Crisis with romantic approach

[mikkeljs]

I need some serious help! Just graduated my bachelor exam as a pianist and got a lower mark than for my applying exam 3½ years ago and lower than 2nd year exam. I had been looking so much forward for my exam, taken enought time to it, and focused constantly on my very essensial problems, which is romantic approach. I even had the best teacher I could get, and I felt that I developed so much during the years.

Now I haven´t touched a piano since my exam, because I was shocked about my mark, though I was satisfied with my performance. My teacher just told me, that the reason for the bad mark was that my program was so masochistic. But still, my program concentrated on those problems that I had been working with for 3 years, so it doesn´t explain how I could get such a low mark.

Don´t actually know what kind of reply I expect on this thread, but it´s about a very serious problem. Im not sure if I will ever start playing again. 

Ok my main problem and subject to my 3 years of work is the romantic approach as phrasing naturally the slow melodic pieces by Chopin or Brahms. My problem is entirely technical, having not enought connection between my head and my hands. After 3 years I thought I solved that problem quite well and finally I managed to become satisfied and felt complete as a pianist, but then I get this shocking response, and I have remained in shock since then. The worst thing is that I respect the mark given by professional teachers, whom I look up to. Thats why my whole world has been turned up site down.

[quantum]

Don't take marks too seriously.  They are often not a true reflection of your knowledge and accomplishments, only the subjective opinion by specific persons of your playing in a given moment. 

I have had some shocking comments by some respected music professors as well.  Things you would not expect an educated musician and academic to say.  They were upsetting momentarily, but I moved on. 

[tds]

it's a bit difficult to comment without actually know how you played in the final recital. did you record it? if so, you might wanna post it so we can have a clear, directed discussion.

as for having lower mark, i believe with time you will realize that it is not as important as you think it is now. at the end of the day, it is about music, and not numbers. i understand how hard it can be for you now, but you will get over it soon and be able to concentrate on the core issue, i.e music and your relation to it. warmest, tds

[pianisten1989]

Though, it's just a bachelor-degree. It wont ruin your life. I don't mean to sound harsh, but it's the truth. Take some time off, and just try forget about the scores. Then think about what you want to do.

And since you played pieces you're obviously have been not so good at plying (instead of playing pieces you're good at), maybe that's the reason why you got bad scores.

But I know how it feels, and that it's not so easy to just move on.
I applied to a music academy 3 years in a row. My first year I didn't play with any phrasing, and quite many mistakes. The second year was just a bummer, and my playing was horrible. The third year, I thought I did everything right, and was aiming for the highest scores. But when I got my results, they were the same as the 2 years before, even a bit worse in some parts.

But try to focus on the good things. You've developed as a pianist and have probably learned a thing or two about recital-programs.

[birba]

Take it from someone who's been through it all and then some.  I know what it feels like.  You want to quit.  Because you're counting on someone else's appreciation of you.  That's good.  We need that, too, every once in while.  BUT.  And this is a big BUT.  What's important is what YOU think of yourself and your playing.  You seem to be very aware of your good and bad points as a pianist, of your progress, of what you're aiming for.  Go for it.  If this is what you really want, this little bump in the road is not going to deter your determination. 
Something similar happened to me one year when I tried to get into a big name academy.  Black-balled. Rejected.  Unwanted.  The following year I won a bronze medal in a very big international competition.  It happens all the time.  Get used to it!

[pianowolfi]

I need some serious help! Just graduated my bachelor exam as a pianist and got a lower mark than for my applying exam 3½ years ago and lower than 2nd year exam. I had been looking so much forward for my exam, taken enought time to it, and focused constantly on my very essensial problems, which is romantic approach. I even had the best teacher I could get, and I felt that I developed so much during the years.

I am sure you have progressed and developed. Of course you are now better than back then. I think for graduation marks the requirements are higher. So it does not really mean you are worse than at your application or 2nd year exam.

Now I haven´t touched a piano since my exam, because I was shocked about my mark, though I was satisfied with my performance. My teacher just told me, that the reason for the bad mark was that my program was so masochistic.

What does that concretely mean? Have you played too hard works? Often this is a reason for lower marks.

But still, my program concentrated on those problems that I had been working with for 3 years, so it doesn´t explain how I could get such a low mark.

perhaps you have been working mainly on this and been neglecting other things.

Don´t actually know what kind of reply I expect on this thread, but it´s about a very serious problem. Im not sure if I will ever start playing again. 

Yes of course you will start again, perhaps you need a break and a bit of distance.

Ok my main problem and subject to my 3 years of work is the romantic approach as phrasing naturally the slow melodic pieces by Chopin or Brahms. My problem is entirely technical, having not enought connection between my head and my hands.

Well that's quite vague. Would it be possible for you to describe this problem a bit more in detail, mainly to yourself?

After 3 years I thought I solved that problem quite well and finally I managed to become satisfied and felt complete as a pianist, but then I get this shocking response, and I have remained in shock since then. The worst thing is that I respect the mark given by professional teachers, whom I look up to. Thats why my whole world has been turned up site down.

Perhaps you are too much looking up. These people also only cook with water, as we use to say here

[alessandro]

Ok my main problem and subject to my 3 years of work is the romantic approach as phrasing naturally the slow melodic pieces by Chopin or Brahms. My problem is entirely technical, having not enought connection between my head and my hands.

