Piano Ability

[3d85]

Hello everyone, this is my first post here.

My mind has been annoying me with negative thoughts recently concerning piano, so thought I would discuss it here.
I first starting learning piano at the age of about 7. I can't remember how long I went to lessons for, but I finished shortly before doing my grade 2 exam.
I stopped mainly I think because I found the exams and piano at that time quite stressful.
I carried on playing the piano now and again until I was 15, at which time I decided I wanted to start lessons again, this time without exams.
And am still going now at 19.
My problem over the last 2 years has been low confidence, and I'm not a particular confident person anyway, but it really shows when it comes to piano for me.
I hate how I play the piano, but still love to play, quite strange I'm sure you'll agree.
I can't stand listening to recordings of myself or anything, and am surprised when people say they like what they hear.

Another main problem is that I don't feel like over the last 2 years that I've got any better, even though my teacher is fantastic. She says I am now at about grade 5-6, which I'm sure is pretty rubbish compared to people around here

But if I try pieces I looked at 2 years ago that I'd love to play but can't, I don't feel like I've got any closer to playing them at all. And when I see clips of others playing piano, they all seem excellent to me, and makes me feel bad, not in a jealous way, but in a sad way.

Hmmm....this has been a long post, but felt I needed a place to say it lol. Anyone else ever felt like this before?

[chopintoday]

Don't worry, you're not alone...at least, I'm with you.

I have problems with confidence too. I always think people at competitions are soo much better than me. But probably, I always see them better than they really are. Don't compare your faults with their pluses, it's unfair.

I despise listening to my own recordings too. My sound, my movements, myself. Looking back though, I've learned the most out of recording, more than anything else. Even onstage performances! For half a year, I didn't have a teacher, and I recorded a lot. It turns out that I learned a lot more that way! Now I can see myself and my problems, I don't need to depend on a teacher.

Don't compare yourself to others. How are they worthy of you?? Look at you, you never gave up, on the contrary, you picked yourself up...twice!!! If you can conquer yourself, it's a proven fact, you can anything.

You have something they don't have, something truely rare: you love the piano. (and that alone can beat anybody  )

[zheer]

  We all go through a period where we lack confidence in our piano playing.This is where the love of music is very important,because it is the only thing that brings us back to the piano.

   BTW to reach the level that professional pianist reach,you have to be slightly mad.

[3d85]

   BTW to reach the level that professional pianist reach,you have to be slightly mad.

lol. Great quote. It's easy to forget the insane amount of work that pianists like that do to become that good. Great website this, nice to have a place to come to for some inspiration when things aren't going well with piano life.

As bad as I sometimes feel these days about it, I'll never give piano up again. For the simple reason that, I gave up when I was younger like I said, and it pains me to think the progress I could have made had I not. So I shall learn from previous mistakes. =)

[Bob]

I've never been happy with my playing, but I have been satsified with my practicing.   I stopped following what teachers told me so much and focused on what interests me more.  If that means spending a few months following an idea, like technique, than that's what I do.  I found being realistic about expectations helps.  If I can't play the piece, I can't play it and there's a good reason for it.  It's probably too much for me right now.  That's how it is.

Tell you teacher your concerns.  I hit a big plateau at one point and then dove into technique big time.  I finally got things figured out and got good results.  Technical results from technical work.  But I can now use that added technique for musical puproses.  

Make goals for yourself.  They don't have to great or specific to capture that idea you want.  It sounds like you want to play the music like you did a few years ago.  Figure out what you did to achieve that.  

Tell your teach and start focusing on what you need to focus on.  If you're teacher is "used up" for you in terms of ideas and you're not making progress, feel free to find a new one.  You're not married to them.  It may be they've gotten bored teaching you, used up all their ideas and don't know what else to do to get you to improve, or something like that.  There's no harm moving on if you've absorbed all you can from them and you have leveled off in terms of progress.

[amelialw]

lol. Great quote. It's easy to forget the insane amount of work that pianists like that do to become that good. Great website this, nice to have a place to come to for some inspiration when things aren't going well with piano life.

As bad as I sometimes feel these days about it, I'll never give piano up again. For the simple reason that, I gave up when I was younger like I said, and it pains me to think the progress I could have made had I not. So I shall learn from previous mistakes. =)

not to mention, practise must be done correctly as well.
I used to practise 3 hrs min under my previous teacher but could not play well because I did not know how to practise properly.

don't worry, everyone has days like this. I practise for hours everyday but am still not satisfied with my work most of the time, even if my teacher praises me i will still find parts that I can pick on.

yes, competitions do help alot, they give you a goal and you work towards it. I know from my 1 time experience and certainly I will take part in more.

lol. Great quote. It's easy to forget the insane amount of work that pianists like that do to become that good. Great website this, nice to have a place to come to for some inspiration when things aren't going well with piano life.

As bad as I sometimes feel these days about it, I'll never give piano up again. For the simple reason that, I gave up when I was younger like I said, and it pains me to think the progress I could have made had I not. So I shall learn from previous mistakes. =)

I really want to reach that level, and sometimes I do go crazy trying to do that, practise for 5 and a half hours and burnout the next day LOL that has happened to me a few times by now.

[3d85]

Some great advice.

My teacher is great, and am not thinking of changing at the moment.
However, I do not restrict myself to only practicing pieces/techniques she gives me, I also experiment with different pieces or ideas of my own to keep things interesting and unique to me.

I think it's a good idea to ask her about technique practicing next time like you said. We have done technique before of course, but maybe it's time to look at new more complicated techinques to move me forward.

[chopintoday]

I was just curious: what do you all define as technique??

[shortyshort]

Great website this, nice to have a place to come to for some inspiration when things aren't going well with piano life.

Some of us also come here when all is well, too. 

As bad as I sometimes feel these days about it, I'll never give piano up again. For the simple reason that, I gave up when I was younger like I said, and it pains me to think the progress I could have made had I not. So I shall learn from previous mistakes. =)

I have the same feeling.

Sometimes it really eats down to the bone. 

EDIT: If we never gave anything up, we would not have time to sleep. 

[danny elfboy]

I think much of the low-confidence exhibited by piano students has to do with the classical approach. For example jazz pianists are not that tight and they enjoy more the process of learning music. We all learn first to speak (through imitation, trials and errors, application, active listening) and only later we add to this basis a reading technical approach.

The classical trained pianist is a strange animal which is first trained to read and then, if someone still remember the importance of it, is trained to produce sounds and actively listening it.

The result is that the majority of piano students give up and the majority of those who don't give up become performance robots who don't understand music but just repeat what they see on the sheet. This of course destroys creativity and tends to give the impression that we're not learning much.

I think a different approach where the student makes music first and learn the techniques and language later would be better. Something like the Suzuki approach.

Not only that but a bit more emphasis on patterns, chord progression, improvization and creative harmonization would not only make the piano student more free to play and have fun even without a sheet in front of him reversing some of the acquired inhibition but would also improve technique, musical knowledge and piano ability is a shorter amount of time.

Classical training has not yet been able to do something properly; from the hideous theories of finger strength which have created a generation of injuried pianists to the cold and unmusical approach and the snobbery against the whole cultural musical landscape we should all know to be better more complete musicians and the demented reversed learning schemes (i.e first the right hand instead of the more logic and important bass line, first reading and then making sounds instead of the opposite ...)

In my experience the best thing a classical trained piano student can do is to supplement such limited and incomplete musical training with alternative approaches like fake books, chords patterns, jazz, pop, accompanying, creative listening, video game music and free himself/herself from such pseudointellectual bankruptcy which is the orthodox classical training.