I really need advice from fellow pianists. I'm thinking about quitting...

[crazydreaming]

Hello, this is my first post here.  I'm excited to discover this site.  I've been looking for a community for awhile now with other pianists.  Anyway, I'm in serious need of advice.  Bear with me, this post is long, but I appreciate anyones help.

I've been playing the piano for quite some time, since I was about 7, I am now 20 and a sophomore in College.  I am not a music major, even though at one point I considered it, and everyone was telling me I should go to school for music.  I am a music minor, majoring in Marketing. 

Lately I've been getting more and more discouraged from the piano.  I've always been told I have a gift with the piano.  I have been an organist at various churches for about 7 years now.  I have been been told I am a great performer, and I love performing. 

When I started high school, I got a new teacher, who was real strict, and taught me a lot in the 4 years I was with her.  She completely retaught me the piano, I had to relearn basically because she corrected my technique.  Because of that, I'm told I have excellent teqnique.  I then went on to College, and my teacher in college is the most demanding I've had yet, but I've also seen the greatest achievements with her.  Last year, I was real motivated to learn the Chopin Ballade Op. 23.  It was the hardest thing I ever done, but it finally pushed me to practicing long hours into the night.  I was practicing the best I ever had (something I always struggle with) and actualyl enjoyed practicing.  The performance was the most rewarding thing I've done, it felt so good to finally learn a long challenging piece, and perform it at my college's recital.  This was exactly a year ago

...Since then, it's been all down hill.  I hardly practiced over the summer, my lessons ended for the summer, and all I did really was play organ for a church service weekly.  When school started back up in the fall, and lessons started again, I struggled getting back into practicing again.  I was not motivated at all.  I sometimes think if I got to choose what I wanted to learn, instead of what my teacher gave me, I would be more driven.  The semester sucked, Christmas came, and I hardly had anything new.  Working 40 hours a week and going to school full time I think had something to do with it though.

This semester, it hasn't been much better.  My teacher has been ready to get rid of me.  So I've really been trying harder.  I've had some good lessons, but it's getting harder and harder to force myself to sit down and practice for 2 hours everyday!  For one, I am having a busy semester as far as my other classes go.  I feel they should come first, as business is what I'm really going to school for, not music.  Try telling  my teacher that though, I feel so pressured by her.  I can't fail school because of piano though.

Anyway, this sunday is the student recital.  The same recital that I performed the chopin ballade at last year.  I was so excited about it.  This year I was supposed to play a bach prelude and fugue and the Debussy Prelude from pour le piano.  I have to try to tell my teacher on Thursday that I am not ready for the recital.  The Debussy is no where near ready.  Past two weeks have been hell with my classes, I've been doing nothing but homework.  I don't think it's going to go over well with her.

I don't know what to do.  Deep down, I don't want to have to give up piano.  I want to practice everyday and be productive in learning new pieces to perform, hopefully have my own solo recital soon.  It's just I have a real hard time doing that.  I don't know all what it is, but I think it's because I have so many other things going on in life, I don't have the time to be a musician.  How does everyone do it?  How do you force yourself to have productive practice everyday for ~2 hours??  At the moment, I feel as though I'm just wasting my college credits (on piano lessons), my teachers time, and mine.  I'm not getting anywhere, I'm in a huge slump.

Let's hear some opinions please, all kinds are welcome. Thanks

-Charlie

[pianowolfi]

Well first of all I thought perhaps you should go and look for a piece that catches you as much as the Chopin Ballade. Something you badly and desperately want to play. Something that makes you completely addicted. I think after all this time it is now anyway the right point to choose your own pieces (If not much earlier). And I have experienced that if you try to play something that is not catching you so much the motivation will be less and sometimes you will just give up on it. And then you need to figure out a practise schedule that fits with your college studies. Perhaps you think always of these two hours of practising and then you do nothing instead of perhaps one hour? If you just practice one hour or 45 min you have at least done something and if you always say " I can't practice my full 2 hours" and do nothing instead it will be as it is now, you will do nothing or not much.
Hope this will help

P.S. welcome! 

