Im Lazy

[dangerousd]

I very rarely master any pieces as I am bascally too lazy.  Rather then concentrate on say 3 / 4 pieces I tend to play bits of pretty much anything, very rarely that well.  I find myself sitting at the piano just sightreading random music rather than working on set pieces.  

I dont seem to have the motivation to finish the piece.

I also never memorise pieces and would strugle to memorise a short passage.  I always need music in front of me.

Ive been playing the piano for about 14 years...


I was just wondering if anyone else had similar problems, and could tell me how the overcame this....


I want to change!!!!!!!!

[Tash]

ok sometimes i get a little unmotivated for whatever reasons, but not to the extreme that you seem to have. however, i tend to find that doing things that musically inspire me will always re-motivate me. eg. just listening to my favourite piano pieces, going to a concert, reading about pianists/composers/music in general i find really motivating, as i reminds me how incredibly bril music is and how much i want to be able to play like them. so then i go to my piano and practice with great intentions.

you really just have to set your mind to it, think about what you want to achieve and how you need to go about to do so. it might be hard at first, and it might take a while, but once the results start to happen you'll feel impressed with yourself and that will be motivating just to do again!

good luck

[Saturn]

I know what you're going through!  I had this problem for a while (which was partially due to the fact that I didn't have a piano).  No offense, but if you do have a piano teacher, he/she must not be very good, because a good teacher would most certainly recognize your laziness and seek to correct it.

The problem that you have is probably not laziness.  After all, you do have the desire to change, and you weren't too lazy to seek out piano forum and ask how to change.  The problem you have is most likely bad learning habits.

First, you can't get anywhere if you don't have a planned destination.  You must have goals in mind, which means a goal for each piece and goals for each practice session.  Make small, reasonable goals, and come up with methods for the best way to work towards them.  If you don't see progress toward your goal, don't just keep practicing blindly; come up with a new method.  One thing I saw Bernhard say here is that if practice is synonymous with improvement.  If you play for three hours but you haven't improved, you haven't practiced.

Always start with what is most difficult for you.  If you only practice what you can sightread at first try, you're really not learning anything (since at any given moment you could sit down and sightread that passage without practice).  Also you need to learn to memorize.  If you don't memorize, you're not practicing the music, but your note reading ability.  There are some threads here on how to memorize, so you'll probably want to search for those.

Also, learn to separate the music from the playing apparatus (that is, the physical aspect of playing the piano).  Take your music away from the piano and "conduct" it.  Analyze it to find the different parts, figure out the chord progressions, etc.  Understanding the piece is key.  It helps memorization a great deal as well.

Check out this book by Chuan C. Chang:
https://members.aol.com/chang8828/contents.htm
It has some interesting info about practicing methods, including the idea of "Post-Practice Improvement".  It doesn't go very much in depth though.

Take a look at this thread:
https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=perf;action=display;num=1084457512;start=
Which has some info about practicing.

And this one:
https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=stud;action=display;num=1085767324;start=22
Which is about good and bad habits.

- Saturn

[monk]

Sorry, but "I want to change" says absolutely nothing.

There are many alcoholics out there who "want to change" - but do they?

There are many criminals out there who "want to change" - but do they?

I have students who in every lesson say: "This week I will practice - just 10 minutes every day. Promised!" And they don't. Again every week.

Except from an awful inner struggle you get NOTHING from saying "I want to change". Because your REAL self doesn't want to change at this time, that is the fact. Otherwise you would have changed already.

The only possibility is:

Watch yourself.

If you are doing bullshit or are on the verge of doing it, stop! Just leave the piano and do something else.

If you don't stop but continue to do bullshit (that will happen often!), then don't scold yourself, but just recognize it and stop as soon as possible.

Another possibility is: Reserve yourself, say, 30 minutes a day to do bullshit on the piano. And reserve yourself 5-10 minutes a day to do real practicing.
Possibly after some time you can reserve less time for the bullshit and more time for real stuff. (Perhaps it will even happen that you do useful things during the bullshit phase?). But don't force this development! You'll recognize when you feel ready to do the rescheduling.

Best Wishes,
Monk

[Spatula]

I'm actually quite the opposite.  I don't really know when I can stop the piece and be satisfied, and I rarely venture out onto any other pieces when I'm busy working on 2 (fantasie impromptu and rach prelude 5).  Sometimes I get frustated, so I eat, and stuff then might do some technique or something.

But my weakness is that I don't really know when to let go of a piece and say that "It's finished".  I kinda know when, but sometimes it's hard to part away.  BTW right now i'm teaching myself those two, after 9 some years with teaching assistance, and 2 years self study.

[cellodude]

Monk and Saturn basically said it all. I just want to add that when you make goals make them small. Otherwise, you will just get frustrated and drift again.

