Practice with less mistakes?

[nat]

i just found out about this forum, its such an awesome place for piano lovers! (including meee ).  i love playing piano, and i do it everyday.  but i just have this one problem about getting pieces completely right. I play pieces like moonlight part 3, rachmaninov no.5 pretty well, but its just not 100% correct everytime, there are always the few mistakes. I tried playing them sloooowly many times, but i keep making the same mistakes when i play the song the whole way through again. any help anyone?  

-nat  

[falling4ever3]

This works for me,

1. Find the spots that you make mistakes on
2. Play that measure like 20 times over and over, CORRECTLY, and as fast as you can do it CORRECTLY.
3. Try to drill the correct way into ur brain, and memory, so you don't have to just rely on the sheet music for difficult parts like that.

That's what I do, hope that helps u

[erak]

Do what falling said, and also don't use pedal in those parts, and try making every note as clear and perfect as possible.

[nat]

thanks alot for ur replies,
im also wondering if theres a "real good" way to practice the pieces in the first place so u dont get the bad habbits of making mistakes on the same parts over and over again, asside from going slowly?

and if u already got the bad habbit; ( like for instance the ending part of moonlight, my hands always make this small glitch making it not sound completely on beat with the other hand), how would u fix it permanently so it doesnt happen again?

thank you
-nat

[eddie92099]

Benno Moiseiwitsch said he could never play Rachmaninov's Scherzo from A Midsummer Night's Dream transcription without having a slight blemish somewhere. He was in the recording studio about to record this work, and gave the piece a run-through before the recording session began. And there were no blemishes (luckily, the tapes had been rolling and the recording we can now hear of Moiseiwitsch was intended as a practice). So, you are in good company ,
Ed

[Clare]

Yeah - pretty much everyone makes mistakes now and then, but if you're making the same mistake over and over again it can get annoying.
I'd do like falling said, and if you've conquered the mistake but still mess up when you're playing it all the way through, I'd start trying to fix that by playing from the line before a bunch of times, and then from even further back and then finally try it all the way through and see whether you've fixed it once and for all.
Also, if you can try and relax and not worried when you're getting up to that bit, you will do better. Don't think, "Oh, no! Here's the tough part! I'm going to mess up!" I know I always mess up when I think that.
To avoid making these mistakes in future when learning a new piece, I'd just make sure I had consistent fingering, make sure I practice all the hardest bits first and a lot, and never play fast hands together too early.
For fixing the moonlight mistake - can you play the part where you have a glitch completely in time when you play separate hands? If you can then all you can do really is play it a lot really slowly until the mistake goes away.