[danny elfboy]

Do not focus and I would say "fossilize" on the "2 hours" everyday
Instead think of achieving smaller goals

"Work on the middle of Chopin Ballade" is not a good goal
"Fix the problem with bar 12" is a goal
"Figure out and write down the finger from bar 1 to bar 20" is a good goal
"Put bar 1 to bar 5 hands together" is a good goal

Also "Central Nervous Fatigue" kicks in after just 13-16 minutes
Short frequent bursts of concentrations are way better for learning than long sessions

When you just say "I will practice for 2 hours" you end up most of the time achieving no specific goal. You just spend x amount of time with an elusive practice and if you ask at the end of your long session what you have achieve the only thing you can reply to yourself is: "well ... I have practiced 2 hours"

But what you've to reply to yourself is "I have worked on problem x, y and z AND I solved and mastered them"

Another important fact is that when you consider "2 free hours" your only "usable" session you end up having an hard time finding those everyday and eventually miss lot of practice. But if you consider your practice as 13-15 minutes sessions where you work on a goal small and specific enough that can be mastered in those 15 minutes, when you have 2 hours you can accomodate like 8-9 of these sessions ... BUT when you have like just 30 minutes you can accomodate 2-3 and even when you just have 15 minutes you can accomodate 1-2 ... even if it's just 15 minutes before going out or before a lesson begins.

You practice way more and way better when you can sneak 8 minutes there and 14 minutes there rather than you focus on sitting 2 hours everyday at the piano

It's like having to fix and settle things in the house
If you tell yourself that you will do it when you have enough free hours to do all the work you will keep procrastinating it. But if you take advantage of every free minute to achieve small goals you'll suddenly find the work has been done and you haven't even been aware of this

BESIDES you don't need to practice every day.
The brain has long term assimilation of both theorical, aural and kinesthetic information you provide to it. It is known as post practice improvement. You can espect to learn something at once because it requires days and night to be really assimilated; and assimilation only happens at rest (it's the same principle of muscle growth and working out 3-4 days out of 7 rather than everyday)
The resting days you take away from music allow your brain the kind of rest which is required to assimilate those concept.
When you practice efficiently and consistently and achieve many small goals in many short sessions and then take a Rest Day you'll notice that after the Rest Day you've improved a lot even if you didn't practice and you wouldn't have improved so much if you have practiced instead of resting

2 even 3 Rest Days a week are even better than practicing every day as long as you apply a planned, consistent and efficient practicing to your practicing days

Failure to plan is planning to failure
Sitting for x amount of time at the piano believing that mindless repetitions turns magically what is wrong in what is right and being conditioned by the belief that it's even more important to be in front of the piano for x amount of time rather than having achieved concrete and specific goals in your practice sessions (even away from the piano) won't cut it

[Bob]

Easy.  Don't give up piano.  You said didn't want to.

College and a 40 hour work week will definitely have an impact.

You are in control.  You can always switch teachers -- If the teacher doesn't want to teacher students who don't live up to their standards.   Find a teacher who matches you better.

Find some music you like as much as the other pieces.  There is plenty out there.

Just ease back on things.  It could just be a rough patch, or you may have to figure out how to balance music in your life better. 

College disrupts practice for most people I think.  Most just quit after high school.  There are more demands on your time -- college, then having a family, a job, etc.

Good luck.

[rc]

Methinks 40hr workweek + fulltime student is BUSY!  I don't blame you for being burnt out and not finding time to practice, I wonder how you manage to fit eating and sleeping into the week?

I can relate to wanting to do everything all at once, but balance should be considered - there are only so many hours in the day.  Spreading yourself too thin must be wearing on your sanity, and as you're finding out it becomes counterproductive.  You can do marketing and music, but probably not all at once along with supporting yourself.

I can't tell you what to do...  Maybe you don't have to be a fulltime student?  Maybe you could live frugally and cut back on work hours?  My understanding is that students don't necessarily have to complete all their courses ASAP, but can take an extra year or two to free up the schedule.

[crazydreaming]

Methinks 40hr workweek + fulltime student is BUSY!  I don't blame you for being burnt out and not finding time to practice, I wonder how you manage to fit eating and sleeping into the week?

