If it's not easy, you are doing something wrong !

[m1469]

I have been very aggrevated between this idea and another, for awhile now.  And, I realize that to some degree I tend to think the way that the title of this thread suggests.  On some level I think that if whatever we are doing to gain the control of a passage is feeling very difficult, then we must look for another way to deal with the problem because it SHOULD feel EASY.

However, there are sometimes people who don't want to do things if it gets a little difficult -- they just want everything to be easy or are rather quickly discouraged if something takes some work (we often think of "talented" kids for whom everything seems to come quite easily, getting easily frustrated at something that may take a little work).

So, I am wondering how to tell the difference ?  How do we know when something just takes more work, vs something that is truly not working and needs to be exchanged for anoher approach ?  Is there a good time-frame to judge this by ?

Personally, I am having a difficult time knowing the difference sometimes and I find myself having an aversion to working certain parts out in a piece because I get trapped in this battle mentally.  So, any thoughts will be appreciated .


Thanks,
m1469

[thalbergmad]

To me, somtimes learning a piece is like trench warfare. I keep battling away and eventually with sufficient effort, i get where i need to be.

Therefore, to me there is no timeframe. I take as long as is required. Nothing more and nothing less.

If i am doing something wrong, hopefully my teacher will tell me (when i see him).

What is hard today, will be easy tomorrow with work and proper application.

Thal

PS I gave up on the Godowsky/Strauss-Artists Life after 6 weeks.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Quick thoughts on it; maybe I've not thought deeply enough about it yet..

I think that, unless you have a truly transcendent technique, some things will always be more innately difficult than others. Sometimes a little self-knowledge comes in handy, knowing which figurations you deal with best, and sometimes it's because some pieces of writing are more pianistic than others (and hence easier to handle).

Of course, that doesn't apply in some cases, and the passage can simply be difficult because you are approaching it in the wrong way, whether mentally or physically.

So, if I'm honest with myself, I can generally work out whether the problem is

a) I'm not as good at this type of passagework as I would like/should be
b) The passage is inherently unpianistic or awkward
c) I don't think it's a) or b) therefore perhaps I am approaching it incorrectly in some way

I don't think it takes too much practice to decide which of these it is; maybe a few days - but it does require a certain level of detachment and honesty. (I'm sure I don't always reconsider how I should approach it, even when I feel c) is the situation..)

[rc]

hmmmm... Yer making me think agian!

My process:  tough spot ->  grind away at it a few days ->  lack of results, frustration ->  take a break and decide I've got to find a way to do it ->  patient experimentation ->  sporatic results ->  solution.

If this process takes too long I get bored and instead put it aside for something easier.

One thing that I've noticed about 'making it easy' is that we can often have the right physical solution but it takes a lot of mental concentration to make it come out right, and that's what takes time to become second nature...  Then it's a matter of not becoming mentally lazy.

Easier said than done

[bench warmer]

I think it was Art Tatum who said  " It's So Easy when you knows how!"

So maybe until  "you knows how" it's not all that easy. If it were, everybody would be able to do it.  Most of us need to work at this stuff.

And, it's all relative. What's easy or hard for you may be exactly the opposite for the next person, be it a passage or an entire opus.  It all depends on your skill-set at the moment.

[m1469]

It all depends on your skill-set at the moment.

Well, I get the spirit here and I do agree, but that's just it.  My mind, for whatever reason, seems to automatically jump to the conclusion that since it's not easy as pie either right away or after a certain length of time, I must not have a skill-set at all, so I might as well give up the piano (I am actually not really exaggerating here, this is a common undertone or even front tone to what goes on with me in my daily practice).  So, I am just trying to figure out the difference because that frame-of-mind is really destructive for me.

But, I do appreciate the comments here.  As Thal is mentioning, perhaps sometimes it just really is some kind of warfare ?

And, ronde, actually what you wrote helps me detach myself quite a bit more.  I will admit, I tend to get extremely emotional over problems I am having at the piano, well, okay, about the piano in general, too.  Who'da thought ? 

One thing that I've noticed about 'making it easy' is that we can often have the right physical solution but it takes a lot of mental concentration to make it come out right, and that's what takes time to become second nature... Then it's a matter of not becoming mentally lazy.

Actually, okay, this is a very good observation.  I have been known to let myself be a little mentally lazy from time to time  .  Sometimes it's the same sorta deal though, I think if I have to work at it, I must be doing something wrong.  So, I get all emotional and angry, and I get nowehere (really fastly, too  ).

Okay, now I go back to the piano 

Thanks and cheers !
m1469

[danny elfboy]

I have been very aggrevated between this idea and another, for awhile now.  And, I realize that to some degree I tend to think the way that the title of this thread suggests.  On some level I think that if whatever we are doing to gain the control of a passage is feeling very difficult, then we must look for another way to deal with the problem because it SHOULD feel EASY.

However, there are sometimes people who don't want to do things if it gets a little difficult -- they just want everything to be easy or are rather quickly discouraged if something takes some work (we often think of "talented" kids for whom everything seems to come quite easily, getting easily frustrated at something that may take a little work).

So, I am wondering how to tell the difference ?  How do we know when something just takes more work, vs something that is truly not working and needs to be exchanged for anoher approach ?  Is there a good time-frame to judge this by ?

Personally, I am having a difficult time knowing the difference sometimes and I find myself having an aversion to working certain parts out in a piece because I get trapped in this battle mentally.  So, any thoughts will be appreciated .

I guess what you need in this instances is activating a very strong sense of kinestethic.
I do agree that if it is not easy then you're doing something wrong, and this is what Chopin would say to his students all the time.

The different here is not trying something for the first time and say "it's too hard" but whether something we consider mastered or perfected still feels kind of hard.

Think of this as thinking:
"I can do this but still it will always be a struggle because it's its nature"

But nothing is a "struggle" by nature and there's always an "easy" and "economical" way.
It's the same for the dancer. Even the most complex and complicated motions must be done as if it was second nature for the body and if it was as easy as lifting your arm.
If indeed the motion feels like opposing the nature of the most easy and simple motions we do daily there's indeed something wrong.

We can realize this thinking of the fact that for a baby a motion as simple as bringing the spoon to your mouth is a very struggle and complex motion.
This just to say that there are no harder or easier motions there are just assimilated and made-easy motions and non-assimilated motions.

The only to tell is to use your kinestethic sense and feel whether what you're doing is respecting the body/mind sense of ease or is opposing such nature.