Small goals will ensure that they are achievable. And once you experience the sense of achievement you will want it again. Then slowly expand your horizon and aim for bigger things.

all the best,

dennis lee

[dongsang153]

if you have something to practice for, it may be more motivating to practice and actually work on a piece.  find something in your community in which you can perform.  if you have something to look forward to, the pressure will be there, and you will practice.  this is also a very good way to improve.

[bernhard]

I very rarely master any pieces as I am bascally too lazy.  Rather then concentrate on say 3 / 4 pieces I tend to play bits of pretty much anything, very rarely that well.  I find myself sitting at the piano just sightreading random music rather than working on set pieces.  

I dont seem to have the motivation to finish the piece.

I also never memorise pieces and would strugle to memorise a short passage.  I always need music in front of me.

Ive been playing the piano for about 14 years...


I was just wondering if anyone else had similar problems, and could tell me how the overcame this....


I want to change!!!!!!!!

Monk:

Sorry, but "I want to change" says absolutely nothing.

There are many alcoholics out there who "want to change" - but do they?

There are many criminals out there who "want to change" - but do they?

I have students who in every lesson say: "This week I will practice - just 10 minutes every day. Promised!" And they don't. Again every week.

Except from an awful inner struggle you get NOTHING from saying "I want to change". Because your REAL self doesn't want to change at this time, that is the fact. Otherwise you would have changed already.

What Monk says is so very true. Have you ever wondered why?

It is also very common. In fact it is very rare to find an individual who does not suffer from this “laziness” syndrome in one area or another of their lives. And yet the solution is so simple that most people dismiss it outright and never even bother to try it. But to understand the solution you must have a bit of background information. I have broached on this subject on another thread in a completely different context, so I will just paste from there the relevant part.

(Here is the original thread if you want to check it out:
https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=stud;action=display;num=1085767324)

Consider that the human body/mind has these three functions (there are more, but these three are the ones that interest us for the moment being): emotional, intellectual and motional.

The emotional function works on the basis of: I like it I hate it. There is no argument or explanation, just a feeling of attraction or of repulsion. It is very quick to react to various stimuli. Emotional responses (like/dislike) are almost immediate.

The intellectual function works on the basis of comparisons. It takes a long time for all that comparing to take place. It also has nothing to do with likes or dislikes. If you are in intellectual mode you may do something you dislike deeply (e.g. washing the dishes) because you have reasoned yourself into it. But you will be resentful and unhappy about it. And eventually you will stop doing it.

The motional function has to do with your movements and with the five (+) senses: your sensual perception. The motional function is amazingly fast: much faster than the emotional, which is itself much faster than the intellectual. Piano playing at the physical level is done purely with the motional function. If – as you play – you start “thinking” – that is using your intellectual function – about what you are doing it will all fall apart. Also, the only way to learn motional tasks is by imitation. You cannot use an intellectual approach (making comparisons and analysis). Try to learn how to dance by telling yourself to step this way, turn to the left, turn to the right and so on and so forth. It will not work. Instead find the best dancer in the hall and imitate what s/he is doing. You have to be in a certain state of mindlessness to do that: all your attention must be directed outwards. If you are not used to it, you will find it really hard to concentrate on pure imitation. Chances are you will slip into intellectual mode and flop it.

The emotional function does not learn. It just likes or dislikes. It is pretty much useless in genera land is always causing trouble. However it does have a very important function to fulfil: It is the emotional that will make you do anything. You can sit down and reason to yourself all night why you should practise everyday (intellectual function).  You can even sit down at the piano and go through the movements of practice (motional function). But unless you come to like practice , that is unless you succeed in engaging your emotional function in a positive way, you will not practice. It is as simple as that.

So all this long preamble to explain this obvious fact: quick progress is a result of deeply enjoying what you are doing. In other words, if you succeed in engaging the emotional function, the student will go through heel and fire to follow your instructions. And all the pedagogy in the whole world will not change this simple, but mostly ignored fact. Your teaching system can be very logical (intellectually well reasoned), it can be incredibly efficient and correct technically (motionally appropriate), but if the student dislike it intensely that is it.

Now to make the above relevant to your question:

It is only by engaging the emotional function (like/dislike) that you will be able to go through with nay activity/plan. In short, laziness is always the result of emotional detachment/indifference. No amount of intellectual reasoning will see you through a piece unless you can engage your emotion sot your intellectual decision.

So all you need to do is to engage your emotional function to your good intentions to change (which are basically intellectual, and therefore completely ineffective). Think of your intelectual decisions as a train wagon. However good to transport passengers and goods, it will only move if you can link it to the locomotive of your emotions.

Now that you understand the problem, sit down for the solution, for it will make you weak at the knees.

The only way to engage the emotional function to your intellectual decisions is by visualising it.

Yes, that is right. You must see in your mind the process by which you must achieve your goals. Once you see it, it will create an irresistible compulsion to do it.

