Do you know this feeling...

[hodi]

When you want to start a piece, but before you start it you go over its pages to see it's difficult and length.
and it doesn't look so easy, and it isn't short too... and at this moment you give up this piece - without even starting it
even that you know that with a lot of hard work (and a lot of time too - probably 7-8 months)
you may come up with a reasonable performance of this piece
this gets me down everytime i see such a piece
when i see such a long way to finish a piece.
like climbing on almost endless stairway.
what do you do in such cases?

[amelialw]

haha...yes, I know this feeling and many times it just...

I just seriously work on it, at my level, i'll just give myself 1hr for that particular piece everytime I work on it. For my examples would be Chopin Etude Op.10 No.8 " Sunshine" and Mendelssohn's Rondo Cappriccioso.

Lol...I remember when my teacher gave me my Chopin Etude which was the 1st etude that I ever played. I looked at the 16th notes, looked at the speed and then my teacher played Rachmaninoff's recording for me and my mouth dropped open...   Currently, I'm going to use it in my 1st competition and I'm playing at full-speed. One of the days I just tried recording myself even and I could hardly believe that it was me.

[teresa_b]

Yes, I did that with Debussy's "Poissons d'Or" (Almost did it with Chopin's Berceuse, but then I rationalized that I really only had to worry about the right hand!  So I learned that one.  Still grappling with the idea of opening up Poissons again.)   

For some reason I managed to learn the entirety of Beethoven's PC 4--maybe because I was young and foolish when I first learned it.  Who knew how difficult it could be! 

Try the piece(s) you are thinking about!  Maybe look at what seems to be the easiest part, and play it until you have so fallen in love with the piece, you simply must learn the rest.

Teresa

[b0mbtrack]

i find it is better to start learning the hardest parts first this way you become more familiar with it and it becomes the easiest part in the song. 

[invictious]

Try looking at Scriabin's Sonata 6, 7, 8. Just looking at them is enough to shorten your life by a few years. I did that horrible mistake of even looking at it..That's why I have grey hair now.

Personally that usually happens to me, but once i actually try and practice and play, it doesn't feel THAT bad, unless you are choosing to play Fantaisie-Impromptu right after learning Fur Elise.

[teresa_b]

Intrestingly I've had the opposite problem with Mozart.  Looks like a cinch on the page, but trying to polish it...

Teresa