[opus10no2]

Largely, there are 2 great areas of ability which constitute pianistic ability (seperated artistic ability), by that I mean being a 'note machine'.

1 - the brain's ability to mentally digest scores/musical information and translate to co-ordinational impulses to the playing apparatus. Largely this is *learning' a piece of music.

2 - the body's ability to execute these directions - with refined technique(efficiency of motion), and mechanique, which is a seperate thing. And largely this is 'playing' a piece of music.

Now, the expansion of 'brain' ability, as I call it, is gradual, and the brain must be constantly challenged, but with a degree of balance as not to discourage and fatigue the brain.

But I think the issue you're bringing up is the difficulty of 'playing', and this is where the distinction between mechanique and technique must be considered.

Technique, in pianism, is expanded and advanced by learning passages with the most efficient motion and the most appropriate mechanical apparatus, or 'touch'.etc.

This can be done very quickly, actually, simply by repeating the motions untill they are ingrained into the nervous subconcious.

Mechanique is the raw ability of the apparatus, sometimes also known as dexterity, and this takes a long time to gradually improve.

So, the flaw with the approach of many, including bernhard, is that they teach technique to do the best with what your body can presently do, they don't teach how to expand the raw facility of the fingers and arms.

So, when considering the issue of this topic, one must discern whether the passage you are struggling with corresponds to the present level of your mechanique.
If it doesn't - your technique for that passage is in need of refinement.
If it does, you just have to be patient and work on the long term pursuit of a superior mechanique.

Sorry if I don't make sense, I'm a little tired, but feel free to ask anything.

[m]

On some level I think that if whatever we are doing to gain the control of a passage is feeling very difficult, then we must look for another way to deal with the problem because it SHOULD feel EASY.

Yes, this is true. Indeed, when we play piano we should feel that PHYSICAL ease, it is like a fish "breathing" in the water, or a bird flying in the sky.
ANY sense of physical discomfort suggests that you do something wrong.

(However, this should not be confused with mental aspect. From this standpoint it is indeed very hard job to play piano.)

How do we know when something just takes more work, vs something that is truly not working and needs to be exchanged for anoher approach ?  Is there a good time-frame to judge this by ?

It is hard to say and depends on many things, including knowing individual abilities, but as a quidance, if the piece is ready for performance, except of few spots you could not "figure out" and which "don't want to come out", that is quite a good indicator you are doing something wrong in those spots.
In those cases it is always a good idea just to trust your "guts". Very often the solution for those problems is so easy.
So many times it takes just a little comment from outside.

Heh...

[counterpoint]

"If it's not easy, you are doing something wrong"

There is some truth in this statement - but it's also a misleading statement.

When we practise a piece of music, the common experience is, that it get's easier and easier the more we (our mind, our ears and our fingers) get accustomed to the piece. But sometimes it gets even harder while practising. When understanding the piece better, we get more critical to the sound of our playing. So the playing gets better, but the dissatisfaction could get worse at the same time. The most conceited pianist is the one, who is not aware of the many lacks his playing is suffering from. So, if one thinks, playing is easy, this can mean two very different things:

1. he has really mastered the difficulties of the piece and has reached a very high level of playing

2. he is not able to see his drawbacks and is just proud of something, that's not there in reality.

That are the two extremes. Much more common is the case, that one is practising hard, achieves quite good improvements, but there's a long way to go until it feels really "easy". So the statement from above can become really depressing, if you take it too literally.

[opus10no2]

Counterpoint, that is true, and also holds true in general progress. As people get better, their standards get higher, and whilst there is always some satisfaction with progress, this is evenned out by the awareness of yet a new plateau to conquer.

True contentment is the enemy of an artist, but the neverending search for it can drive someone insane, but we all know how insanity and genius often go hand in hand 

[electrodoc]

Dear m1469

I hope that you do not mind me adressing you personally- you sound a nice person going through the frustrations that we all go through!

You probably know all of the following but just a gentle reminder.

We all go through periods where we are on a plateau and do not seem to move forward no matter what we do. This may last for a week or so, or for a few months and then just as suddenly we move forward again. It's all part of the game.

Perhaps we have not disciplined our practices sufficiently. I have a tendency to want to start at the beginning of a new work and read through it time after time, perhaps breaking it into sections. I have to force myself to isolate the difficult areas and then to work on them. However, I do try to do hands separate with a metronome. I usually set the metronome at about 104 for the fastest notes of the passage being worked on. Obviously if this is too fast then I go a notch or two slower. When I can play the passage without mistakes at leasst six times then I take the speed up by one notch. It is slow to start with but it does get me over many problems. Also try blocking out chords; varying the rhythms etc.

Sometimes a work just does want to go into the old brain (not your brain but mine!) I am experiencing that difficulty at the moment with the agitatao section of a Chopin Nocturne (Op 62 No2). But, bu doing all of the above for a week it is now beginning to shape up albeit still at about half speed.

Finally, if a work really does hit a wall despite careful practice then I leave it for a while - perhaps a few months before going back to it. Maybe some contrasting works will help technique ready for the difficult one.

We also have the problem of performance. Of course we would like to give the perfect performance (even if only ourself). But what is perfection in art? No matter how well we play something it is bound to change over time becasue we change. To perform well we need to technical facility, the mental discipline, emotional maturity, and to be in the right mood for the work. Not always easy to bring these variable together all at the same time.

Hope that these few remarks will encourage you but please do not give up - it is a lifetime challenge.

Wishing you well and not too much frustration.

Electrodoc

[pianistimo]

why do jazz musicians never struggle with this?  as i see it - just pretend if you can't remember.  put some notes in there and be done with it.  don't stop.  (easier said than done - esp. with chopin).  now that i've played piano a good many years - i kinda wished i'd taken a jazz class, too.

have you ever seen a jazz musician get stressed out over a few notes.  no.  so why do classical musicians.  because that is the way we are trained.  attempt to play all the perfectly.  we don't know how to fudge (well, some do). 

as i see it - nobody knows if you took the passage twice and then finally remembered the notes.  tehy only remember if you stop and look up at the ceiling.  that is the problem for me although it didn't used to be. 

mayla - i think easy = consistent practice and efficient practice.  and, what opus10#2 said about thinking beyond the comfort zone of technique into territory that we can give an 'illusion' with.  my hands are fairly medium/small compared to others who play chopin - but once i learned the 'zip' technique - i could hit two notes almost together and make them sound like they were hit together.  sometimes it's an illusion that you are perfect. 

[counterpoint]

why do jazz musicians never struggle with this? 