I can relate to wanting to do everything all at once, but balance should be considered - there are only so many hours in the day.  Spreading yourself too thin must be wearing on your sanity, and as you're finding out it becomes counterproductive.  You can do marketing and music, but probably not all at once along with supporting yourself.

I can't tell you what to do...  Maybe you don't have to be a fulltime student?  Maybe you could live frugally and cut back on work hours?  My understanding is that students don't necessarily have to complete all their courses ASAP, but can take an extra year or two to free up the schedule.

I don't have much time to reply at the moment, but real quick.  I am not working anymore this semester.  I realized the problem with that last semester and so frugal is the word as you stated it.  I still am having a hard time doing both at the moment.  Been doing a bit of thinking though, and one of the things that I thought of that I need to do, is I need to get reinspired.  I need to be dedicated to the piano again because I love it.  I plan on attending more performances in the city, and reading more etc, etc, whatever I need to do to be inspired. 

[Bob]

You can always compromise.  Play easier music.  Cut back on a class. 

Since it's an art, I've always heard people other field's prize music.  It compliments business well and shows creativity and hard work.

[rc]

I plan on attending more performances in the city, and reading more etc, etc, whatever I need to do to be inspired. 

Oh, didn't realize you'd already taken care of the work situation.

Well I think that's a pretty good plan of action.  Motivating yourself is always time well spent!  I went to see the community orchestra two nights ago which was really inspiring, especially at the end when they played Rinsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnole, they all got right into it and it was excellent!  I bought tickets to the remainder of the season and even found a friend who wants to come too (unexpected!).

I like to just listen to recordings that I like, getting right into it, letting the imagination play and daydreaming of one day having that for myself.  That's probably my main method of motivation - dreaming about it.

I've also got 5 books coming from Amazon (composer bios, piano books) to chew on over the summer.  I'm like a little kid, checking my hotmail all the time for the delivery notice,  "are we there yet? are we there yet?..."

Here's something else I found inspiring, I posted this elsewhere but nobody seemed interested, it's a bunch of interviews with professional pianists: https://pianoeducation.org/pnoarcin.html

[virtuosic1]

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[gwk]

Charlie,

You have to keep working at things before they can be acheived. Of course, it is your decision but if you practise every day, you'll get bored and become prone to failure.

Practise when you want to or when you have to. Still lead a normal life! Everyone begins in the same position as you. But I personally think you should not give up.

GWK

[nsvppp]

Hello Charlie,

Last year, I was real motivated to learn the Chopin Ballade Op. 23. It was the hardest thing I ever done, but it finally pushed me to practicing long hours into the night. I was practicing the best I ever had (something I always struggle with) and actualyl enjoyed practicing. The performance was the most rewarding thing I've done, it felt so good to finally learn a long challenging piece, and perform it at my college's recital. This was exactly a year ago

You seem to have had a "high" last year. Everything went well, studying, performing. You had a goal to work for. After your performance, you were not prepared for the "empty feeling". No goals anymore, no performance to prepare.
I have the impression that you are rather strict with yourself. Look for the fun part. Play a couple of easy pieces, that are completely different from the music you normally play. After a while you will regain your interest in the harder pieces.
And be honest with your teacher and explain what happened. That's all you can do.

Succes

 

[rh20030001]

But I personally think you should not give up.

do not stress youself . but do not quit playing,
practicing in fun and  easy way if you could 

[lostinidlewonder]

Prioritize. We have to always take stock of what are the most important things in our life and observe how much time we attend to it. Music is very important to myself because I am a musician but I cannot believe that every single one of my students have the same view. Music means different things to everyone, but sometimes even things that you love have to be set aside just for a little while. You do music (let alone anything you attempt) no justice if you only do it half heartedly, you set yourself up for dissapointment and if you expect a lot from yourself this can be very demoralizing.

If you are studying Marketing at a univeristy plus doing a job on the side of it I can already see that your main priority is 1) Getting your degree 2) Having enough money to live. Music in your life at this moment however does not satisfy these factors. If I could say studying the piano will help you to get your marketing degree then I am sure you would not want to give up piano, but the fact is that it is distracting you from it. I would say put your head down COMMIT yourself to your degree.

