another post recital depression thread

[wilmerguido]

I played in a piano festival today... i played in the 5pm program. Since the 3pm program started late, the participants of the 5pm program was not able to touch the piano at all. My piece was Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No.1. As you know, there are some passages in the piece that requires a smooth and light piano, eg. the trills and the decending broken octaves. The piano apparently was out-of-this world hard to play... The keys insensitive and were super hard... So... I messed up the whole thing. I played continously though... Also... to add to all the stress from the heavy piano... The airconditioning of the recital hall was broken, and there were like 5 spotlights on me...

have you had similar experiences? what did you do?

[birba]

Oh, have I ever!  But I bet if I heard a tape of the concert, or if you heard it in a couple years' time, it wouldn't result all that bad.  The important thing is that you "played continuously, though".  Remember that the audience does not always hear what we hear.  In fact, they RARELY hear what we hear.  And this goes for the good as well as the bad. 
To me post recital depression means something else.  It means all this preparation and dedication for an hour, hour and a half of music, and suddenly: poof! It's over with.  Now what?!  It's all so ephemeral and fleeting...

[becky8898]

Hi : You should listen to Birba he is like the smartest person on this forum.  Anyway here is a rule I keep in mind when ever im playing in front of people. Most kids dont care and most adults are dumber than bread.  When i was little like six, I was playing a recital and didnt want to be there. I had it in mind I wanted to go to Chucky Cheese. Anyway I was bored out of my skull . I was playing the Bach two part invention in F and I thought it would be funny to transpose the second half of it into Gb. Now my teacher knew and I got yelled at afterward , but the audience didnt have a clue.  Dumb as Bread.

Now what to do after your done playing and everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. Why you stand up , smile, take a bow and look like you have just climbed to the top of the  tallest mountain and all the world is spread out before you. Doesnt matter what your feeling inside.  Walk off stage and remember no matter how bad you sucked . You have more talent in your little finger than the rest of the audience has combined. 

Oh one last thing , go find out who is responsible for the condition of the piano and tear into them. Nicely , but get your point across.  Just knock em dead at your next recital. 

Cheers, Becky

[quantum]

I was playing the Bach two part invention in F and I thought it would be funny to transpose the second half of it into Gb.

Did you do that on the spot?  Awesome    Your teacher may have hated it but this is a very good skill to have. 


I recently messed up playing a Bach piece.  It takes a bunch of similar figures and modulates them through almost every key. I moved to the wrong key and ended up improvising a bit before getting back on track.  In my mind this was a terrible performance.  At the end there was an enthusiastic applause from the small crowd, and everyone approached me afterward saying what a great piece it was.  It just goes to show that a performers perception of the music is very different from those that are listening.  When we perform our mind operates like a high speed camera, capturing every minute detail that otherwise is insignificant in the big picture.  We also tend to focus on the bad stuff that happens and easily forget all the good things that we did with the piece.

[littletune]

Hi : You should listen to Birba he is like the smartest person on this forum. 

 

I was playing the Bach two part invention in F and I thought it would be funny to transpose the second half of it into Gb. Now my teacher knew and I got yelled at afterward , but the audience didnt have a clue. 

Did you do that on the spot?  Awesome    Your teacher may have hated it but this is a very good skill to have. 

Yes that's really cool!  And you did that when you were only 6?  I don't think your teacher should have yelled at you for that 

Well I only play "baby" pieces of course but when I make a mistake I feel like everything was a disaster! And I feel really embarassed and bad and all that... but people usually say they didn't even hear the mistakes and of course I don't believe them but then I listen to the recording and I hear that it really wasn't as horrible as it sounded in my head! Of course I'm never really happy about my playing but it's still beter than I thought it was. 

[birba]

Hi : You should listen to Birba he is like the smartest person on this forum.  Anyway here is a rule I keep in mind when ever im playing in front of people. Most kids dont care and most adults are dumber than bread.  When i was little like six, I was playing a recital and didnt want to be there. I had it in mind I wanted to go to Chucky Cheese. Anyway I was bored out of my skull . I was playing the Bach two part invention in F and I thought it would be funny to transpose the second half of it into Gb. Now my teacher knew and I got yelled at afterward , but the audience didnt have a clue.  Dumb as Bread.

Now what to do after your done playing and everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. Why you stand up , smile, take a bow and look like you have just climbed to the top of the  tallest mountain and all the world is spread out before you. Doesnt matter what your feeling inside.  Walk off stage and remember no matter how bad you sucked . You have more talent in your little finger than the rest of the audience has combined. 

Oh one last thing , go find out who is responsible for the condition of the piano and tear into them. Nicely , but get your point across.  Just knock em dead at your next recital. 

Cheers, Becky

You know who I think you are?  You are a 60-year-old concert pianist, rival of Liszt,  who died in 1883 and reincarnated in Becky8898...

[pianisten1989]

Becky cannot be only 12, That was one of the funniest posts I've read on this forum! LIAR!

But yeah. I played the Liszt/paganini Etude no 6, as part of my 1 hour recital, yesterday, and how I played it! I basically skipped one of the variations, because it didn't start as I planned. and the last one wasn't the clearest of all time. But still, the audience were like screaming and cheering a lot, and I even got standing ovations after the last piece. Now, if it was a audience of only musicians, they would probably not be that happy. but normally, it's not. If it's a normal recital, with a famous pianists, then MAYBE it's 1/20 pianists in the audience, but then the rest are just normal 'dumb as bread' people.

