were you forcing yourself.  Because with each of these questions comes a different solution.  If it was a stressful & hectic day then maybe you needed time to rest, to calm down.  Maybe you rushed into playing.  If it was nice and relaxing maybe you werent concentrating ENOUGH.  If you Force yourself, maybe a part of you was fighting it and therefore you should definately try avoiding that situation.  If you wanted to practice and it still wasnt what you wanted....try try harder

Motivation.  Such a tricky idea if there ever was one.  What is your motivation?  Why are you there?  What do you want to accomplish by being there.  All these should be asked and, more importantly, answered when you go to practice.

Different things work for different people.  These work for me, give them a try if you want.

[debussy symbolism]

Greetings.

This is infact a most dreadful feeling. Just take a day off, it will only help you. There is a big difference between discouragement and lazyness. Being discouraged is very bad and is very hard to overcome. If others are bashing you with bad comments, just find the time to ignore them, or talk to someone who will console you. Lazyness on the other hand is another story. The only real solution is to just practice, and you will be motivated later on.

[bernhard]

Have a look here, it will motivate you.

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3625.msg32673.html#msg32673
(Possible to motivate students?)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3396.msg30084.html#msg30084
(Laziness, the 3 centres and how to use visualisation to deal with it – consciousness and its location – applications to martial arts and piano playing – locating the consciousness at the movement centre).

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,1884.msg14708.html#msg14708
(Motivating children – joining the child’s model and using other children’s accomplishments to motivate)

On  a different note, you should not really sound awful if you miss a day of practice. Indeed, after mastering a number of pieces and letting then go for a couple of years, you should still be able to play them without sounding awful. So you might find interesting to investigate where this “awfulness” - after just one day of no practice  - is coming from. Have a look here (to start with):

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,1844.msg13949.html#msg13949
(Overpractising – stopping at the last perfect rendition).

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2061.msg17178.html#msg17178
(how to deal with boredom)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2082.msg17230.html#msg17230
(how to concentrate).

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/board,6/topic,19043.18.html#msg206386
(Debunking of Cortot – real technique is easy and does not need to be practised – Liszt´s story)


Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[tds]

i havent read all the replies and the links posted in this thread, but lemme tell you how i get myself working 100% of the time. i am very busy now with several concerts and competitions coming up in the next month true and all the way to mid october. no, i cant afford to slack off. i been practicing 6 hours a day for the past few months, but always with sundays off.

ok, here is my rule: practice when you dont feel like it!

yes, simple but it never fails me. and not surprisingly, the "heavy" feelings before practicing disappears sooner than u can ever think.

try it. tds

"beauty is often what is simple and convinient for the occasion" a.m.e.

[counterpoint]

Some other point:

Every piano teacher knows the situation: a student tells, how much he exercised last week, but when plays, you can't hear anything of it.
Two weeks later, the student comes to the lesson, plays stunning great, but when you applaud him, he has this furtive grin in his face - he exercised quite nothing in the preceding week.

Is exercising completely in vain?

Surely it's not. You have to sow the plants, before you can harvest the fruits. There is some time between sowing and harvesting. If you know this, you will be able to exercise, even if the actual playing doesn't sound satisfying at all . A few weeks later, you will know, what it was good for... 

[bella musica]

Hey everyone!  Thanks for the support - it's nice to get some encouragement from people who have been in the same boat.  You all had a lot of good suggestions that I think will be very helpful to me in the future.  Thanks again!

[rc]

Very good point, counterpoint...  I think my best lesson was after a night of drinking, I'd left my car at the pub so I had to walk across town to my lesson.  Speedwalk actually, I'm amazed that I made it there in such good time!

So I show up a few minutes late, sweaty, hungover and feeling like crap.  Despite it all, the music just FLOWED once I got to the keyboard.

It's the mindset...  When you show up beat or unprepared you release all expectations and relax, so whatever you have practiced is free to flow.  Showing up after a lot of practice, you know you did a lot and want to prove it, it becomes too important and you wind up losing yourself in details like fingering.

Like any performance I've ever done, and what I've read of famous pianists; when you're feeling unprepared before the performance for some reason it all comes out excellent.

[rc]

Oh, motivation, yes...

I'll just chip in that I agree with everyone else, you've got to be able to answer WHY you want to practice and provide your own momentum.  Life gets busy, and I have to remind myself from time to time.  In learning piano, knowing how to motivate myself is crucial. 