Because Jazz musicians only play, what's comfortable to their hands. They are not forced to play extreme unpianistic and weird figures, as the classic pianist is expected to.  Is there any classical piano piece that is comfortable to play? The composers seem to include ugly traps in every piece they write. Perhaps some sort of malicious delight or just a precaution, that not everyone will be able to play their precious works...? 

[danny elfboy]

Because Jazz musicians only play, what's comfortable to their hands.

I'm not sure ... there are kinds of jazz virtuosism that imo even exceed the virtuosismo in classical playing. I think m1469 is right. It's all a matter of how you're trained.
The classical musician is required to ingrain a sternness and emotional inhibition that it's actually harmful to the music and the practicing.
Jazz pianists are also often exceptionally talented classical pianists who struggle way less with what classical pianists themselves struggles. In fact I know of pianists that suddenly realized piano playing can and should be comfortable even in classical virtuoso music after they had learned the "jazz" approach.
We can even make an analogy with brain emispheres.

Classical piano training other than teaching inhibition of oneness of the body with the instrument, other than inhibiting the physical transportation of rhythm also focus a lot on the left emisphere destroying an equilibrium which is needed. The jazz approach other than non suffering from these un-humane and unmusical trainings focus more on the right ephismere functions.

I read lately a quote which I find extremely important:
"it's a disaster to teach rhythm as an intellectual aspect (left emisphere) because rhythm is physical and ingraining rhythm intellectually kills real music making"

m1469 the great american teacher Abby Whiteside considered jazz pianists better musicians because she said they were trained to be less motionally and emotionally repressed as such they're the best example of the kind of "holistic playing" that according to her was the solution to many pianists struggles as the results obtained by those following her method show. So maybe you'll find certain answers to your dilemma in her book

.

They are not forced to play extreme unpianistic and weird figures, as the classic pianist is expected to.  Is there any classical piano piece that is comfortable to play?   

This is the "gist" of m1469 dilemma.
The subject of her thread should be rephrased:

"If it is not comfortable, you're doing something wrong!"

And this is absolutely true.
It may be hard at the beginning, it may require more works to be perfected but the goal is "comfortable playing".

The goal of all coordinative tasks is not to learn how to bear the struggle, but making them as comfortable as if they were second nature.

[counterpoint]

The goal of all coordinative tasks is not to learn how to bear the struggle, but making them as comfortable as if they were second nature.

So you say: "It doesn't interest me, what the composer wanted to express (sic! ex-press!) in his work." If composers wanted to express comfortableness in all their music, they had composed other music. In many pieces, they want to express struggle, conflict, suffering, despair, sadness. If you don't feel this, you will play all music as it was a sort of lullaby or wellness sound. I said some weeks ago, that I think, Perhia is on this "trip" now  - and I'm very sad about that.

[danny elfboy]

So you say: "It doesn't interest me, what the composer wanted to express (sic! ex-press!) in his work." If composers wanted to express comfortableness in all their music, they had composed other music. In many pieces, they want to express struggle, conflict, suffering, despair, sadness. If you don't feel this, you will play all music as it was a sort of lullaby or wellness sound. I said some weeks ago, that I think, Perhia is on this "trip" now  - and I'm very sad about that.

You've already been replied about that.
Your way of expression is music not your body.
When you make music your body is the tool you use to make music and you can't really distract it with letting it feel feelings that should be expressed to the music and not the body.

[counterpoint]

Danny, I know, you will not agree, but I say it nevertheless:

- one cannot feel comfortable and despaired at the same time

- one cannot express despair, if the self is not in a vivid state of despair

- feelings and body are completely linked, and there is no way to take them apart

[danny elfboy]

- You cannot have a despaired body and play efficiently at the same time

I have seen pianists playing even the most virtuoso pieces with ease and comfort and their playing is still remarkable, extremely emotional, beautiful and praised. I have seen pianists feeling the music with their body feeling the despair, the rage, the tension. They mostly are seeing hand surgeons now.

[pianowolfi]

My body can feel completely comfortable while I express extreme despair or delight or whatever feeling through my music. Welcome to the art of piano playing . You need to get the balance after all.

[counterpoint]

I have seen pianists playing even the most virtuoso pieces with ease and comfort and their playing is still remarkable, extremely emotional, beautiful and praised.

I didn't talk about beautiful playing with ease and comfort - but expressing despair 

Perhaps you never have tried that 

[danny elfboy]

I didn't talk about beautiful playing with ease and comfort - but expressing despair 

Perhaps you never have tried that 

I meant what pianowolfi said; expressing all kind of emotions through music when your body is focused on efficiently play the piano. I have seen pianists who express those feelings perfectly while maintaning ease and comfort of playing. I have also known pianist who did try to express those feelings with the body as they play and indeed most of them had a short career or are seeing hand surgeons. You don't need at all to express body despair (literally destroying any chance of healthy non-injurying playing) in order to express that dispair with your music.

According to Mark data the rate of injuried (sometimes irreversibly) pianits/teachers is 70%.
At the Taubman center they realized that the first cause for most injuries they see daily from severe nerve damage to epicondilitis is "physical overexpression"

[lostinidlewonder]

There is no passage of music which a student cannot learn to play. If there are more than 5 instances throughout the entire score from which the student has no experience playing then the piece is too hard in my opinion. I cannot understand why people try to play pieces which is full of movements which they have no experience with. Of course you should try things you never played but do not expect a fast learning curve, in fact you are pretty much in inefficient grounds when studying music with movements you have never tried before.

But if the score has movements you have tried before and you still have difficulty producing the effortless movement then you must identify between which 2 notes does the tension begin. If you pinpoint and keep doing that and correcting yourself on these micro scale moments you will improve the overall sound. I find with my advanced students I will hear perhaps one note in a techinical tough section which is unbalanced, I will usually ask them to play it one more time to hear if it was just a random chance or a consistient error. When it is a consisitent error much more often than not there is an inefficient movement associated with the inaccuratly played note. Work on the note by note scale, find out exactly where the problem begins, there is no use trying to tackle the problem in the middle and forget about where it actually begins. Work on where the problem begins and it will smooth out quicker.

I have gone so far with many students who cannot play a passage effortlessly that I write up a number of steps to achieve the desired sound. I have gone so far as to breaking a passage into 10 different ways of playing. Removing notes then slowly adding them, but constantly play the phrase as it should be musically. This is a fail safe way of working through difficulties, even though it can be inefficient if you write it all down, the process should be in the head and you should be able to play through simpler variations of the difficult passage then slowly add notes understanding what effect the added notes have on your hand.

