Ever get an unfulfilled feeling after learning a piece?

[coffee_guy]

I was wondering if any you ever felt unfulfilled after learning a more challenging piece of music. I am not necessarily talking about any grade level in particular, more so just the idea you dedicated a large amount of time to something that at first seemed daunting, to eventually be able to be played proficiently.

Whenever I am done learning something new, I usually get the "what's next?" feeling inside me, instead of a feeling of accomplishment. It's only when you look back several months or pieces where I say, holy sh*t, look what I have learned.

Anyone know what I mean?

[krystellle]

Not exactly the way you say it.  Not unfulfilled because I accomplished the technical aspects.  That makes me feel pretty good.  But sometimes I lose interest in the music.  If I really want to learn a piece because it's really attractive  and "good-looking", I find I lose interest in a short while.  On the other hand, if I learn something strange and wierd, I stay with it longer and come to love it!  For example, Brahms op. 118.  It's taking over my life!

[ethure]

I was wondering if any you ever felt unfulfilled after learning a more challenging piece of music.

Yes, almost always    

I actually feel panic when I feel accomplished, as I then won't know where I should put my effort in.

[vincentl]

I feel that way too sometimes, but I usually just stop thinking about it and study another piece. Although, I think that when given the right amount of attention from your friends and family, you can avoid feeling unfulfilled. Well, in my case, I always try to make a good recording of it (or if  given an opportunity, play live, which is better) and let my friends and family listen to it, and the struggle of learning a piece feels truly worthwhile.

[pianoviolin]

I feel that way too, like once I'm done learning a piece, of course I would now have to polish it up but then i loose interest and feel unfulfilled.
And same, when I look back at the pieces i've learnt, I'll be like 'really? did i learn that awesome piece!?'

[jollisg]

My problem is more like... I never get satisfied. I always want to improve more. I don't think I've ever been fully satisfied with anything I've played... But I'm working on it!

[dcstudio]

any of you pay attention in psych class? yikes.

[werq34ac]

I start a piece because its looks awesome. About a month later, I think this is easy... Am I doing something wrong here?

[dcstudio]

I start a piece because its looks awesome. About a month later, I think this is easy... Am I doing something wrong here?

on the contrary.  quite an intelligent response...if you judge to piece by what it "looks like" on paper then you are not judging what it "sounds" like.  Hard to read and hard to play can be quite different. 

[werq34ac]

Well by looks like, I meant sounds like. It sounds awesome when I hear it, but once I learn the piece, it doesn't sound that awesome anymore..

[rmbarbosa]

Well, when we study a piece, we must achieve the technical control of that piece, and so we read the sheet music, we look for the most dificult bars, we repeat some bars a lot of times... i.e. we transform a wonderful piece of music in a "case study" and this along many days or weeks. It`s very natural to loose the initial fascination...
There`s another problem: in all we do or wish, when we have it always we wish another thing. As human beings, we have thirst of infinite...
So, I use to do like this: after "learning" one piece and when I can play it very well, I let stand it a while (one week, one month...) and I only return to that piece when I mey "feel" it again.
But when we play in public we are allways more "mind" than "heart", I think...

[dcstudio]

Well by looks like, I meant sounds like. It sounds awesome when I hear it, but once I learn the piece, it doesn't sound that awesome anymore..

thanks for clarifying...  when my students tell me it "looks" hard they are always staring at the sheet music.   

[werq34ac]

Though that's another interesting point. Whenever we see a particularly dense passage, we immediately think, that's going to be hell to play. But after a month or so, we look at that passage and think, that's not so bad now is it.