It is that simple. Just try it. Do you have a pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, and you are just too lazy to get out of the armchair to wash it? Just sit there, and start seeing yourself  in your mind going through the process of washing the dishes. I assure you that you will not be able to sit idly for too long. Soon you will feel this violent compulsion to tackle the dishes.

But you must guard yourself against two mistakes most uninitiated make:

1.      They visualise the goal, not the process. It is no good to sit in front of the TV and visualise the dishes sparkling clean in the cupboard. This is the goal. What you must visualise is the complete process that leads to that goal: getting up form the armchair, going to the kitchen, turning the water, soaping the dishes, drying the dishes, storing the dishes. The more detailed you can make this visualisation; the strongest will be the compulsion to fulfil it. Likewise, it is no good to visualise yourself playing Rach3 and bowing to the applause of the audience. This is the goal, not the process. Instead visualise the process of practising it in as much detail as possible and you will be unable to resist the compulsion to go and practise.

2.      It is important to distinguish between two kinds of visualisation: associated and dissociated.

i.      Dissociated visualisation is when you see yourself from the outside, so to speak. One way to create this kind of visualisation is to imagine yourself sitting at a cinema, and then see yourself as the main actor in a movie. This way you are seeing yourself form the outside. This is the kind of visualisation you want to avoid when dealing with laziness, because it disengages the emotional function. However this is very useful in certain circumstances when the emotional function would be a hindrance (this is the sort of think surgeons do when operating so that they can maintain their cool).

ii.      In associated visualisations you actually go “inside yourself” so you see through your eyes, so to speak. This is the visualisation that engages the emotional function. That is the one you want to apply to your laziness.

3. One last word. We all do these visualisations all the time, but they are done haphazardly, chaotically and mostly at the unconscious level. Most of the time we start practising and unconsciously start visualising watching TV or playing some video game. The compulsion to do so results and practise becomes boring, so we have to watch TV.  This is also a very typical pattern with people who are trying to stop smoking, for instance. They say I will stop smoking now, And then they unconsciously visualise having a very last cigarette. Next thing they know they have gone through a whole pack. The only way to counter such unconscious visualisations is to consciously visualise the process that will lead you to your goal. In the case of the cigarette addict , he must visualise himself actually refusing a cigarette, or even better, visualising himself doing something else. This explains why we have such constant shifts of mood and energy. What I am suggesting here is that you start to do it in a methodical and pre-planned way. (Oh crap, I forgot you are lazy, you are never going to do it!)

So, since you never seem to finish a piece, set yourself a goal that demands a finished piece. The best one is of course a performance of some sort. Then visualise regularly the process (or steps of the process) that will lead you to that goal.

And the other suggestions in the thread are also good, but you will only be able to implement them after you have dealt with the laziness issue.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[cellodude]

You did it again, Bernhard. Next time I will remember not to say so and so said it all BEFORE you post. Now after you post I will say so and so AND Bernhard said it all. I should have known better.  

dennis lee

[janice]

If – as you play – you start “thinking” – that is using your intellectual function – about what you are doing it will all fall apart.

This is sooooo true!!  When I play a solo in public, I've noticed that I tend to "space off" alot, but my performances are great.  I don't deliberately try to space off, it just happens, and I allow myself to follow that.  Bernhard, were we on the same wavelength here?  Most of my solos are in church.  I've always been pleased with myself because I never get nervous, and I have attributed it to the fact that I deliberately "don't think" about it.  But in the weeks or months that I have spent preparing my solo, I REALLY thought about it every moment I practiced it.  Bernhard, please comment on this.  I want to know if this is the same idea that you are talking about.

[Spatula]

Bernhard, I'm curious to how long it takes to write one of those big ass (but awesome) replies of yours.  Do you have a like amassed the classical music composium of knowledge in your house like the library of congress is to books or smithsonian is to research and history?

WOWSERS!  

[surendipity]

Wow, what wonderful feedback.
But has Lazy been back?
Nope..   I also don't know if he'll have the discipline to read all these most fasinating posts.

But in short If you do get this far Little Lazy

here's what to do.

3M post it notes pad

Get one

Put them on the parts you DO NOT practice.
Make it colourful and obvious.

There you go.  Now a BIG NOTE ON THE PIANO

"I AM NOT ALLOWED TO PLAY MY FUN STUFF UNTIL I CAN PEEL OFF ONE STICKY NOTE"

and stick to it one sticky note at a time.

Surendipity

[bernhard]

This is sooooo true!!  When I play a solo in public, I've noticed that I tend to "space off" alot, but my performances are great.  I don't deliberately try to space off, it just happens, and I allow myself to follow that.  Bernhard, were we on the same wavelength here?  Most of my solos are in church.  I've always been pleased with myself because I never get nervous, and I have attributed it to the fact that I deliberately "don't think" about it.  But in the weeks or months that I have spent preparing my solo, I REALLY thought about it every moment I practiced it.  Bernhard, please comment on this.  I want to know if this is the same idea that you are talking about.

