Recognize your progress for real

[faa2010]

I've played piano for around 9 years.  I've played many pieces from the Thompson's books apart from other books.  Also I passed the Hanon a long time ago, but I haven't tried yet the Czerny.

Currently, I am playing the next pieces:

Chopin: Prelude op 28 no 15
           Prelude op 28 no 4
           Prelude op 28 no 7
           Nocturne C# minor
           Nocturne op 9 no 2
           Waltz op 64 no 1
Bach: Inventions (1 and 4 at this moment, in a few days I will give a try to 7 and
Satie: Gymnopedies (all the 3 of them)
Rubinstein: Romance Op. 44, No. 1
Burgmuller: Arabesque
Hanon (the first 30 lessons)

My reading of pieces is a bit slow (I know the notes and the symbols like legato, stacatto, crescendo, diminuendo, etc. but it takes me long time to play the notes according to what the symbols mark), I have difficulties with speed (both reading and playing), but when I am really motivated, I can get the piece, play it by heart and aproximately as it should go.

Sometimes I feel that my piano is progressing, sometimes I feel that it isn't.

As a pianist, how would you really recognize you are advancing and not going backwards?

Note: I know the teacher's point of view is important, but what if the teacher either is very flexible or very strict.

[pbryld]

I sometimes play passages from pieces I really have no abilities to justify playing. I quickly put them aside again, but by pulling them out some time later, and discovering how much easier it goes, it's easy to track the progress.

[raphaelinparis]

As a pianist, how would you really recognize you are advancing and not going backwards?

when I play pieces I learned some time ago, I generally have a better control than before. I often forget some parts and I have to refresh my memory, but the control is better and that is the only meaningfull "indicator" of my progress as a pianist.

[ionian_tinnear]

I sometimes play passages from pieces I really have no abilities to justify playing. I quickly put them aside again, but by pulling them out some time later, and discovering how much easier it goes, it's easy to track the progress.

Same for me.  When I was young, so long ago it seems now, I'd try to play a 'hard' piece,  i.e. a Chopin Polinaise when I was only capable of the easier preludes, and wonder how anyone could write such a piece let alone play it.  Now those pieces are 'easy', and I look at other works as being 'hard'.

[m1469]

Sometimes I feel that my piano is progressing, sometimes I feel that it isn't.

As a pianist, how would you really recognize you are advancing and not going backwards?

Note: I know the teacher's point of view is important, but what if the teacher either is very flexible or very strict.

I do understand this feeling very much.  I think one way that a portion of the "track" population of the pianists measure their progress is through exams and the official achieving of certain grades and levels, etc..  While they would presumably be demonstrating the skills required to pass each level, I think that having some kind of official goal and test can help to solidify that feeling of accomplishment.  I think you ultimately have to choose some kind of test for yourself and even the posts above reflect that to some degree.  And, unless you take official exams, you'll have to impose some kind of standard on yourself that will seem a bit subjective, perhaps, because it could really be anything.

Sometimes it's good to make it something "small", too, and not just about an entire piece.  Like maybe you take just a particular passage and invent some kind of test for yourself (like being able to play it without any mistakes 10 times in a row).  If you can't do it currently, it's something to work towards, if you can do it already, put a little feather in your cap and make a new goal that takes your challenge up a notch.  

Do be aware, though, if you have skillfully vague goals for yourself that aren't truly definable for you at this point.  As an extreme example, let's say your ultimate goal is to be the next Lang Lang and in your mind, there's nothing clearly defining the area between your playing the first invention and being on stage, traveling the world.  If your only measurement of success is if you are Lang Lang, traveling the world, you're going to have *a lot* of times where you have no idea if you're making progress or not, because until your life looks like his, you won't think you've made it - and it takes a lot to get there!

You're going to want to break it down into *something* that is tangible and can make more sense for you, and if you need to build something bigger than that particular measurement, then you can do it brick by brick.  Let's say you wanted to play like Glenn Gould, don't leave it vague, get to know the skills involved and start building goals based on that in a specific way (like articulation).  The tricky part is that it's tough to really understand what skills are involved until you are made aware of it in some way.