Everything you play should be effortless and feel comfortable, you should be even more relaxed in difficult complicated passages which are ffff and mad and crazy. I am totally inimpressed seeing someone bounce all over the keyboard uncontrollably creating a huge monster sound. But if I hear the same and the person looks totally in control, that is when you say, wow, how controlled is that!

Makes me again think about the Tai Chi master pushing hands (form of sparring) with some challenger. The challenger manages to strike the Tai Chi master tearing their sleeve. The Tai Chi master then says to the challenger you have lost. The lack of control of a strike is as bad as missing all together. So in piano I see it, if you are flailing all over the place you are wasting energy thus missing the point of what you practice for. Everything should look effortless and nice. I am sure Mozart said your fingers should be  "Like honey"

[danny elfboy]

There is no passage of music which a student cannot learn to play. If there are more than 5 instances throughout the entire score from which the student has no experience playing then the piece is too hard in my opinion. I cannot understand why people try to play pieces which is full of movements which they have no experience with. Of course you should try things you never played but do not expect a fast learning curve, in fact you are pretty much in inefficient grounds when studying music with movements you have never tried before.

I'm not sure about that.
I'm think the point is approaching everything mindfullnessly and swowly (as in not-rushing)
Of course is someone approach a piece where 80% is patterns/motions he/she has never played before with rush, fury and mindless repetition this is a disaster.

But let's imagine someone whether the piece is easy or very hard approach it with control, slow progression and mindfull work.

If you have a piece with only 4 instances the student has never seen before you can learn it in (just an example for the sake of it) a week.
So in 4 months you have learned 64 instances.

Imagine now you have a piece which presents 150 instances the student had never played before. If the same piece is approach with mindful and progressive work instance after instance in 4 months it could be learned.

So in the first case we've spent 4 months learning more pieces but advanting less, in the second case we've spent 4 month learning just once piece but advanting more.

I still believe that the challenge of doing something you can't do and is really above your level is the best way to activate the body and mind learning path at their full potential.
When you follow the imo flawed modern pedagogical way you're always withholding the true brain and body power, you're constraining the steam of a pressure-cooking pot and forbidding adaptation to works its magic.

The brain seems to learn better when it is given lot of different non progressive and non linear stimulus. Learning is hardly a mechanical and linear focusing on the material you can easily play or understand and move to the "next level" after months or years stuck on that t, but providing your mind with something hard you can't do and let your curiosity, dedication, instinct, trials and errors, subconscious sorting it out for you.That's how we learn our native language too, no progressive education stuff.

John Holt used to say that "learning is making sense of the millions of things around us, the pattern is free and unpredictable--governed by circumstances-- and the trigger is innate curiosity and joy, education is being forced to digest and regurgitate what someone else dictates, the pattern is stagnant and unfree, the trigger is fear, subjection and authority"

It's like a child swimming with life-belt.
Knowing when the child is ready to just swim without those requires a "leap of faith".
In fact the whole flawed concept of readiness requires a leap of faith.
Because eventually what you need to learn to actually swim without life-belt can only be learned by practicing swimming without life-belt.

It's like sun tunning. The only way to activate the melanin protection is by actually exposing ourselves to the damage. If we don't the body doesn't produce melanin and we're actually more in danger anytime we expose even incidentally ourselves to the sun.

The worst part is that the necessary "leap of faith" doesn't come from well thought calculated principles. Even in school or other form of education the leap is just random and occurs when those in control allow it to occur because they suddenly feel like allowing it AND no because a scrupolous needed preparation occurred. And the biggest danger is that years are passed and the child is still swimming with the life-belt.

It's what I call "the risk of not risking" and lostinindlewonder seems to know a lot about it  . Life is nothing but pure risk because universal stages are just illusion of the people that are willing to ruin everything as long as they can delude themselves into believing life and the world are/should be predictable and there are cut formulas for everything.

[timothy42b]

m1469 is the master of raising thought provoking questions!

Originally you asked something about when to decide to look for an easier way, early or late.  (I'm paraphrasing).  I suggest that our work ethic and our determination not to take the easy way out makes most of us decide way to late.  Would there be harm in seeking to make that decision absolutely as early as possible?

Secondly, I think there may be a major difference in the way jazz pianists practice, in that they play a much higher percentage in "real time."  I think that time pressure causes a forced randomization that makes it more likely to come up with the easier solution, and the real time nature produces faster learning through a linking process.  I realize I didn't explain that very well, maybe i'll try to amplify later if anybody is interested.   

[lostinidlewonder]

But let's imagine someone whether the piece is easy or very hard approach it with control, slow progression and mindfull work.

You can study anything you want no matter how difficult it is, but for the matter of efficiency you should not study pieces which have too many new movements in them. You highlight that slow progression and mindfull work will work and that is true, but it sets you up for a slower learning curve. Of course this is a matter of teaching principle rather than personal exploration into music. Why study only one piece which trains say 20 different movements and spend 3 months doing that where you could have learnt 20 different movements in 3 different pieces.

I still believe that the challenge of doing something you can't do and is really above your level is the best way to activate the body and mind learning path at their full potential.

The trap that this sets you up in is playing hard music badly. You do not have the chance to play "easier" music but very well. To have the hands completely in control in my opinion is much more important than playing pieces which stretch you. We must generate a complete understanding of what it means to have balanced, relaxed, controlled hands, then we can tackle any acrobatic movement thrown at us.

The brain seems to learn better when it is given lot of different non progressive and non linear stimulus. Learning is hardly a mechanical and linear focusing on the material you can easily play or understand and move to the "next level" after months or years stuck on that t, but providing your mind with something hard you can't do and let your curiosity, dedication, instinct, trials and errors, subconscious sorting it out for you.That's how we learn our native language too, no progressive education stuff.

Sometimes when trying to perfect a movement and spending weeks or months even on it, a student might think that it is boring and linear and you are not doing anything differently. This of course depends on the student but most do take interest in the multiple steps leading to an effortlessness of touch to produce their difficult passage.

It is infinitely more times enjoyable to play something controlled than to struggle through a passage. As m1469 points out, if it is not easy you are doing something wrong, this is very true but many young aspiring musicians like to feel that a passage they play is difficult and they must tense up and bash the keys. This is musical immaturity, letting the music play you not the other way around.

