what do you do when...

[amelialw]

What do you do when your learning speed suddenly shoots up? and suddenly you can finish learning pieces so fast that you start to get bored in no time at all?

It started for me recently...around Feb after my competition. Now I can learn new pieces within a matter of 1-2 weeks. I'm not used to it because i used to practice for hours everyday or rather I had to since i took ages to learn a piece but now i can sit down for 2-3 hrs and have all the basic notes,phrasing etc. down. How should i break up my practice time then?

[end]

Hi,

I'm a nobody of the piano, but if I'd have your problem, I'd tackle something that's a level higher. When you say you learn pieces so fast, do you mean something like the Mazeppa? And if the piano doesn't present any challenges at all to you, you could try a second instrument. The violin, for instance. It'd put things into perspective. Paganini's I Palpiti would keep you busy for a while.

You must be very talented! Congratulations!

[stevebob]

Amelia!  I remember you from that other forum.    I'm hardly in your situation (and think that many people would be a bit envious of such a "problem"!), but I think I've experienced something comparable.

I've always been a good sightreader, which has meant that I've never been interested in "learning" pieces that are sufficiently uncomplicated that I can read through them fairly proficiently at first sight.  That kind of material is fine for sightreading per se, but I have to feel genuinely challenged by anything I plan to study and master over weeks and months.

The solution for me has been successively larger and more difficult projects—but that's probably true for all musicians who aspire to continue to advance technically.  It seems to me this is what you need to keep doing.

Does it ever end?  I've often wondered about the experience of professionals at the top of their game; if one is so proficient that the majority of the repertoire is "easy," then where's the satisfaction of pushing oneself up to the next level?  We've probably all dreamed of having the sightreading skills of Liszt, but would it be gratifying to play anything at all prima vista?  I know I enjoy the process as much as the product, and that just might drain all the fun out of my musical practice.

Anyway, there's a lot of explicitly virtuoso music out there from the Romantic era that you may not have explored yet.  Another possibility is 20th century music; much of what I've seen appears to have some unsurpassed difficulties.  Keep in mind, too, that technical difficulty and musical difficulty may be inversely proportional.  The most "simple" pieces always have interpretive demands, and effortlessly hitting all the right notes at the right time doesn't make a musical rendering.  That always takes work, even if learning the notes does not.

[peterjmathis]

LOL, so many people would kill for your problem I agree with the person who said you should take on more difficult projects. You seem to have mastered the level you were playing at, so move on to more challenging pieces.

[m19834]

Hi Amelia,

Surely you have worked quite hard to reach a point of playing at a new level, congratulations .  While there can be months and maybe even years of hard work without it seeming as though huge leaps of progress are being made, there are many decisions being made during that time which keep us going and which ultimately do lead to continued progress.  Progress can be subtle for quite awhile, and then one day all of that subtlety amounts to everything being "suddenly" different.  To have everything become "suddenly" easier can be a little disorienting, actually, especially if you are a person whom thrives on working very hard to touch something that may seem out of reach.  When focused so intensively on the work itself, which must be the case in order to reach new levels of playing, it can be easy for the hard work to become the end in itself -- but ultimately it's not, of course.  

I'm sure there are goals that you have had all along where, in reality, quicker learning is necessary in order to accomplish those goals.  If you haven't had those goals, then it's time to set them, make a conscious decision not to be satisfied with where you are at, and decide that you indeed want to reach yet another new level of playing.  Decide, and then don't look back.  To have the learning process become much quicker (and it can be quicker still), while an accomplishment and sign of hard work, is truly only a tool to help us accomplish higher life and musical goals.  And, even though the learning process may have sped up, there is still a huge sea of challenges out there that have been out of reach until you have had the right tools in your box to find and meet them.

[nanabush]

I was the same, until my first lesson at university.  My prof pretty much made me restart pieces I found easy, and I am still working on them now, understanding what ACTUALLY makes them difficult. 

It's hard not to speed through a bunch of pieces, especially in the summer if you stop lessons then.  There is so much great stuff to play, and we have the illusion that there is so little time!!!  I'm starting to appreciate playing less stuff over a longer period of time.

People who learn tons of etudes, several sonatas, a few concertos, and are somehow balancing Gaspard and Petrouchka over that, and are planning to learn all of that and perfect it in less than a year are simply stirring a recipe for disaster.  It's great to have ambitions to play so much stuff, but getting overwhelmed with the amount of stuff you have to PERFECT and realizing you suddenly only have a few weeks left is the worst feeling in the world.  I'd rather get a little bored with some pieces than freaking out that I have to perform this massive pile of immensely difficult repertoire in a month or whatever.

There are obviously the 'anomalies'  , like the 19 year winner of the Cliburn who DID manage to learn Petrouchka, Gaspard, Chopin op 28, Prokofiev 2, among other huge works, against people who have had 5-10 years more time to prepare!! 

[amelialw]

Hi,

I'm a nobody of the piano, but if I'd have your problem, I'd tackle something that's a level higher. When you say you learn pieces so fast, do you mean something like the Mazeppa? And if the piano doesn't present any challenges at all to you, you could try a second instrument. The violin, for instance. It'd put things into perspective. Paganini's I Palpiti would keep you busy for a while.

You must be very talented! Congratulations!

haha...Mazeppa is out of my reach. I forgot to mention that i have unusually small hands for someone of my age. My hands can barely even stretch an 8th. Yes i have a 2nd instrument already. the flute and i used to play the violin as well.

As a response to everyone else's posts, thanks so much for all the replies, advice etc.
I do have abit of a weakness which is my technique bc i did not have a good teacher when i was young and only had an excellent teacher when i moved to canada before i turned 17. I'm not there anymore though. I will be working through Czerny on my own...A few friends& teachers have suggested that already. I have sort of figured out how to pace myself now but still can get rather disorientated every now and than. I will be going back to canada this summer for hols so I will get advice from my teacher whom i studied with for 5 years. Am also going to switch my private teacher to someone who can cater to my learning needs right now and who lets me learn at my pace, doesn't try to pull me back.

Thanks so much!