In a beautiful interview with the pianist Nelson Goerner that I just read in a magazine there is a passage that is in a certain way linked to your situation.  He started playing at a very young age, about six.  He had a teacher, a very dedicated lady and she redirected him to a certain Jorge Garruba.   He worked for seven years with this teacher, until the teacher passed away at a young age.  He got from this Garruba some principles, techniques from a certain Vicente Scaramuzza who was once the teacher from Garruba.   From there he had a certain Juan Carlos Arabian as a teacher.   Again, a very fine human being as I understand from what Goerner tells about him.   And from there, and now comes I hope the interesting part for your situation, this Arabian presented him to a certain Carmen Scalcione.   And here, you can feel that something is happening in his life.   To make a long story very short, this lady (I quote) "was the first (and you have to now that he already won a lot of prizes and played a lot of concerts) this lady was the first to feel that he wasn't satisfied with the way he played the piano.   She was the first to feel that there was "something not right".   I (Nelson Goerner) was not shy, or blocked, but she felt that I could do more and better and she was the only one that has litteraly "liberated" me." I end the quote here.  He worked whole afternoons at her house.  She had no time-limitations, it was a wonderful time for him.   The daughter of this Miss Scalcione did the confidence to Nelson Goerner that whilst he was litteraly shining when he left the lessons, her mother, when she closed the door behind him, was absolutely exhausted and empty.   There was something of a fusion.  I stop here.  I don't know if you feel why a write this for you.  There is not a day, he says, that he doesn't think of this lady.   When the interviewer asks him, if this lady finally gave the true impulse for his career in allowing him to make the connection between his abilities and the "honest" projection of his ideas, he answers as follows.   "It wouldn't be wrong to see it that way, but a career was for her only a secondary goal.  For me, her visions were "noble".  Her only priority was to express myself, to exteriorise (I don't know if this understandable English) fully, no matter where or for what person.  She wanted me to show my real face, that I unveal my personality...  Of course she was happy when I won prizes and gave 'important' concerts, but for her, the essence was elsewhere, with due reason.  She gave me self-confidence, helped me to live with my fears.  That was the most beautiful present that she could give to me.

So, mikkeljs, since you know some kind of 'a problem' (the connection between your head and your hands), there is a big chance I think that you can "unlock" or solve this.   Maybe never entirely, but you can, I'm sure of that.

Good luck.

[mikkeljs]

wow, thanks so much for all those responses! I never thought I would get so much insightful answer to such a complex and subjective problem. Im so thankful and I think I got really something to think about.

I also thought I should post a recording to show how I actually play, but I didn´t record my bachelor exam. I have a recording from my 2nd year exam, but this is already too old and I wasn´t happy with it either.

For my bachelor I played an Alkan etude (Scerzo Diabolico), Scriabin: 2 dances op. 73 or 74? Brahms Intermezzi op. 117 and Prokofievs Sonata no. 3

Probably I should look if I have a recording of the Brahms, or just a fragment which Im satisfied with.

It´s good but sad to know that Im not alone with this kind of experience. My teacher told me after my exam, that she had been trying as much as she could to help me to really sing the phrases in fx Brahms. She said that for most students she knew exactly what their problem was in this case, but for some she didn´t know which button to push, and that the message simply never got in with me.

When I look at a score, I immediately know what I will do, but I tend to create so many little articulations and details, that Im forced to isolate phrases into smaller parts before putting them together. My strongest site is stuff like Stockhausen and Webern, because the nature of their complex music is something that must be isolated to atoms while studying it. My teacher wants me to play melodic lines more spontanous and breathing, which only makes me play with less control. Often she finally screamed: yes of cause!!!, when I played in a completely idiotic unmusical way. My own experience is, that my searching for sound, makes the piece 100 times more difficult and then I get tense in the most simple things. Perhabs that means that Im not able to breath untill I give up my search for a deep sound.
My teacher always taught me, what I also believe is true, that the breathing and relaxing comes with the music. But that´s more complicated than it sounds. Because even a logical connected phrase can be simply too much to play at once. Such as the opening of Chopins 2nd Ballade, which is a chorale that starts very gentle and it must both contain two different characters at once: some kind of italian dance, and some praying girls. It´s easy to hear those characters, but to play them both at once in such a delicate chorale in p or pp, that forces me to part up note by note and really fix it. I tried for half a year to play through spontanously, but it never worked.

Ok, so this is my main problem as exact as I can describe it for now.

Thanks alessandro! I actually reflect myself in this story, as I also had my lessons at my teachers home, and she even gave me time to practice on her piano, because I was so fascinated by its heaviness. And what we worked on was quite often without being concrete but she was trying to make me change my approach, in a way that I never really understood. But she is still one of the few persons who has ment most to my life.

I seemed to come to the conclusion that romantic repertoire just is difficult and takes its time. And by taking time to isolate, I am able to create what I want. But then I got this low mark for something that I had been focused on as the most important concert of my life.

I just hope that I will get over it some day. I still didn´t got over the mark I got on 2nd year either, which was actually higher than this one.




 

[gene2701]

honestly, we cannot comment much abt ur issue until u hv shown some recordings of ur own.

afterall, words r just words u know.

and besides, a certificate in music essentially holds no value.

[pianisten1989]

If you haven't got any recording from the exam, do a new one...