[birba]

Becky cannot be only 12, That was one of the funniest posts I've read on this forum! LIAR!

But yeah. I played the Liszt/paganini Etude no 6, as part of my 1 hour recital, yesterday, and how I played it! I basically skipped one of the variations, because it didn't start as I planned. and the last one wasn't the clearest of all time. But still, the audience were like screaming and cheering a lot, and I even got standing ovations after the last piece. Now, if it was a audience of only musicians, they would probably not be that happy. but normally, it's not. If it's a normal recital, with a famous pianists, then MAYBE it's 1/20 pianists in the audience, but then the rest are just normal 'dumb as bread' people.

Becky is NOT 12!  She's 120.  A sprite 120!  Speaking of leaving out variations.  I heard a wonderful recital once that included the Chopin preludes.  Only, they weren't 24.  They were 23, because the pianist couldn't manage the g major, so he skipped it! 

[pianisten1989]

Becky is NOT 12!  She's 120.  A sprite 120!  Speaking of leaving out variations.  I heard a wonderful recital once that included the Chopin preludes.  Only, they weren't 24.  They were 23, because the pianist couldn't manage the g major, so he skipped it! 

Even though it's not very professional, who would notice, if they weren't either pianists, or someone who keeps the counting?

[kelly_kelly]

Becky is NOT 12!  She's 120.  A sprite 120!  Speaking of leaving out variations.  I heard a wonderful recital once that included the Chopin preludes.  Only, they weren't 24.  They were 23, because the pianist couldn't manage the g major, so he skipped it! 

That's interesting... isn't the G major one of the ones moderately advanced students are typically advised to begin with?

[birba]

It's a nasty one if you haven't got it down pat.  It took me years.  It comes right at the beginning and I guess the pianist was nervous about tackling it, missing a few notes and having to continue with that experience in mind.  Although I would have felt : "There!  I've paid my taxes and can now continue on with peace of mind!"   

[pipes]

It is comforting to remember that the audience can have a different and better opinion of what we've done.  And it's true that some wrong notes and other problems do slip by unnoticed by many of our listeners.  BUT NOT ALL.  Years ago, I took a master class from an astonishingly talented pianist and was feeling quite nervous before the final recital.  The other performers were talking along the lines of the "dumb as bread" remark, and I thought, "Great, finally a way out of feeling scared before I play.  Just remember the audience doesn't know anything!"  I got on board and started trash-talking the audience and was feeling relaxed and happy, when the teacher overheard me, turned and roared, "Don't you ever say that!  You have no idea who's here and what they know.  You should play to the BEST EARS IN THE HOUSE, and that could be anyone.  That quiet guy hiding in a dark corner could be the best musician you ever meet."     

I agree that we sometimes have to let ourselves off the hook and not suffer over a few concert mistakes.  To that end, it's okay to listen to the gushers and feel a little better ("you were so awesome, that was amazing; no, I didn't hear any mistakes").  But don't assume the gushers speak for everyone.  The people who hear mistakes don't go rushing up to tell you afterward (actually, a few might! but fortunately not many).  That doesn't mean they didn't hear how it went.  When I hear problems in a concert, I don't tell the performer afterward; I say something that's polite and true, or I just slip away.  I am not a famous person.  I could go to concerts almost anywhere and not be noticed.  I'm a "nobody," but I play well, and I hear everything.  If I heard a concert, I probably heard every note, I know everything that happened in that program.  I could be at your concert.  My husband, who has phenomenal ears, could be at your concert.  Any number of my friends, some of whom don't even play music but are absolutely musically literate -- they could be at your concert.  We should always play with an attitude of respect:  respect for the instrument, the repertoire, our teachers, and our audience.  We performers have playing work because all those nice people came out to hear us; often at night, tired after their own work, sometimes in the rain, maybe skimped on their dinner to be on time, then paid for the ticket.  We owe them respect and gratitude, and we owe them our very best effort.  Every time. 

[nanabush]

Oh good god... speaking of Mephisto Waltz.

I had a mini recital with other students from my teacher's studio at a church nearby... the sound on the piano was dull, so for the first half of the Mephisto, I couldn't get the big bright sound I wanted...

Also, (lol!) the bench was very wobbly.  On the double glissando, I nearly flew off the right side of the bench... when I was shifting my weight, the legs on the left side kind of folded, and the bench tilted... I lost my balance and I literally came so close to falling off the bench.  My mom filmed it haha!!

The coda was garbage... the una corda pedal made random notes kind of stick, so I was kind of thinking "this doesn't sound right" and then the leggiero section with the right hand leaps was a brutality!!  When I replayed it, it wasn't that bad, but I was in shear panic because I started overthinking and trying to compensate for the random sticking notes.

I also played 'Pagodes' by Debussy, which went well, but again the dullness of the piano made the piece kind of sound 'meh' the entire way through.  I couldn't get the sparkly sound I'm so used to on the piano at my lesson haha.

Now I have to wait another month, and replay these for a jury! 

[birba]

You poor thing!  It sounds like it was sheer hell!  But I did laugh at your wobbly bench problem.  All I could see was Victor Borge in my mind!