You also are not learning too much more by playing music you consider difficult for yourself. It is many times more effective learning many smaller pieces than trying to push yourself and learn a tougher one and many teachers will support that. You should push yourself now and again learning something harder than what you are use to, but this should be an aside study, not your main focus because you can simply learn to play difficult music badly which is approaching your music backwards. Playing badly and try to achieve control, where you should have the control already and aim to further push the control and positively effect the sound production. But we should never neglect studying something harder than what we are use to, we must ALWAYS stretch ourselves but it should not be the main focus, it is not efficient enough.

It's what I call "the risk of not risking" and lostinindlewonder seems to know a lot about it  . Life is nothing but pure risk because universal stages are just illusion of the people that are willing to ruin everything as long as they can delude themselves into believing life and the world are/should be predictable and there are cut formulas for everything.

You must risk things in your life, you can never be prepared enough. But you should always have a backup plan, so if you fail you don't die. It is a scary truth and I have seen many musical students do this for many years of their life, simply get trapped into a circle of studying music too difficult for themselves. When they realise that they cannot play these monsters easily they accept their fate, that they are not good enough to play difficult music with the effortlessness a master plays it with. Their hands get so used to being tensed that it ends up feeling comfortable for them to play with tension. It then becomes very difficult to untrain bad habits, although they can be ironed out of course. The truth is that everyone can achieve the effortless touch for any piece they attempt, but there must be a disiplined study and a pathway into understanding what it means to play with efficient techinque. This comes from understanding multiple instances of controlled playing and musical expression. This comes from playing pieces you can play well.

[Bob]

I think things can always be improved.   I see a continuum to your skill set and a continuum of the difficulties of pieces.  There's no end to the things a performer can improve which will make playing a piece easier.  I don't see it as necessarily "wrong" but more "in the way."


I had a professor who said Beethoven wrote the voice parts in his ninth symphony so that they strained the singer's voices, the straining being part of the effect he was looking for.  I don't know how true that is, but there may be something to that idea.

[electrodoc]

I wonder what is meant by the question. Do we mean technically easy or difficult? I remember going to a recital given by Menhuin. He played wome Bach for unaccompanied violin. There was a technically very difficult section double (and triple stops) which then moved into a glorious melodic line. It made me think of going through a dense forest to emerge into a beautiful sunlit clearing. The clearing would not be appreciated nearly as much without the preceding struggle. Of course, Menhuin made it all look easy but I am sure that he found it difficult when first learning the work.

Perhaps a certain amount of sifficulty is necessary in order to bring out the full drama and beauity of music.

[m1469]

Okay, these have been *extremely* helpful comments and I have realized that there are some specific things going on.  Firstly, the main problem spots that I have been thinking of are a couple of sections in a piece that I worked on a number of years ago.  And, back then, my entire approach was *so much* more tense than it is now.   I am going to need to go through and actually retrain some stuff in these sections -- and that may indeed take some mental effort (though I think I know what to do now -- so it should be fairly straightforward).

I have been considering this here :

The subject of her thread should be rephrased:

"If it is not comfortable, you're doing something wrong!"

And this is absolutely true.

Of course, I agree with the concept.  However, I have decided that I actually will stick to my original thought in practice and in teaching, and the reason has been eluded to by Lostinidlewonder.     Using myself as an example, I will say that when I first started the Mozart Fantasy in c minor (the piece that I am working out), I had no concept of what "comfortable" actually is -- as I mentioned, I was extremely tense.  However, I DID know that things did not feel easy. 

But, since playing with this tension is what I knew, I got 'used to it' (and this can often be mistaken for 'comfort' for somebody less experienced) and it was my sense of comfort at the instrument.  But again, nothing felt easy. 

Now that I have become much more aware of a kinesthetic sense and a couple of very basic motions pointed out to me by a wonderful teacher  , I have been able to dramatically do what feels like a revolution to my "technique."  NOW I know what "comfort" is, and it means to me that the things I play should feel easy, no matter how difficult the passage.

So, as I have picked up this Fantasy again, and after reading through the comments on this thread, I finally realized that for whatever reason, I still had my old approach in these couple of sections.   And, this is a very good argument against not playing pieces that are too difficult, before one is ready (I wouldn't have listened back then ... sorry to my wonderful teacher ).  And, it is a very good argument toward playing pieces that nurture the sense of ease that we want at the instrument -- at least the sense of ease that I feel is vital for me and my own students.

So, not every pianist is going to know what true comfort is, without the help of a teacher.  And, I think I see the role of a teacher very distinctly here.  So distinctly, as a matter of fact, that I recognize the need to change some things in my teaching strategies.  Okay, this last bit is a side-topic, I suppose, but it's all related for me.

Thanks very much !

[opus10no2]

When progress is made, how do you know whether is is by a shift in technique or a development in mechanique?

[m1469]

When progress is made, how do you know whether is is by a shift in technique or a development in mechanique?

hmmm... well, as far as I comprehend your post further up, I don't know that I actually believe there is a distinction between what you describe.  And, I don't even like the word "technique" to begin with because I feel like it's very misunderstood in general (granted you did define it in your post).

What I have been doing lately is something I would rather call my "approach" because it has strictly to do with motion, and how I move.  To me, that is all in one big basket, starting with the greater and filtering to the smaller (starting with the entire body and filtering to the fingertips).  As I have explored and become aware of the state and needs of the 'greater,' the smaller stuff seems to more or less fall into place. 

So, I am not positive what you mean by "mechnique," exactly, but, I know for example, that often in scalar passages if I am not 'getting' it, it is because there is tension in my back filtering through my shoulder, down my arm, in my hand, and into my fingers -- causing the need for movements to compensate for this tension, and therefore causing static in what would otherwise be an effortless movement.  As soon as I become aware of this and loosen it, suddenly the passage flows.  I would not so much consider this a matter of finger-dexterity, or dexterity in general (if that is how we are characterizing "mechanique") but rather a change in my entire approach.

[opus10no2]

What you explain is all how I'd define 'technique'.

I don't know about others, because I have never inhabited any other body than my own, but personally I have never encountered any technical 'problems' as such.
Every barrier I have had has changed over time with an expansion of general dexterity.

When I say I have had no problems, it doesn't mean I haven't put alot of effort into it, and the understanding of it, but that I have hit no 'bumps in the road' as it were, that would halt my overall progress.

Personally, I find my time better spent in a different way that to try to continually refine 'technique', at least in the sense of easing passagework by a change of motion/tension'.

[danny elfboy]

hmmm... well, as far as I comprehend your post further up, I don't know that I actually believe there is a distinction between what you describe.