It's a powerful tool in your learning, don't feel like practicing?  Well, that won't help anything, this won't do...  Solution: spend some minutes focusing on why you want to practice.

...and being powerfully motivated makes for much better use of practice time!

Personally, my motivational tactic is to dream.  I just sit there and daydream of the beautiful music that I love, what it means to me.  From there the thoughts naturally connect the dots between my dreams and what it takes to get there...  Suddenly practice is a joy, because every minute represents a step toward my dreams.

Dreamer of Dreams

We are all of us dreamers of dreams;
 On visions our childhood is fed;
And the heart of the child is unhaunted, it seems,
 By the ghosts of dreams that are dead.

From childhood to youth's but a span
 And the years of our youth are soon sped;
Yet the youth is no longer a tough, but a man,
 When the first of his dreams is dead.

There's no sadder sigh this side of the grave
 Then the shroud o'er a fond dream spread,
And the heart should be stern and the eyes be brave
 The gaze on a dream that is dead.

'Tis a cup as of wormwood and gall
 When the doom of a great dream is said,
And the best of a man is under tha pall
 When the best of his dreams is dead.

He may live on by compact and plan
 When the fine bloom of living is shed,
But God pity the little that's left of a man
 Then the last of his dreams is dead.

Let him show a brave face is he can,
Let him woo fame and fortune instead,
Yet there’s not much to do, but to bury a man
When the last of his dreams is dead.

-William Herbert Carruth

[tds]

Very good point, counterpoint...  I think my best lesson was after a night of drinking, I'd left my car at the pub so I had to walk across town to my lesson.  Speedwalk actually, I'm amazed that I made it there in such good time!

So I show up a few minutes late, sweaty, hungover and feeling like crap.  Despite it all, the music just FLOWED once I got to the keyboard.

It's the mindset...  When you show up beat or unprepared you release all expectations and relax, so whatever you have practiced is free to flow.  Showing up after a lot of practice, you know you did a lot and want to prove it, it becomes too important and you wind up losing yourself in details like fingering.

Like any performance I've ever done, and what I've read of famous pianists; when you're feeling unprepared before the performance for some reason it all comes out excellent.

this is NOT so when one becomes a professional pianist, in which s/he must be 100% prepared ( some even say 200% ) before a big event. sorry, but your story about coming into a lesson in bad condition is not going to help anyone. can you imagine yourself now doing all the same thing again, but this time not rushing to your teacher's studio but going onto the stage of the carnegie hall to do your debut?

to relieve anxiety, i (as a believer ) do different thing. prayer helps. i also remind myself of this simple but true statement: "i do my best, God do the rest"

[bella musica]

Yes, as Artur Rubinstein said "If I miss one day of practice, I notice the difference.  If I miss 2 days, the critics notice.  And if I miss 3 days, the audience notices".

I agree with the point tds made about being 100% (200%?) prepared for a concert, especially for a professional.  After all, it's your responsibility to the music and your audience.

At the same time, I understand the point that rc made.  Sometimes I get so uptight about being prepared that my music suffers, and I just need to relax and realize that one mistake won't be the end of the world.

A combination of these two ideas seems to work best for me. Some of the best playing I ever did was at a couple of competitions I entered, where I prepared as well as I possibly could even though I didn't think I had a chance of winning.  Some other people were in the competition too, the kind of people where as soon as you see their name on the list, you know that they will win.  To my amazement, in one of the competitions I received Honorable Mention, and in the other I won.  Just goes to show that all you have to do is work hard and be faithful to the music, and then when it comes right down to it, just enjoy it!

[rc]

this is NOT so when one becomes a professional pianist, in which s/he must be 100% prepared ( some even say 200% ) before a big event. sorry, but your story about coming into a lesson in bad condition is not going to help anyone. can you imagine yourself now doing all the same thing again, but this time not rushing to your teacher's studio but going onto the stage of the carnegie hall to do your debut?

to relieve anxiety, i (as a believer ) do different thing. prayer helps. i also remind myself of this simple but true statement: "i do my best, God do the rest"

Re-reading my last post, I see where the misunderstanding is...  'Unprepared' wasn't the best word, heh.  Unsure would be a better way of putting it, more to do with your state in the moment.  Putting in the quality practice before is assumed... and "a lot of practice" = overpractice.

An understandable misunderstanding, heh, I wasn't too clear.  Thanks.

Come to think of it, we're in agreement.  One has to be 100-200% prepared in order for the music to flow on autopilot when the brain is soggy in the moment.  Like Bella said, the ideas fit well together.