I know when I studied engineering the pull of music was too great in my final year and was what made me leave to do music full time. For a few years I acted against studying music in prefference for my engineering degree. However for myself I eventually resolved towards music. So what we desperately want will in the end be our destiny. I don't have any $ problems so there was no fear doing music. It is the $ which stops people interested in music from becoming musicians. Since a large % of musicians earn less than the average income you will see that most musicians do not care about the $ but more about their craft. That is the source for everything for them. I guess we must all find what it is which makes us feel secure and happy.

[_dhj_]

I think it's okay to take a break from playing piano when you are feeling jaded or lack the motivation or passion to continue. I started playing at about 10 and went through the grades for a few years. During those years many have told me that I was musically gifted (I have played the violin and other instruments before I was 10), some have even said that I play with passion. Soon however, the workload at high school increased, and I stopped playing at about 17 to concentrate on entering my desired university course.

When I stopped playing I actually stopped altogether. I stopped taking lessons and stopped practising. The most disappointing thing was not being able to play in front of expecting friends. My Ronisch three crown piano was virtually untouched during the two years after my eighth grade exam.

Recently however, I started playing after those two years. The practical reason was that I now have the time to, having achieved my goal of entering the top law school of the country and having studied there for a year. The real catalyst however was my reignited passion in piano, solidified by an encounter with a musician but spawned even before that. It's a strange feeling. I'm not planning on taking lessons and I'm devoting more time to improvisation. In comparison, it feels as though I was never motivated or passionate about playing piano during those eight years that I used to play.

So I think it's okay to take a break from piano. You are young, and given the time you've played you will never lose your technique. You do have things to gain from the break though - such as having more time to do other things, gaining a new perspective on music, a reignited passion and an burning motivation when you start playing again.

I'm also glad to have discovered this forum.

[crazydreaming]

wow, first of all you guys are awesome, this is an awesome forum.

Anyway, I've been reading all the great reply's and have been doing a lot of thinking.  I apologize for taking so long to post back.  I've just been reading the posts, but haven't had much more time for anything else.  The advice given has been very helpful.

I have started to go back and play things I've learned before, or just songs that I love to play...  I realized how long it has been since I've done that!  and it's fun.  I turned the piano into a job because whenever I was at the piano, all I did was work on learning the pieces my teacher gave me. 

I've been talking with my teacher alot, and I guess she has been suprisingly understanding.  I think she's willing to work with me... I think haha.

Another thing I need to do more of is go to more performances, and I'm going to force myself to do more of that, it's been about a year, and that's just way too long, I used to go to one at least once a month!  I get a lot of inspiration from watching other musicians.

I think I've concluded that looking at practice time as a mandatory time of 2 hours minimum at the piano is a bad idea.  You just don't get anything accomplished that way because you make it seem like a bigger project than it is.  I've been trying to break it up more and it makes it more enjoyable, and I think as I get better at it, practice can be more productive.  Only problem in my case is that I don't live on campus, and I don't have a piano at home asside from a decent keyboard.  I am only 5 minutes away from campus, and I can handle the keyboard if it's just something techical I'm working on.  Can't really do voicing on a keyboard very well though.

Now I just have to finally get past the few pieces I have had for the longest time.  I'm at the stage where I've had them too long because I've been slacking and moving at a snails pace, and now I'm sick of them.  My goal this week is to finish them up and finally move onto the next thing!

[amelialw]

the same thing happened to me, only thing is that i dont go to college and work 40 hrs per week, that must be really stressful+2 hrs of piano.
One thing i understand is that, last year when i was in high school and had 7 hrs of school per day plus all the exams,homework,music theory and 3-4hrs of piano it drove me crazy. Because of all of that i did'nt go to college instead im just taking lessons from my teacher

[thalberg]

I hear your frustration and confusion.

Take comfort in the fact that whatever decision you make really doesn't matter.  You're a marketing major.  If you quit piano, you'll miss it but it won't wreck your life.  If you stay in piano, you'll be stressed but it won't wreck your life. 

So don't feel like you have to make the 'right' decision.  You don't.