Exactly. There's no mechanique development because a mechanique development would entail an anatomical development and there's no anatomical development in piano playing.

Let's pretend that we in the future we will be able to put "learning information" from one brain to another. So we can upload the coordination of a graduated pianist into a beginner.
What will happen is that the beginner will play like the graduated pianist.

Let's try instead to upload the information of a competitive gymastic into a beginner.
What will happen is that the beginner gymnastic wouldn't anyway become able to apply those coordinative information because he or she lacks the development.

The only example of mechanique development in piano playing is stretching hence wider palm and lose webbing between the fingers. Everything else is just a matter of technique.

Let's even take an adult beginner. Check whatever you can check with hydrostatic measuraments, TAC, magnetic resonances and then do the same after he has become able to play virtuoso pieces. No anatomical development will be recorded due to piano playing.

The mechanique of the body at the piano in itself is pretty simple and everyone has it already developed. The challenge of piano playing is technical control of that mechanique.
The technical control is what changes and evolves not the device.

[opus10no2]

I would not like to get into this argument again, I would just like to chill and see who ends up the finer pianist 

[danny elfboy]

I would not like to get into this argument again, I would just like to chill and see who ends up the finer pianist 

You can reach the same goal through different paths.

[m1469]

And, just for the heck of it :

None of us will reach the same place as each other 

[opus10no2]

You can reach the same goal through different paths.

I'm aware of that, but as m1469 said, not quite the same goal, and it's the difference that I'm wondering about.

You think I may end up with good facility, but my agressive approach may cause a decline in older age? Because I have flawed technique?

[danny elfboy]

You think I may end up with good facility, but my agressive approach may cause a decline in older age? Because I have flawed technique?

I don't know how you usually play.
Fury alone is not conductive to chafing or injury, bad biomechanic and biodynamic control is.
Muscles building is not the answer otherwise skinny 9 years old girls wouldn't be playing late advanced or virtuoso pieces with volume and power, but they do. So weight is neither.
Playing seems rather to depends on a system of levers and inertia creating kinetic energy, sort of dynamo. Muscle power appears have to have little to do with it and so does weight. Finger strength has nothing to do with it as there are no muscles in the phalanges anyway and those in the metacarps are rather small and more involved in gripping. The kind of acceleration required seems to come more easily from the mobility of the large joints.
In fact tension and excessive contraction would impair the acceleration causing even more friction. Power in music seems to depend more on control over contrast than development of strength.

So it's not even a matter of aggressivity or fury, it's just about mechanical balance, alignment and control as far as the physical aspect is concerned and coordination as far the neurological aspect is concerned.

Only time will tell who will get injuried or will have a fast decline.
Surely stiffness, joints rigidity, bones disalignment, out of axis motions, interruption in the co-dependent use of the playing apparatus, inability to released unneded contractions, accumulation of excessive tension, non-countained antagonist reactions is not going to help and is a technical hindrance which slow down progresses.

But there are exception. Like there are chronic smokers who drink pounds of liter daily and just eat fatty meat and never exercise and live more or less without serious problems into old age. But enough is known about these practice and the rate of people harmed by them exceptions aside is still valid to warn against them.

[mikey6]

Dunno if it's been said, no way I'm reading all that but I can think of a few pieces where people with bigger hands are going to have it a lot easier than those with smaller.  Hands and fingers can be trained to do a lot of things but when it comes to something like Petrouschka, if ya can't stretch the chords you're not going to be able to play it, simple as that.

[danny elfboy]

I thought of sharing this quote from a piano teacher/performer because it's particularly relevant to something we've discussed:

The question as to whether the performer must have experienced every
emotion he interprets is as old as antiquity. You remember in the
Dialogues of Plato, Socrates was discussing with another sage the point
as to whether an actor must have felt every emotion he portrayed in
order to be a true artist. The discussion waxed warm on both sides.
Socrates' final argument was, If the true artist must have lived through
every experience in order to portray it faithfully, then, if he had to
act a death scene he would have to die first in order to picture it with
adequate fidelity!

[earl]

Hi Maya,

The topic of this thread makes me think of the book that I (and others) have recommended here from time to time "Effortless Mastery" by Kenny Werner.

Kenny is an accomplished jazz pianist and in the book he addresses the reasons behind technical and emotional problems that plague many musicians. I highly recommend it.

He says that until one can perform a piece or an improvisation "effortlessly" (he explains what this means and ways to get there) then the piece has not been assimilated completely and it will never be able to be performed technically and emotionally satisfactorily until this is so.

In regard to your topic he uses the term unfamiliar rather than difficult. He recommends working on difficult (unfamiliar!) parts of a piece until they are so familiar that they can be performed as effortlessly as a simple melody. If a section is giving you trouble then break it down into smaller and smaller parts until the "unfamiliarity" is gone.

This process has been explained many times by many others in this forum over the years I've been around but I like Kenny's perspective.

So the way I'm interpreting it: if it's not easy then it needs to be broken down and practiced until it so familiar that it can be performed effortlessly. Then, it will be easy.

In my own limited experience of practicing pieces and improvisational techniques I have found this to be true. Pieces that I have played for years, (if I've kept them polished enough) flow out of me without any real effort, no matter how much I struggled to learn them in the beginning.

Earl

[danny elfboy]

Hi Maya,

The topic of this thread makes me think of the book that I (and others) have recommended here from time to time "Effortless Mastery" by Kenny Werner.

Kenny is an accomplished jazz pianist and in the book he addresses the reasons behind technical and emotional problems that plague many musicians. I highly recommend it.

He says that until one can perform a piece or an improvisation "effortlessly" (he explains what this means and ways to get there) then the piece has not been assimilated completely and it will never be able to be performed technically and emotionally satisfactorily until this is so.

In regard to your topic he uses the term unfamiliar rather than difficult.

That's very interesting Earl.
I like his perspective, the term "unfamiliar" (which is what I meant) and the fact that he acknowledge how "emotional feedback" creates problem in playing the piano.
You can say from these perspectives that he is a jazz player.

[ramseytheii]

That's not just a jazz perspective!  Here's an extract from the classic, out-of-print, and very hard to find, "Playing the Piano for Pleasure" by Charles Cooke.  (If you are curious about the book, ask me to post some of the comments pianists like Rubenstein and Arrau made about this book .  I give you a rather lengthy quote to give a feeling of his charming personality:

========
"Surgeons tell us that a broken arm or leg, if it is correctly set, becomes strongest at the point of the fracture.