Yes, this is exactly what I am talking about. And everyone at some point or other experiences this, but they do not have the theory to explain it. So let me expand a bit more on it.

1.      The key word here is “consciousness”, or “awareness”. There is no reason to complicate this concept. It is really simple. Consciousness is the sum of everything you are aware of at any given moment. For instance, right now you may be aware of the words you are reading, and you may be conscious of the meaning in these words. However there is a far large number of things you are completely unconscious of like for instance, the pressure of your feet on the floor. In fact the “unconscious” is so vast that is probably the same size of the universe. The conscious part of your mind on the other hand is so small as to be laughable. In fact it has been measured: Consciousness can only hold at any time 7 ± 2 chunks of information. Try this experiment. Try to count from 1 – 100 aloud (in your mind). This is chunk number 1: the sound of the numbers. Now visualize a big staircase and as you count visualise one number in each step. That’s chunk number 2. Next clap your hands and be aware on each number, and be aware of the sound of your hands clapping (chunk number 3), of the physical sensation of your hands pressing against each other (chunk number 4). As you keep doing these four things and keeping them in your consciousness add tapping the right foot (chunk 5), being aware of the sound of it when it thumps the floor (chunk 6) and of the pressure on the floor (chunk 7). Very few people can actually go so far. Typically after the third chunk, as soon as you add another chunk some previous chunk drops into the unconscious.

In the 60s there was a lot of talk about “expansion of consciousness”. This is all rubbish. You cannot expand your consciousness: it is limited by the 7 ± 2 factor. A normal person may be able to hold 3 items in consciousness if that much. With a lot of training, you may be able to reach the upper limit of 9 items. Try to add another item and you cannot. For another item to be held in consciousness, one of the other items must drop into unconsciousness.

You can also think of the consciousness/unconsciousness duality as living in a huge museum full of stuff in complete darkness. All you have is a tiny torchlight. It can only light a tiny portion of the museum. Most people spend their lives with the torch directed at one single exhibit. It does not occur to them to direct the torch elsewhere and explore other exhibits. The ability to direct the torch of consciousness anywhere you like is called “attention”.


2.      Where exactly is your consciousness located? If as you did the exercise above you pay attention where all that awareness is taking place, you will most likely agree that it is somewhere in or around your head. However, your conscious processes can take place elsewhere to. And here is the problem. In our society we only recognise as consciousness that which takes place in our heads. When our consciousness shifts place we do not have a name for it, we do not have a theoretical structure to place it, and therefore, for the most time we experience it in a vague and uncertain way. As a consequence we cannot use it. Now, for those of you who suffer from asthma, I must give a warning. Get your breathalysers ready, because what I am going to say next is going to leave you breathless.

3.      Remember what I said about the three basic functions (there are more, but these are the ones that matter for the moment): intellectual, emotional and motional? Think about them as three different “minds”. Let us recap. The intellectual mind functions on the basis (and learns from) of comparisons. This takes time, so the intellectual mind is painfully slow. The emotional mind functions (and does not learn anything at all) on the basis of a completely irrational “I love/I hate”. The emotional mind is ridiculously fast. In fact it is 30 000 times faster than the intellectual mind. Finally the motional mind functions though sense impressions and movement (and learns through imitation). It is unbelievably fast. In fact it is 30 000 times faster than the emotional mind, and therefore 900 000 times faster than the intellectual mind. Now here is the amazing news: your consciousness can be “placed” in any of these minds. Normally – because our society so decreed – our consciousness is forever stuck in the intellectual mind. At such slow speeds, being conscious is a painful affair. Hence lack of concentration, laziness, lack of focus and general clumsiness in daily affairs. However in certain exceptional circumstances people have experienced shifts of consciousness. Here is one example that some of you may have experienced: you are driving a car, you turn a curve at a reasonable speed, and there is a lamppost that has fallen in the road. You break, but it is clear that you are going to hit it. Then something happens: everything suddenly slows down . You observe with curious sort of detachment the car slowly, very slowly skidding as you go towards the lamppost.  You see and feel your foot very, very slowly pressing on the break. You observe the car slowly hitting the post. You can see with great clarity the metal deforming. Your head slowly moves to wards the windscreen and very slowly and by degrees hit in a continuous motion the windscreen and slowly moves back. You can see droplets of blood dancing in slow motion in the air. There is no pain or panic, just a curious sense of detachment.

There: your consciousness has shifted to the motional mind. Because it processes information at such unbelievable speeds, everything seems to be in slow motion.

