Deeply engrained playing errors

[stephen22]

I retired last year and now have the time to polish up my playing.  There are a number of passages in pieces which I have played for years and years and years - very sloppily. I have been working on these, and am pleased to find that I still have the ability to polish my technique, which has improved quite a lot in the last few months.

Some of these passages I have worked hard on and can now play  accurately and well.....in isolation. As soon as I put them into context, however, they fall apart and are no better than when I started. Often playing only a bar or so leading up to the passage may be sufficient to have this effect.

Anyone else experienced this "situational" phenomenon, or got any suggestions that might help?

Stephen

[dan101]

When introducing the passages back into the piece in question, try taking the tempo a bit slower (even though you know that you can play the isolated passages faster). See if that helps. Good luck and keep working.

[rachfan]

Hi stephen,

I retired last year as well and spend more of my time with piano too.  Welcome to the club!

Here is another trick:  When you intensively practice a difficult passage, don't simply practice the passage in pure isolation; instead, include some lead-in notes from the prior measure as well as the downbeat and a few more notes of the following measure.  That way you include a bit of the context itself in your practicing.  Then when you splice the passage plus context back into the piece and play it with continuity, it will blend in more naturally.  Also, use different tactics in practicing.  Use slow tempo, play it with the metronome, play hands alone several times, play arpeggiated figures as block chords, play passage work in dotted rhythm, play RH forte and LH pianisimo and vise versa, etc.  Learning the section in different ways will help solidify it for you.  Also make sure that fingering is the best that you can devise.  So often a small section will fall apart due to poor fingering.  See if that helps.  Good luck!

[stephen22]

Thanks for your kind and helpful replies.

It is strange, but even when I play these passages very slowly and deliberately, there seems to be some kind of force actively trying to prevent me from playing the right notes. They  are not usually technically particularly difficult.

There are obviously some kind of deep grooves somewhere in my brain. I guess the secret is not to get into these bad habits in the first place.

Best wishes

Stephen

[general disarray]

It's true.  These deeply ingrained bad habits are hard to weed out.

Just practice very slowly -- in context, not out.  As William James said, the way to rid yourself of a bad habit is to replace it with the good habit and never vary. 

To "never vary" you have to be patient and work slowly, over and over again, until the new habit becomes fixed.

It's possible.

[ramseytheii]

If you play slow and still can't get a comfortable feeling, and are playing wrong notes, I suggest you really study the phrasing, and make sure you are comfortable with that.  Usually an uncomfortable feeling when playing slow results from an unbalanced phrase; the notes come out in a sort of subtly haphazard way, instead of in a natural order.

An important element of correcting long-practiced errors is never allow yourself to play that passage wrong, without correcting it again, in other words, eternal vigilance.

Make sure you have a natural phrasing!

Walter Ramsey

[minstrel]

I get this a lot with pieces I used to sight read and generally fool around with.

I have to 2nd (3rd, 4th?) the tactic of slowing down. If you feel a force trying to divert your fingers from what they should really be doing, then you aren't playing slowly enough. (that one's courtesy of my old teacher)

I like to get myself in a mental state where I feel like I'm almost learning the piece for the first time. It almost like playing a trick on the mind.  I find that helps with my concentration and seems to help me weed out some bad habits.  But slow down, slow down, slow down!

[lostinidlewonder]

Rachfan is quite right when he mentions to play the isolated part with a few notes preceding it. It is making the "trouble" section a part of what you can confidently play. Practice with these in isolation, then put it back in context with the whole piece. So this method is quiet close to what you where already doing, however just adding a few notes just before you start at the beginning of the trouble phrase. Ramsehtheii also highlighted the fact that when you play slow you should still play musically, that is understand the musical sentence (phrase) you are playing, this will make controlling the sound at slow tempo easier, but you still must be wary not to make movements which relate to slow tempo, rather movements which relate to your normal tempo.

How many notes you actually choose before your trouble section is left up to your practice method. Also how to play slowly correctly is left to practice method. I say method because in words when we say, play a few notes before your trouble section, or play at a slower tempo etc, these require that you apply good practice technique itself. Playing at slow tempo correctly requires correct movements which relate to when you play at normal tempo, it is easy to play with mutated movements which relate to slow tempo and which have little to do with the normal tempo of the piece. This is why you might find playing slowly very difficult, because it changes the feeling you got when playing at normal tempo. A good teacher will remedy this, otherwise you might trial and error until you relate the slow movements to your normal tempo.

A good way also is to determine where you are having your "uncontrolled pauses". That is when you hesitate to hit a note or feel uncomfortable. If there are points where you are constantly making an uncontrolled pause you simply remedy it with a controlled pause. That is, as soon as you reach the pausing point, completely freeze your hands, as if you pressed pause on a video, don't move your hands on bit! Consciously observe what you need to do, don't move your fingers at all until you completely know where to go, then immediately move to the next position as you would do with normal tempo. Aim to time your controlled pause repetitions and slowly reduce it until there is no pause.

You do not have to play much after the controlled pause, since you are simply remedying that one uncontrolled pause instance, it's baby steps towards improving the way you play. You will find that as soon as you remedy one uncontrolled pause the next will be very soon after. You might find when working on the second pause that the first collapses again. So this practice method is works on a fast rate for efficiency, it is not a matter of playing for 20 minutes this one controlled pause and then moving on. The exact drilling method is different for everyone. Beginners I deal with sometimes take a few minutes to remedy their problems, advanced students sometimes a matter of seconds.

Teachers could give an encyclopaedia of piano practice direction to a student and the student would still be lost. It is the application of this which is difficult since each piece confronts the individual differently. Application of this knowledge requires many examples to be explored, but which must be explored in context to your own piano experience. Unless you are autodidact you need a coach to drill you if you want to learn efficiently.