I like to imagine an analogy between this and the process I am about to describe, a process that is fundamental in the task we have set ourselves.

Recognition of the value of working especially hard on difficult passages is no new idea in piano teaching... But my approach to this factor in piano study is perhaps unique.  For I don't approach it with emphasis, or stress, or insistence, I approach it with fanaticism, with mania!

I am now looking you straight in the eye and I am speaking slowly and rather loudly:

I believe in marking off, in every piece we study, all passages that we find especially difficult, and then practicing these passages patiently, concentratedly, intelligentyl, relentlessly - until we have battered them down, knockwed them out, surmounted them, dominated them, conquered them - until we have transformed them, thoroughly and permanently, from the weakest into the strongest passages in the piece."

====

He then enumerates the advantage of this fanatic approach, mentioning how it helps with overall technique, the technique of memorization ("No difficult passage can be mastered without, early in the operation, memorizing it."), and makes the rest of the piece easier (like Bernhard's dictum "a piece is only as hard as its hardest passage.")  Then he describes how to be especially aware and find "fractures," which is not so important here, and finally various ways to correct them.

Memorization is always first: "...dispense with the notes altogether, drop your eyes permanently to the keyboard, and settle down to setting that fracture."  "...inserting frequent repetitions with the eyes closed."  Several suggestions for practicing are given, which are probably familiar for the serious piano student, including altering dynamics, adjusting the dynamic balance between the two hands, hands alone practice, practicing in different tempos, including much faster than the performance tempo, making a tape recording, etc.  It lacks nothing in thoroughness.

Interestingly, it doesn't include a consideration of the physique, but has the inspiring idea that difficulties can be solved without worrying about a physical answer.  The only time he considers that something might not be possible is "if you ever do find yourself marking off a fracture which runs to pages rather than measures, the probability is that the piece as a whole is beyond your ability and should be laid aside to take up later."

I love this book because he promotes with such great enthusiasm the idea that just through musical study of a passage, taking it apart, putting it together, inspecting it, retooling it, problems can be solved, without the merest hint of the baffling language that goes into the preachers of the physical, language which hardly ever matches up with our admittedly skewered kinaesthetic sense.  By this philosophy, passages you encounter but don't know how to solve immediately don't require a conscious change in phyiscal approach, but only the answering of the question: of what music is this passage made?  and then, repetition of those elements until they become supremely familiar.

Since nobody can predict the future, the only thing that will tell you if you are struggling too hard to achieve something that cannot be achieved, is if you lose the will to achieve it.  Or if you approach it with expectations, such as, I should be able to learn this in one day. 

Walter Ramsey

[danny elfboy]

Very interesting.
I agree a lot with this perspective, in fact with the title itself.
Yes. I think we can easily make an analogy between language and piano.
Learning to speak doesn't entail exercises of the tongue and throat muscles and the problem are not in the tongue musculary or strength. Learning to speak is all a matter of ingraining patterns, of training the impulses from the brain to the voice apparatus. It's a matter of memory but of analysis too.

But I believe that a lack of focus on the physical aspect (not in mastering pieces per se, but in playing with comfort and without abusing the body) may be due to the year this book has been published and the lack of functional anatomy knowledge of that time.
Because, going on from the speaking analogy, the unproper use of the voice apparatus (just like the unproper use of the playing apparatus) indeed leads to strain in speaking, horseness, weak voice and eventually serious voice problems to be addressed by voice specialists. Every voice specialist nowadays agree that the source of voice problem is the wrong use of the voice apparatus especially inhibition of the "chain of voice" (from the brain, to the voice apparatus, to the mouth, the listener ears) because of emotional feedback.
This is exactly what happens when you hunch the shoulders, jut the elbows or the head, sit at the wrong head, stiff the forearm, lock the wrist and so on.

I'd love the hear the Rubinstein and Arrau quotes on the book.

[ramseytheii]

I'd love the hear the Rubinstein and Arrau quotes on the book.

Sorry for the delay!

Rubinstein: "It is evidently written to help fellow amateurs.  But I had the impression after reading it that it should be of even more avail to the professional virtuoso."

Arrau: "I can say without reservation that this is the best book for amateur pianists I have ever read/  It fulfills its purpose perfectly."

Serkin: "Mr Cooke's knowledge, enthusiasm, and love for music impress me deeply.  It certainly is a book for everyone who plays the piano for pleasure - professionally or otherwise."

Casadesus: "Provides an ingenious, absorbing program of planned work for pianists who wish to improve their playing and make it more artistic."

Brailowsky: "Fills a long-felt need.  Will bring genuine help to the pianist towards the improvement of his interpretative as well as technical proficiency."

Kapell: "Your book is fascinating - a real service to music lovers and amateur practitioners.  But it is much more than a work for the amateur.  It could serve excellt purpose for the professional, too.  Your cultivated love of music makes me happy."

Walter Ramsey: "I highly recommend this hard-to-find, classic book!  Presents practice techniques, stylistic information, and practical approaches in a lucid way, and is free of the New Age mumbo jumbo we get so often today!  Very refreshing. "

Walter Ramsey

[lostinidlewonder]

Every single pianist who plays for a living that I've met has piano hands, you can notice more developed muscles in the hands, notably the muscle between the thumb and index (Because the thumb is the most important finger in the entire hand and is utilised a lot for many different piano movements), the 4th and 5th fingers (development of the 45 fingers playing which is generally a very unnatrual movement for humans if never tried before) and probably most obvious of all the muscle on the side of the hand and just under the palm leading to the little finger (used for stretching the hand).

I am not an anatomy student so I cannot pull the names of these muscles off the top of my head or could be bothered googling it, but show me 10 peoples hands, hide a concert pianist in the group and I'll pick them out easily. Muscular development is very important or have you fogotten how difficult it was to trill with your 4th and 5th finger? I assure you whoever says that they could trill 4 5 with speed/control when they first tried it on a keyboard is lying to you. We had to learn to control the muscles to do so, and this comes from muscular memory and development.

I have met one person with huge hands and I said you should learn the piano! But I asked them to strech a 10th and it was a strain for them. Their hand simply was not used to stretching, the muscles where not used to it and not developed, enough to make streching the hand feel awkward and nothing that one could comfortably attain muscular memory from. That is the idea of muscular memory, that what you do is comfortable and easy, if it isn't then the repetitions are useless because you are trying to gain memory over a movement which is not completely comfortable for yourself. Thus the hand must develop and strengthen physically to make stretching feel comfortable, there is no escaping this.