4.      Our modern societies are forever stuck in the intellectual mind. However there are many methodologies for shifting consciousness, although they are not usually explained in the way I just did. Meditation, yoga and the martial arts when taught by someone who actually knows what they are doing will all lead to it (hence the transformation of martial arts into sports is something to be deeply deplored). A superlative martial artist will fight with his consciousness firmly in the motional mind, for in this way everything will be in slow motion. Notice however that this does not mean that you will be able to move faster. You will just process information faster. So if someone throws a punch at you, you will see that punch coming slowly towards your nose, you will slowly attempt to block it, and if you slowly fail to do so, you will see the punch slowly sink into your face. The real training in martial arts consists not in making you move faster, but in teaching you to shift consciousness and to get you used to operate in that new place, as used as you are with your consciousness in the intellectual centre.

5.      In order to play unbelievably fast (think Czyffra) you have only two choices: Do it with your unconscious mind, and the feeling is that your fingers are doing it but you have no idea how they are doing it. Or shift your consciousness to your motional centre. When this happens, everything will be in slow motion. You will not be able to play faster, but you will have amazing control and accuracy.

6.      Now you can perhaps see how everything can go wrong. If you are playing a piece that has fast, difficult passages, you must rely on your motional mind to do it. You cannot play the piano with the emotional mind, and you cannot play the piano with the intellectual mind. However, you may play it in an unconscious manner, that is you leave it to your motional mind to get on with it, and decide to be unaware of what is going on. If you do that typically you will experience sitting at the piano, going into a sort of trance state and at the end of the piece coming out of it, not quite sure how you did what you did, but satisfied that you did a good job. Most pianists work like that. And that is one of the reason why they hate people coughing, or mobile phones ringing: it jolts them out of their unconsciousness and by directing their attention put their consciousness back into the picture, typically in the slow intellectual mind. Or alternatively, the pianist may start to be conscious either in the intellectual mind (what is the next note?), which is of course a disaster, since the intellectual mind is too slow to cope with everything that is going on and you typically have a crash, or they may start emotionalising about the piece. This is actually a favourite with certain people (from time to time they appear in the forum). They believe that in order to play well they must be filled to the brink with the emotion the piece is supposed to express. They are forever asking “which emotion did the composer have n mind? How can I feel it? How can I express it?”. If you have read the posts by Monk, you will see that is one of his pet peeves, and he is absolutely right. And now you also know why. However since the emotional centre is so much faster than the intellectual centre, you will get away with it. So there are quite a lot of emotional pianists out there, but they are never as good as the motional pianists. The intellectual pianists simply do not exist: you cannot play the piano with the intellectual mind. Intellectual pianists typically become musicologists and University professors.

7.      Here is another way to think about all this. A guy is in a pub. A drunk comes in and slaps him in the face. What does the guy do? It depends.

i.      The intellectual will start making comparisons. “Should I hit him back? What will be the consequences? What if he kicks my ass? How does he compare in strength with me? Should I complain to the landlord? Should I call the police? Should I do nothing? What will be the possible follow-ups to any of these situations? Let me compare it all and then decide on the best course of action”. By the time the intellectual decides to do, the drunk is already gone.
ii.      The emotional gets furious. Blood rushes to his head and before the drunk has had time to withdraw his hand. The emotional guy has already hit him several times. With a bottle. Yes, emotional reactions are that fast.
iii.      The motional guy (a typical superlative martial artist). See the drunk entering the pub and moving uncertainly in his direction. He stands up and leaves.  

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[bernhard]

Bernhard, I'm curious to how long it takes to write one of those big ass (but awesome) replies of yours.  Do you have a like amassed the classical music composium of knowledge in your house like the library of congress is to books or smithsonian is to research and history?

WOWSERS!  

The one above took about 12 minutes (I use DVORAK).

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Saturn]

5.      In order to play unbelievably fast (think Czyffra) you have only two choices: Do it with your unconscious mind, and the feeling is that your fingers are doing it but you have no idea how they are doing it. Or shift your consciousness to your motional centre. When this happens, everything will be in slow motion. You will not be able to play faster, but you will have amazing control and accuracy.

Fascinating post, but I'm confused about one thing.

What is the purpose of the motional mind?  What does it do on a regular daily basis, and how can it be engaged for the purpose of piano playing (or anything for that matter)?

If something unexpected happens, say you're walking along and trip on something, and suddenly instinctively your body adjusts itself to keep you from falling… is this the work of the motional mind?

- Saturn

[bernhard]

Fascinating post, but I'm confused about one thing.

What is the purpose of the motional mind?  What does it do on a regular daily basis, and how can it be engaged for the purpose of piano playing (or anything for that matter)?

If something unexpected happens, say you're walking along and trip on something, and suddenly instinctively your body adjusts itself to keep you from falling… is this the work of the motional mind?