[wannabe]

I, too, have had this problem.  Only recently have I been able to solve it.   I played for "fun" and didn't really care about my hesitations or mistakes and now that I have devoted more time to the piano, I do.  Before I didn't pay a lot a attention to the metronome and now that I do, I can correct my mistakes.  I purchased the Boss 90 met. (I love it) and start slow and do not go on until it is perfect.  If I go up in tempo and start making my mistakes again, I go back down a couple notches.  It is working for me.  Not used to practicing like this but it definitely works.

I also found that going back to shorter pieces-schuman-scenes from childhood, chopin preludes, etc. and memorizing, playing with the metronome makes me feel a sense of accomplishment that I could not achieve on the pieces that I "really" wanted to play.  Conquering them without error makes it easier for the next piece. 

Strive on!  That is all we can do.

[shadow88]

I had this problem too.
I had big problems with the chromatic scales in the fantasie Impromptu if I played in context.
My teacher said because I play everything so fast, I have lesser power for the chromatic scales (because there was 2 pages of agitato 16ths before).
The only thing I could do was to improve my power by playing the passages very often every day, just like muscle training. Now I have no more problems.

[stephen22]

Thank you all for your comments, which are most helpful

Stephen

[timland]

Drop the piece for 6 months and then re learn it as if you've never played it before.
I prefer working on four measure sections at a time, memorizing from the start. When the four sections are so secure that I couldn't make a mistake if I tried I connect them together.

[pianoloversss]

Hy Stephen, best regard..

I am having same problem with you and now I am still working with the problem.

In the slow pace I can do it accurately, but in the real tempo some notes are still missing.

The key is : just relax,keep smile and stay calm

slow tempo may solve the problem, no doubt that we must practice slowly and even very very slowly. Practice slowly is not enough, we must conscious what we are practicing and in the controlled of our fingers and hand.

as the tempo increase, we must conscious too that we still can controlled the fingers and hand. And the motion of the fingers and hand reduce. The wrong way is playing rapidly and not under our controlled. That can cause pain, and many injury.

We are playing like true virtuoso in our simply technique and so many missing notes happen and even cause pain in forearm. Dont worry about it, but we must change our thinking system.

When the tempo marked Aleggro even con fuoco, agitato, presto,and many rapid marked,
Our feeling of playing this rapid marked is not get involved into it but we must stay calm,quiet, and confident in what we are playing.

Our aim is not for the rapid playing, but our aim is to produce the sound best.

and the speed/velocity is come from the right of producing the sound and Under our conscious mind controlled.


Thanks ..

Apologize for my poor English..

 

[guendola]

I figured that often the cause for making mistakes is a few bars earlier where you probably just managed to play correctly but from there "something is going the wrong way" until you stumble. If you can find a section where you start feeling a bit uneasy, this is probably the right place to investigate even if you can play it perfectly stable and it sounds well.

The problem when practising in small chunks is that even if you include adjacent notes, you don't see the big picture. It is a great method to master technical difficulties or refine a section but unless you know the piece really well, you have to practise the same section in a much larger context to make sure it flows with the rest, probably even if you do know the piece well. Changing the way you play a tiny little note can have a huge impact on the mood of that particular section and this new mood needs to fit with the rest flawlessly.

PS: I have restarted playing piano half a year ago and I suffered exactly the same problems, doing exactly the same mistakes, I did around 30 years ago - it is like old friends. But during these years, I learned to deal with old "friends" on other instruments

[gerry]

Like you, in my retirement I'm finally getting back to earlier-learned pieces and correcting and polishing them. I had exactly the same problem with some of the chord patterns in the Chopin A flat Etude Op 25 #2 that I had sloppily glossed over while learning as a youth. After years of tossing this piece off for friends and family, it took me what seemed like a herculean effort to correct these passages. Lots of repetition and extra concentration finally paid off, but even now, if I let my mind wander away while playing this piece, I will suddenly arrive at the problem measure unprepared and have to hesitate a bit. My method is really just repetition, lots of concentration on how your fingers are forming around the correct passage, and NEVER to play it wrong again even if you have to stop dead--with me this means not only keeping my focus on the entire piece but thinking ahead while approaching the problem passages and visualizing the correct notes. As much as advice from forum members is appreciated, I don't think anyone under 55 can truly appreciate this dilemma.

[guendola]

My method is really just repetition, lots of concentration on how your fingers are forming around the correct passage, and NEVER to play it wrong again even if you have to stop dead--with me this means not only keeping my focus on the entire piece but thinking ahead while approaching the problem passages and visualizing the correct notes. As much as advice from forum members is appreciated, I don't think anyone under 55 can truly appreciate this dilemma.

You should as well try a completely new approach, change the rhythm (temporarily), tempo and dynamics - even of individual notes, try to hear a short section in your mind in different versions and consider all of these to find the best way to play it. Also have a much closer look at the notes and try to find out what they are supposed to do to the piece.

Just don't concentrate on eliminating mistakes, rather concentrate on playing the right notes in the best possible ways. This way you might even find it impossible to repeat old mistakes

[gerry]

Just don't concentrate on eliminating mistakes, rather concentrate on playing the right notes in the best possible ways. This way you might even find it impossible to repeat old mistakes

Thanks, but I thought that's what I said I was doing...

[guendola]

Thanks, but I thought that's what I said I was doing...

That's why I put another paragraph before that sentence

[pianodude90]

You should try some easier pieces first, to get a better technique, and try this pieces later. And maybe you should practice som more technique?
You will soon master it! just learn some easier pieces first, and then try again.