So the idea that downloading piano information into someones head would allow them to play the piano well in my idea is wrong. They could play the notes but they couldn't play the expression which comes from relaxation, aided by muscular memory. How would you download the muscular memory? This type of memory is not 100% in the head, a lot of it comes from the brain noticing what the muscles actually feel like when repeating a passage. Thus the body will adapt and change to make mulscular movements feel "more easy"

And what is this about a 9yr old girl playing late advanced or virtuoso pieces with volume and power? I doubt very much that this is the norm, most youngesters cannot produce the extreme ends of the f range. You get freaks now and then who can but it is because they have developed a way to do it and their hands are very developed, if not then the strength must come from somewhere, I have seen promising young musicians throw their whole body weight into it to make the large sound but this is hardly controlled and relaxed playing of an experienced virtuoso. I can pretty much always hear the difference between someone under 10 playing virtuoso pieces with volume and power as opposed to an adult. It is not hard. Young kids have bursts of power, they are erratic, they get tired, adults have this consisitiency to their playing and mature logic to the sound movement. Yes you get young kids who can do this but it is extremely rare, so much so it is useless to even consider it evidence that you do not need strong muscles to play the piano. Phooey

The fact is if there was no muscular strength required then an infant could ideally learn to play the piano. We get physical strength in our hands not from playing the piano only but from other things we do in life, grasping objects doing whatever. It is simply logical that a child even a who hasn't gone through adolescense will have weaker hands. They simply have not physically used their hands enough. I never find an adult with weak fingers, it is always weak coordination. I never find a child with strong fingers! IF they have strong hands then I would wonder, do your parents make you work in the garden all day? Or do you work in some production line?

I thought of sharing this quote from a piano teacher/performer because it's particularly relevant to something we've discussed:

The question as to whether the performer must have experienced every
emotion he interprets is as old as antiquity.... ........ If the true artist must have lived through every experience in order to portray it faithfully, then, if he had to
act a death scene he would have to die first in order to picture it with
adequate fidelity!

I personally believe if you cannot experience the emotion you cannot perform it. You might not have to have experienced the exact emotion yourself but you must be able to relate it to someone elses experience and understand how they felt and take emotional experience from that.

Dunno if it's been said, no way I'm reading all that but I can think of a few pieces where people with bigger hands are going to have it a lot easier than those with smaller. Hands and fingers can be trained to do a lot of things but when it comes to something like Petrouschka, if ya can't stretch the chords you're not going to be able to play it, simple as that.

That true, many pieces people cannot physically play what is written, like playing all the notes of a huge chord simultaneously. But I am not one to believe that we are totally slaves to how the sheet music is written. Many people play impossible to reach chords broken, or miss out a note or whatever depending on the musical context. However they do it, they must do it musically and not interupt the idea of the piece. I have never seen anyone lose marks in an exam because they can't stretch far enough. I have been in examinations where a student had to play 4 octave scales with both hands and it was just over half the tempo requirement. When she finished we walked over to the piano to look at her hands stretching the octaves, then we realised it was because her hands where small that she couldn't do it at the exam tempo requirement, thus she was not marked down.

It is totally insane to mark someone down or discredit them for altering the way they play something which is impossible or near impossible for them to physically excecute. So long they do it musically, there is a huge amount of work needed to make alterations sound right, so usually people will lose marks because they didn't do a good enough job of it. I have said to a teacher who still gets very annoyed if people cannot play big chords as written, why don't you go show them how to do it and then teach them to do it. You will simply find it impossible when you have to deal with their hands so you shouldn't get annoyed if you do not hear it all together. Are you are being discriminatory? Do you have something against people with small hands?

Nevertheless m1469's idea, if it is not easy you are doing it wrong, still holds. Yes it is hard to play chords which you physically cannot play all of the contained notes. BUT, you can develop a way to do it, make it easy and sound right. There is never an excuse to feel restricted or tensed up while playing, if you do then you simply increase your chances of making errors which is the wrong way to study piano, we aim to reduce our chance of error which comes from experiencing relaxed playing.

...... but my agressive approach may cause a decline in older age? Because I have flawed technique?

We must play for life not just while we are young while our hand and body are at their peak of strength. The amount of good piano players who play well but waste energy is incredible. There are even famous concert pianists who waste energy all the time to produce showmanship and impress those who watch them. I guess some people are more excited to see someone bounce all over the piano rather than sit controlled. There has to be a middle point, you can't simply fall asleep at the piano but at the same time you cannot thrash all around it like a maniac.

[opus10no2]

It's interesting to note that some skills are continually developed, and demand continual development, and some things are just learnt and that door is unlocked for life..

When the notes of a piece are learnt and efficient technique is ingrained..that is that, it's done, but the ongoing and neverending step is the expansion of mechanique to improve facility with it in general, and the expanding musical command of the piece.
The shifting concept of what you want the piece to sound like, and your shifting ability to execute that concept.

[m19834]

Well, I think I have just decided that the opposite of the original thread title is actually true and should instead read : "If it's not hard, you are doing something wrong."  I know, we are supposed to get things to a point where they feel easy I guess, but seriously, is that really true ?  I think I have been going about this all wrong !

*tries to get out of the box or through the wall, or over the mountain or whatever is in my blasted way right now*

I have just decided that if my work is easy, it's because I am not digging deeply enough, I am not truly giving it my 'all' ... and I think I need to stop looking for things to be easy.  I know, there is some level of comfort that we need to reach, but, is it seriously supposed to be effortless ?  Effort is hard... at least sometimes. 

*throws a tantrum*

I am sleepy and I don't wanna work as hard as I did yesterday ...    WORK I say !! 

*ponders facing magical teacher with half-*** music, gets down to business*

[go12_3]

I don't feel that learning something easy or difficult is not *doing something wrong*,  It's just  a part of progressing.  I feel when something is wrong, it is not practicing properly and not using good technique and so forth.  If my students play an incorrect note, of course, I indicate the correct note, but not to tell them "it's wrong". 

I think also, I need the easy pieces to make me feel that I have progressed from learning the difficult pieces.  I like to challenge myself to continually learn new pieces but not to the point of frustration and not being able to make any kind of progress. It's like a stepping ladder, I can't go from the bottom of the ladder to the top in one easy jump.

 So , when doing something wrong is, if I learn a piece that is beyond my abilities and technique, and  that would not bring the satisfaction.  I would  rather be  learning pieces at my level, yet  enough to stretch my mind and technique and to better myself as a pianist. 

best wishes,

go12_3