Running out of steam.

[mdshimazu]

For everyone who doesn't really know(most of you), I came from a rather sad history of playing piano. I taught myself for 5 years to start off(picking up a plethora of bad habits). Then I got a teacher in college and he wasn't very good. I had a pretty good handle on musicality for that point, but my technique was in the hole, and of course all he really cared about was musicality. So I spent another year just not really learning about what I needed a lot of help on. Now after that I got another teacher who is actually very good. She works on musicality, but she also works heavily on technique.

About the music that I learned, I've learned pretty much all romantic and contemporary music, all the stuff that you can be really messy with. I never learned any major Bach piece (a little prelude a while back), no Mozart, Haydn, Hummel, etc. Just Chopin, Bartok, and other later people.

Now I had started learning the first movement to the Waldstein sonata(this would be my first piece from any time before the romantic period with the exception of the Bach prelude) with my first teacher. It was really bad and worse he couldn't really do much to help me. I changed to my new teacher half a year ago and I continued work on it with her and it has improved drastically. It has taken an incredible amount of work to get it to where it is at right now. Now at this point I've been working on this movement for about 9 months. This is an extremely long time for me to learn anything. Usually anything that I had learned was done in two or three months. I almost exclusively practice the Beethoven (something like 2 or 3 hours on it, then I would spend like 30 min on the Ginastera, and some time doing scales and arpeggios).

This week, however, I've just kinda hit a low point and I'm just finding it really hard to continue practicing it. I want it to sound good, but I've just kinda lost my will to keep on working on it. Whenever i try to practice it I end up just kinda practicing for like 15, 20 minutes and then I just kinda wander off and do other things.

How do you pull yourself through these times? How do you really get good practice done on a piece that you don't really feel like practicing?

[shortyshort]

Just tell yourself to leave it for a few days. I think you'll find that you'll be itching to get back to it before those days are over.

Shorty

[gruffalo]

My story is very similar to yours. and again, i also had a turning point when i changed teacher last year. i have only being practicing memorizing for a year, and until then i never understood the importance of the concept. you say you give up after 15 mins? i think you could turn that into something good. if you think thats all you seem to last, then go in to your next practice session, and only do 15 mins. you will acheive a lot more pianistically and also towards your development to build up practice stamina (this should be associated with the mental aspect of practice moreso than the physical). to train the fingers, you must train the mind. so you must build up concentration. have you learned a decent and thorough method of memorizing? if you want to know how i go about this, you can PM me and i will give you a thorough analysis of what i do. my technique didnt take off until i learned to memorize that. before that i was just a bag of nerves with tonnes of wrong notes.

in terms of motivation, watch lots of videos. if you havent already, check out this website:

www.youtube.com

if you use the search function, you can find videos of a lot of great pianists (both professional and amature). listen to lots of recordings. find your own musical direction. when learning repertoire, you should always want to do something of your own to those pieces.

Hope this helps,

Gruff

[rach n bach]

I agree with Shorty... give it a break for a little while and then come back... you will see the piece in a whole new light.  Also, you might want to pick up something on the easier side just to have fun, it works for me anyhow...

All the best,
     RnB

[molto-marcato]

When i work on something very determined, lets say one or two hours straight i have to just play something else which i can play quite well, just for fun and relaxation. After a two hours of Waldstein you will definately need it.

Is this your first Beethoven Sonata? It is imo very unusual to start with Waldstein, which maybe is the most "classical" Sonata he has ever written. You surely can learn a lot technique with this one.

[rc]

mdshimazu, it's completely understandable that you'd be losing interest after working so much on the same piece for nine months!  I agree about taking a break from it, but I would actually take a longer break than just a few days...  I'd drop the piece and not even worry about it for maybe a year.  You're burning yourself out on it!

Part of the problem may be that you're so accomplished in romantic music, that you're diving into the deep end of earlier music, when you might do better by taking a more beginners approach...  Since it IS foreign territory.

9 months is a long time for anybody to learn a piece.  It's up to you, whether you want to continue to power through it, or drop it and work on something easier.  Is it worth the de-motivation?

The first piece I ever learned completely took me somewhere around 8 months to finish (a Beethoven movement as well!)...  Since then I haven't spent so long on a piece, it's just not worth it to me.  The challenges I tackle are now in smaller increments, I don't take much more than 2 months on a piece.  Becoming bored with a piece is such a motivation killer, and that's counterproductive.  It's a balance between the ambition to learn something you love (motivated!) and not taking too long with it (de-motivted).

[gruffalo]

quick question. are you learning any other pieces or continuing with previously learned pieces whilst studying the Waldstein?

[rc]

I almost exclusively practice the Beethoven (something like 2 or 3 hours on it, then I would spend like 30 min on the Ginastera, and some time doing scales and arpeggios).

[mdshimazu]

My story is very similar to yours. and again, i also had a turning point when i changed teacher last year. i have only being practicing memorizing for a year, and until then i never understood the importance of the concept. you say you give up after 15 mins? i think you could turn that into something good. if you think thats all you seem to last, then go in to your next practice session, and only do 15 mins. you will acheive a lot more pianistically and also towards your development to build up practice stamina (this should be associated with the mental aspect of practice moreso than the physical). to train the fingers, you must train the mind. so you must build up concentration. have you learned a decent and thorough method of memorizing? if you want to know how i go about this, you can PM me and i will give you a thorough analysis of what i do. my technique didnt take off until i learned to memorize that. before that i was just a bag of nerves with tonnes of wrong notes.

in terms of motivation, watch lots of videos. if you havent already, check out this website:

www.youtube.com

if you use the search function, you can find videos of a lot of great pianists (both professional and amature). listen to lots of recordings. find your own musical direction. when learning repertoire, you should always want to do something of your own to those pieces.

Hope this helps,

Gruff

Practice stamina and concentration are definitely no problem for me, normally. Often times I would need to stop myself from practicing because I would practice for like 3 hours straight (which I try not to do, usually I do a maximum of 2 hours now). It's just that loosing my will to really keep on going on with this one makes it hard to practice it.

Thanks for the comments. I'm going to probably just leave this one for a little bit and learn a couple other things, maybe a Mozart and a Scarlatti or something.