- Saturn

The motional mind controls sense perception (sight, hearing, etc.) and movements (and movement co-ordination).

Everything you do on a regular basis that involves movement or sense perception is done by the motional mind. If you are walking along it is thanks to it. If you play the piano it is thanks to it. And yes, if you trip and adjust yourself “automatically” that is also the work of the motional mind. Except that there is nothing “automatic” about it. It just feels automatic because it is so fast, so much faster than the intellect can follow. Athletes (especially the ones who do highly precise and complex movements like Olympic gymnasts) and dancers have highly developed motional minds. However the way to learn and perform motional activities is very different from the way to learn and perform intellectual activities. Very often pedagogues are intellectuals proposing intellectual solutions (that sound terribly logical and sensible) to motional problems that ultimately do not and cannot work.

Piano playing at its most basic is completely motional. However analysing a score is completely intellectual. It is very important to spend time observing these minds by figuring out which activities should be best performed by which. People are forever performing their activities with the least appropriate mind. Hence the sad state of affairs of the general population in regards to what they can manage (or not) to accomplish.

Best wishes,
Bernhard

[monk]

Bernhard, your answers are STUNNING!

If you were in Germany, I would ask you to give lectures at our music university.

@Spatula:

You asked how Bernhard has amassed so much knowledge.

It's simple, but most people don't know that.

If you really UNDERSTAND things, the principles and relationships, then memorizing comes AUTOMATICALLY, effortlessly. In fact, then "amassing knowledge" is not the right expression, because one has never the feeling that he fills his head with something.

Most people, especially in school or university, try to cram things into their head as unconnected single facts. That's tedious and un-useful, and they will forget fast if they don't refresh regularly.

But if you really have understood a subject fully, it's totally easy to hold one long lecture about it after another, because you don't "recall facts", but one fact leads naturally to another.

Best Wishes,
Monk

[rlefebvr]

This is a cool thread.

Right now, I am learning Latin Patterns, or more importantly Clave.

My teacher and I are doing this because  one of my biggest problem in music is rhythm. It is a problem because in the end I cannot tear it apart rationally. That is why I am such a lousy piano player. I am always in search of the next note or rhythm pattern.

Clave is  an interesting pattern and it is extremely fast. Although I have to learn it first, in the end I will have to feel my way  in order to play it. I don't mean feel in an emotional way, but very much in your motional function. It will simply have to be there or else I will never ever be able to play up to speed and follow the music.

The best pieces I play, I cannot teach to my students because I have no idea how I am playing them. My hands go here and then there and then do this thing here and so forth.

All this being said, I am not sure I person can really move from one spectrum to another in a conscious way. I think you are one way or another and are stuck there. I will give it my best to change the patterns however and see if I can make any progress.

Hopefully, this will finally help me see the music instead of the notes when I practice.

[janice]

Yes, this is exactly what I am talking about. And everyone at some point or other experiences this, but they do not have the theory to explain it. So let me expand a bit more on it.

Bernhard, so then, I shouldn't be "stressed out" because I space off, correct?  If it is "normal" and if I play unbelievably well and I am not nervous--then WHY NOT space off? right? LOL

I'm so happy to know that this is normal!

[Saturn]

Bernhard, thank you for your reply.  However, I'm still unclear on one thing.  Sorry if I'm a bit slow!

5.      In order to play unbelievably fast (think Czyffra) you have only two choices: Do it with your unconscious mind, and the feeling is that your fingers are doing it but you have no idea how they are doing it. Or shift your consciousness to your motional centre.

How do you "shift your consciousness to your motional center"?  I think I can do it to some degree (not necessarily in piano playing, but in general), but I'm not sure what I'm doing is quite "correct".

- Saturn

[Stolzing]

I very rarely master any pieces as I am bascally too lazy.  Rather then concentrate on say 3 / 4 pieces I tend to play bits of pretty much anything, very rarely that well.  I find myself sitting at the piano just sightreading random music rather than working on set pieces.  

I dont seem to have the motivation to finish the piece.

I also never memorise pieces and would strugle to memorise a short passage.  I always need music in front of me.

Ive been playing the piano for about 14 years...


I was just wondering if anyone else had similar problems, and could tell me how the overcame this....


I want to change!!!!!!!!

What music do you listen to when you dont play the piano?  I bet you dont regularly listen to piano music.  I am only really dedicated to pieces that I really love before I try to learn them.  If I try to learn something that I never heard before, or something like Fur Elise, then I lose interest in it.  I'd say put away the Britney Spears CDs   and listen to some piano music until you find something you really love and want to play.  I may be completely wrong about this with you, but if so maybe it will be helpful to someone else.

[bernhard]

Bernhard, your answers are STUNNING!

If you were in Germany, I would ask you to give lectures at our music university.

@Spatula:

You asked how Bernhard has amassed so much knowledge.

