Can perfectionism become detrimental ?

[scott13]

What are people's thought on the issue of perfectionism within piano playing?

I only ask as i seem to have hit a wall of sorts with some rather challenging works. I can play them very well (to the extent i have had numerous compliments from other Uni performance majors) but they never seem quite good enough. I know it is always good to have something to work on and improve on, but is it potentially detrimental to be spending months working on particular pieces in pursuit of perfection?

Also it is possible my perfectionism is not aided by some recording i listen to which are essentially perfect (Side note: do classical players cut recordings together at all? Say play the piece 3-5 times and cut together the best version from all the recordings? ) As i have yet to hear even note perfect live recordings of one of the pieces (Chopin's Polonaise in Ab Op 53)

Any thought and techniques others use for dealing with perfecting works would be appreciated.

[pianisten1989]

Oh yeah, classical musicians cut as freaking crazy persons...

To the actual topic:
Many times when I've practised a work for a very long time, I also get stuck. From my experience it's better to let it rest for a while.

I was playing at an audition with pieces I'd played forever. The audition went ok (and I passed) but it was far from as good as I should be able to. Then I let it rest for a week-ish, then I started playing them again. They sucked the first day, ofc, but already on the second day they were much better than before the audition.

What I've learned now is to practise them until it's down to tone perfection in single notes ("Nah, this single tone should be more like this...") and then leave it for a week, and then start over, and then leave it down for some months and then start playing it again (or don't, depends on if you prepare for a competition, or similar, or just play it for adding pieces to the repertoire).

[richard black]

Side note: do classical players cut recordings together at all?

In general, yes, a lot. Even on 'live' recordings. A close friend was recorded in a live concert for a well-established label, and fair enough, quite a high proportion of the notes on the final version were from the concert itself, but the microphone was open for the whole of his rehearsal in the hall earlier the same day, and he stayed behind in the hall for nearly an hour after the audience had left recording patches. Some of the perfectionism was his, some the producer's.

In general perfectionism is a good thing, but one has to temper it with the acceptance that one is human!

[destini]

That friend didn't spend much time producing, honestly talking. I read about Marc-Andre Hamelin's recording where 1000 or something cuts were used, thus resulting in patches consisting from like, four notes!

[dcstudio]

Live music is rarely if ever "perfect."  You must learn to live with this as a performer.  You cannot loose sleep over a missed note or late entry--believe me, I used to get insomnia after a big gig. 

If you can live with your performance and be happy--you will be a happier musician.  In no way am I saying you shouldn't strive for perfection in your performances--I'm just saying don't beat yourself up when it doesn't happen or you'll end up with severe neurosis.   

I know a LOT of neurotics

[m1469]

Perfection by definition precludes detriment, however, I believe the illusion of perfection is chalk-full of it.  In my opinion, it depends on what you are chasing and in what manner you are chasing it.

[noambenhamou]

Yeah, but this is not a free ticket to make mistakes. When I play a beethoven sonata, I make probably between 10-20 small mistakes that may be completely unnoticable to the general public, but noticable to a person who has played that particular piece.

But for example, Rubinstein might make 1 or 2 mistakes during an entire sonata. That's human, and acceptable.

I think it's best to practice the sports where the probability of mistakes are high. It doesn't take very long.

[scott13]

I am preparing some difficult works for both competitions and university undergraduate auditions, and seeing as places are so scarce and the competitive nature so high I tend to feel they don't need to accept anybody who isn't perfect, hence my desire for perfection within pieces.

[noambenhamou]

When I was in highschool I auditioned at peabody. I missed ALOT of notes.
I still got accepted (although I never went).
Don't miss notes if possible, but that's not what they are most concerned about. After they accept you, they'll make you hit the right notes - they are not worried about that What they ARE worried about is potential. They are looking for talent, and talent doesn't always == hitting the right notes. Arthur Rubenstein didn't have a good reputation of hitting all the right notes.

Don't misunderstand, please do try to hit all the right notes!!! If you want to get in, go get Rubinstein's recording of you audition pieces, and mimic them 99%. Hit almost all the right notes, and you'll get in.

[faulty_damper]

This discussion topic "can perfectionism become detrimental?" makes the assumption that it is static.  It is not.

Perfectionism is part of a process.  It is a very important step in becoming a musician as it requires the ability to hear the minute nuances and be highly scrutinizing of tone production.  Most pianists never develop the ability to get to this stage.  Some do.  Of these, most will develop out of it once they've learned as much as they could from it.

Perfectionism is just one step in development.  It includes correct notes, musical and technical aspects.

[goldentone]

Perfectionism can definitely be detrimental if your musical life is draining away while your repertoire accrues at a snail's pace.  Yet I do believe that in order to be a high caliber pianist, one must have perfectionism in them.  But we really want to prune our perfectionism into its maturer form of an undying pursuit that controls the ship from the deep, rather than controlling us from the surface.  The key for me has been in becoming content with where I am.  What is the nature of the wall you have hit with these challenging pieces?  It may be that at this point in your development you have not yet attained the necessary skill to play them as you wish.  You may just need to lay them aside for now and come back to them in the future.