It's simple, but most people don't know that.

If you really UNDERSTAND things, the principles and relationships, then memorizing comes AUTOMATICALLY, effortlessly. In fact, then "amassing knowledge" is not the right expression, because one has never the feeling that he fills his head with something.

Most people, especially in school or university, try to cram things into their head as unconnected single facts. That's tedious and un-useful, and they will forget fast if they don't refresh regularly.

But if you really have understood a subject fully, it's totally easy to hold one long lecture about it after another, because you don't "recall facts", but one fact leads naturally to another.

Best Wishes,
Monk

Thank you, Monk!

You are absolutely right. To know everything one only needs to know a little bit.

Unfortunately it usually takes a life time to learn this little bit that allows you to know everything.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[bernhard]

Bernhard, so then, I shouldn't be "stressed out" because I space off, correct?  If it is "normal" and if I play unbelievably well and I am not nervous--then WHY NOT space off? right? LOL

I'm so happy to know that this is normal!

“De perto ninguém é normal” (At close distance no one is normal)
[Caetano Veloso – Brazilian songwriter]

I wouldn’t say this is normal – if normal means what everyone does.

I would say it is desirable. In the same sense that happy marriages are desirable but far from normal.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[bernhard]

Bernhard, thank you for your reply.  However, I'm still unclear on one thing.  Sorry if I'm a bit slow!


How do you "shift your consciousness to your motional center"?  I think I can do it to some degree (not necessarily in piano playing, but in general), but I'm not sure what I'm doing is quite "correct".

I do not even know how to begin to answer this in any way that will be helpful to to you through a forum. I will give you some general ideas.

1.      Your consciousness is often shifting. However because our society /culture only recognises the word consciousness as having any meaning when it is placed at the intellectual mind, any other states are usually disregarded. You have already experienced everything I talked about, but you do not have a coherent vocabulary to describe it. Without language to structure experience we tend to ignore it. However there are many traditions that deal with this (both spiritual and humanistic). Meditation, martial arts, biodance, are just a few of the disciplines that propose to address this subject. This is mainly because you need to shift your consciousness in order to become effective at these activities.

2.      Shift of consciousness is always accompanied by a strong  and unmistakable modification of the perception of time. Everything slows down. Personally the strongest such perception I ever experienced occurred with juggling (I am an expert juggler). Juggling literally dilates time. Once I observed this with juggling I started to observe it in all sorts of circumstances. I am sure you have also experienced this dilation of time at the piano. Think about that incredibly fast piece that you initially thought it would be humanely impossible to play. Yet, somehow after you mastered it, it did not seem so fast anymore. This is not to say that you could play it any faster, but that somehow your perception of it changed, so that the piece had slowed down. Many times this happens even when listening to someone else playing it. Start thinking about it (making comparisons) and suddenly it go to the speed of light again.

3.      One way to shift your consciousness is to bring it to different parts of your body. Where does all your consciousness take place? Try to pinpoint it exactly. Most people say it is inside their heads, because they assume it is the result of brain activity. However, if you observe it impartially, you will see that your consciousness is not in your head at all (I will not tell you where it is to give you a chance to investigate without bias – once you have investigates, come back and I will tell you where mine is). The motional mind is believed to be located four fingers below your navel, so in the martial arts a lot of training goes into dropping your consciousness to that level. This means that you become very centred, very balanced and almost impossible to move. People with their consciousness high up in the body are easily unbalanced and thrown. One consequence of taking this stuff seriously is that it will give you a reason and a guideline for posture at the piano. It is not so much about physical well-being that comes from the correct posture (although this will be a side effect) but mostly about adopting a posture that will encourage your consciousness to shift to the motional centre where piano playing can be done at its best.

Finally this sort of conversation can easily become quite esoteric, but there is really nothing esoteric about it. It is all quite simple. Unfortunately we live in a society where these things are completely ignored, so we lack a proper language to discuss this sort of experience (try talking about colours without any word that relates to colours and see how far you get).

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Shagdac]

Thank Bernhard...that was very interesting to read the other thread, and yes, that's pretty much what happens. It's like when you finally know you have something so well, you can play it, without thinking or concentrating on it. I think what I had stated previously was something along the lines of once I had something that far...if I TRIED to look and think about it, I would mess up. But if I just let my mind or fingers take over, and didn't look at exactly what I was doing, it did better.

I just returned from my piano lesson, and an interesting thing happened, that never has before with the pieces I am working on. I was in the middle of playing, and was doing a passage that my teacher had spoke to me considerably about, that I had really been having difficulty with.....as I was playing that passage, I looked over at him (while I continued to play), smiled and said "right"? He said "correct"...I stated "I really worked hard for you this week"...then went back to looking at the music and  playing, this short bantor went on while I never missed a beat, and continued playing. I thought about this as I left....that I had actually been able to TALk and play at the same time. That's when I realized I had it!

Consiously, if I had thought about talking while playing, I wouldn't have been able to do it. It just happened. I don't know if it's my mind, or fingers that takes over, it just happens. I think it must have something to do with Subconsious memory due to repitition. I find this very interesting indeed. It's like when you first learn to tie  your shoes....you have to look and practice, and start over alot....but after awhile..you can do it with your eyes shut, because your hands and fingers just "KNOW what to do.


S

[f0bul0us]

What's making me laugh so hard is that someone plays an instrument for almost 15 years and doesn't bother to master (performance level) the pieces he plays. I'm sorry but that's just down right hilarious.

[benji]

Wow! Reading this post has probably spared me a boring college course, and has given me a new understanding of "consciousness." Bernhard, please write a book!

[ChopinFreak]

Indeed!!!! Bernhard... write a book!!!!

I'm considering leaving Spain to take classes with you!!!  

Just kidding...  

Great posts as usual

[squiggly_girl]

I would buy a book by Bernhard as well   Or maybe you're already published, Bernhard, and are not telling us...

I'm interested in this DVORAK keyboard layout thing, so, hope yous don't mind but I wanna camp there for a little. I don't have the patience to learn a whole other layout...but I did try changing my work keyboard over yesterday, to see what the key layout was like. Did I miss what DVORAK actually stands for?

What's a little confusing to me is this: to implement changes you have to restart the computer. Because I was using a work computer, this also means that I need to log on to the system to complete the whole restart process.

So I changed over to DVORAK and logged off to implement changes. Then to log back in I typed my password as usual, using QWERTY. Subsequently when I'd had enough of typing gobbledegook, I changed the settings back to QWERTY. To implement these I, of course, had to log off again and relog in. And again, I typed my password in as I usually do, in the QWERTY system.

But this is the thing. Shouldn't the computer at some point during that process NOT have recognised my password because of the different keyboard configuration? What's going on there?

[Saturn]

I'm interested in this DVORAK keyboard layout thing, so, hope yous don't mind but I wanna camp there for a little. I don't have the patience to learn a whole other layout...but I did try changing my work keyboard over yesterday, to see what the key layout was like. Did I miss what DVORAK actually stands for?

Dvorak doesn't stand for anything.  The guys who designed the simplified keyboard were August Dvorak and William Dealey.  His name is pronounced phonetically, not the way you prounounce the composer's name.

What's a little confusing to me is this: to implement changes you have to restart the computer. Because I was using a work computer, this also means that I need to log on to the system to complete the whole restart process.

So I changed over to DVORAK and logged off to implement changes. Then to log back in I typed my password as usual, using QWERTY. Subsequently when I'd had enough of typing gobbledegook, I changed the settings back to QWERTY. To implement these I, of course, had to log off again and relog in. And again, I typed my password in as I usually do, in the QWERTY system.

But this is the thing. Shouldn't the computer at some point during that process NOT have recognised my password because of the different keyboard configuration? What's going on there?

I run a computer with Mac OS X, and the same thing happens.  Here's why:

The login process (which prompts for a username and password and allows the user to log in) is run under a special user (which is used internally by the computer) known as root.  Since the process is running under root, it uses the settings specified for root, which are usually the system defaults like the Qwerty keyboard.  That's why each user can set his keyboard layout to Dvorak or to a foreign language keyboard layout, but the login process will always use Qwerty.

If you log in as root, you can change the keyboard layout to Dvorak.  Then the login box will require you to type your username and password in Dvorak rather than Qwerty.  But this is generally not a good idea.

I see you've found the Dvorak thread now!

- Saturn

[cellodude]

Indeed!!!! Bernhard... write a book!!!!

I'm considering leaving Spain to take classes with you!!!  

Just kidding...  

Great posts as usual

Hey Bernhard are you listening? You keep ignoring me but let's see you ignore the whole forum. Get to it, man. Write that book already.  

[jbmajor]

I very rarely master any pieces as I am bascally too lazy.  Rather then concentrate on say 3 / 4 pieces I tend to play bits of pretty much anything, very rarely that well.  I find myself sitting at the piano just sightreading random music rather than working on set pieces.  

I dont seem to have the motivation to finish the piece.

I also never memorise pieces and would strugle to memorise a short passage.  I always need music in front of me.

Ive been playing the piano for about 14 years...


I was just wondering if anyone else had similar problems, and could tell me how the overcame this....


I want to change!!!!!!!!

Maybe you could see a doctor, and he could perscribe some Ritalin; it sounds like you could have some form of ADD(attention deficit disorder).

[Nana_Ama]

We all have ADD at some point in our lives lol

[Balakirev]

Schedule a performance with pieces that you don't really master but  that you know you could. Give you 2 months to practice and invite tons of people. That would give you some extra motivation