[scott13]

Overall the wall i mainly refer too is one particular piece, Chopin's Heroic Polonaise, (yet it is also applicable in some other works such as Brahms Sonata in C and the harder sonatas of Beethoven) and it mainly concerns voicing of the many large chords. At tempo i always hit at least 95% right notes, yet i often record my playing and listen back to hear certain chords not voiced 'correctly' . By this i mean the chord just doesn't seem to sound like it should (side note: i'm taking my definition of what it 'should' sound like from recordings where artists may well do multiple takes of the piece to achieve perfection).

Your point on being contempt with where you currently are is an interesting one. Though i tend to believe that one must always be aiming for higher than where we currently are ? I have noticed however that a similar problem with the Op 40 Polonaises solved themselves essentially because i left the piece for a month and came back after playing different pieces and discovered that the issues had almost fixed themselves, and after some slight work they did.

This experience also seems to agree with a book i read recently that mentioned in order to truly master a work, you must re-learn it 3 times after you initially touch it as the process of forgetting the difficult passages and re-learning them sinks them deeper into the memory and after 3 times it becomes so ingrained into memory that you never forget it.

On a side note, you mentioned that universities are looking mainly for potential, how do they measure this roughly? if you know that is. Would my personal story be considered potential? Mainly i played Trombone through teen years and at 18 i picked up piano, now at 20 I have covered a range of rather difficult works and had them all at high standards of perfection with only very small issues that proved unsolvable. So in their eyes would this constitute potential ?

[oxy60]

We must always keep in mind that we play a percussion instrument. Notes that are written to sound together vertically must be struck exactly together to get that special sound unique to the piano. And they must be the right notes.

We've all heard blazing speed and technique, but listen again for that piano sound of strings being struck at the same time.

If one note is missed vertically then all notes are missed.

[pianoplayjl]

No because in the end you are learning a piece and the objective is to learn and play to the best of your ability, which involves perfecting. it is not possible to have a "perfect version" of a piece.

[mike_lang]

This discussion topic "can perfectionism become detrimental?" makes the assumption that it is static.  It is not.

Perfectionism is part of a process.  It is a very important step in becoming a musician as it requires the ability to hear the minute nuances and be highly scrutinizing of tone production.  Most pianists never develop the ability to get to this stage.  Some do.  Of these, most will develop out of it once they've learned as much as they could from it.

Perfectionism is just one step in development.  It includes correct notes, musical and technical aspects.

I have to disagree.  What you describe is the pursuit of perfection, but not perfectionism as we commonly speak with it.  Perfectionism connotes a sort of obsession that can become very unhealthy if carried to the extreme, particularly when it causes "premature evaluation."  What I mean is that perfectionists tend to be hypercritical of their work, even in early stages, tearing themselves to pieces for being unable to polish an edifice that has not yet been built.

As for your last couple of sentences, I would not call this perfectionism, just necessity and taking care.  One who learns wrong notes lays an unstable foundation, as does one who learns wrong dynamics, tempi (not trying to open a can of worms here, I promise), and so forth. 

As to the original poster's question, the only reason the wall is there is because one does not ask *what* exactly is not good enough.  It is discouraging and unhelpful to make general judgments about a piece, and quite the opposite to make specific ones.  You'll find that the more specific you become in your study, the less you will tend to "plateau."

Best,
Mike

[werq34ac]

One can never play a piece perfectly. Rubinstein makes 1-2 mistakes per sonata? That's total bogus. Perhaps 1 or 2 wrong notes, but a correct note played wrongly is still a mistake isn't it? Piano has MULTIPLE dimensions, dynamics, phrasing, articulation, pedal, voicing, balance, color, expression, rubato, etc. etc. With these, wrong notes are the LAST thing experienced pianists worry about.

Perfectionism is impossible in music. However, that doesn't mean you should settle for less. Instead, we as pianists must strive to get to perfect as humanly possible.

And on top of being perfect, if one cannot communicate what they feel about the music to the audience, the music loses it's meaning. Music is meant to be shared and as musicians practice in order to better communicate the music rather than to iron out mistakes.

As for wrong notes, one should avoid them as much as possible, but they do happen and then if they do, just move on. You could play something with no wrong notes at all and it would still suck. On the other hand, you play lots of wrong notes like Horowitz and still blow away the audience regardless of whether they like the piano or not.

[pianoplayjl]

Nicely said. on Thursday I had a piano lesson and I played a piece. I made plenty of wrong notes but the teacher did not give a damn because he saw a big improvement in terms of expression and etc. Like you said, werq34ac, it is not possible to play a perfect piece with no faults, there is no perfect version. Pianists would make plenty of mistakes along the way while making a great recording. Horowitz is the only pianist I know who compensates his wrong note mistakes for his musicalty.

I once listened to Horowitz play Rachmaninoff prelude in G minor. He made wrong note mistakes every where but still, I think that the recording is one of the defining recordings.