What is your biggest weakness in the piano?

[pianoplayjl]

Today I was battling the trills and I just thought: what are your weaknesses in the piano? It can be anything from sightreading to singing notes to trilling to tremolo to duets to harmony. I know this is weird but I'm just curious.

I am very awful at playing ensemble works because I just can't work with others; my teamwork skills are the lowest of the low. Maybe I just need to work on my communication skills.

JL

[fleetfingers]

For me, it's definitely keeping a steady tempo. I second-guess myself all the time, because I tend to play too fast. In my attempt to not speed up, I sometimes go too slowly or end up with an awkward, uneven pace.

Also, I have weak or missed notes. I am trying to reconcile tension-free playing and a soft, gentle touch with deliberate and accurate playing. As a result of these efforts, I often miss notes or play them too lightly.

I am very awful at playing ensemble works because I just can't work with others; my teamwork skills are the lowest of the low. Maybe I just need to work on my communication skills.

I hope you can improve in this area, if it's something you want to do. Working with others on music is such a rewarding experience!

[megadodd]

I am very awful at playing ensemble works because I just can't work with others; my teamwork skills are the lowest of the low. Maybe I just need to work on my communication skills.

Yeah it's like that for me aswell, I actually hate compromising with others, even though I enjoy playing music together, but afterall, I think I only enojyed it when I got to dictate the piece in my way.

However, my biggest weakness is definitely thirds. Atleast when it's in a pretty fast tempo, they just won't get even enough, ever.

[ted]

I have a good sense of rhythm, a reasonable if highly individual technique which serves me well, and I appear to be able to compose and improvise. Everything else is very weak, but at sixty-four, given my objectives, it doesn't matter.  

[megadodd]

I have a good sense of rhythm, a reasonable if highly individual technique which serves me well, and I appear to be able to compose and improvise. Everything else is very weak, but at sixty-four, given my objectives, it doesn't matter.  

What's you objectives?

[jesc]

There are a lot of weaknesses that can be rectified.

I'm quite certain that soon, pianoplayjl will master trills as did most of us.

My weakness is a character flaw. My anger will always "leak" through my playing whenever it is unchecked. Even when faced with difficult etude pieces that demands lightness and quickness. When unchecked, I will always find a way to insert fff there and bang the hell out of the piano (destroying the essence of the piece).  

The only thing "always" holding me in check is when my ears start to hurt (especially when I'm playing on a grand piano inside a small room in the college). I don't think I'll ever change this cause in the end, I'd rather hurt a piano than ....

[ted]

What's you objectives?

Just to create until I peg out, that's all; to see how far I can take the ideas and forms which drive me. Should have just gone for that years ago but better late than never. Fortunately I don't need any more measurable musical skill to create a universe of sound which moves me. Lucky in that way I suppose.

[megadodd]

It sounds great Ted, was just curious!
Do you not enjoy playing other composers pieces any more?

[ted]

It sounds great Ted, was just curious!
Do you not enjoy playing other composers pieces any more?

I do maintain a small repertoire, wouldn't be more than fifty odd pieces I could play decently though; considerably more if you count those of my old compositions I can be bothered maintaining.

You're right though, I still enjoy the physical act of playing some of them but the music itself just doesn't give me the kick it used to, rarely moves me. I rotate playing of them cyclically every day because I think it would be a pity to forget them, not that I would probably be capable of forgetting them now anyway.

The same has happened to my listening too, more or less. So as I never perform, am not professional and know no musicians personally, strengths and weaknesses have simply developed to reflect this situation.

[virtuoso80]

My weaknesses stem largely from being self-taught early on. I never worked on scales, or the 'classics' like Mozart at the beginning, so my fingers tend to jumble more easily than I would like. I often find it more comfortable to play a melody in octaves than I do as single notes!

[j_menz]

For me, biggest weakness would have to be 3-4 and 4-5 trills and ornaments using these fingers. Don't really have to use them that often so I kinda fake it where I can. 

[rachmaninoff_forever]

SIGHT READING!

Oh my god I am AWFUL at that!

[drexo]

Playing scales at a decent speed with my right hand moving upwards. I'm also a terrible sight reader.

[pianoplayjl]

I also ahve a problem with rhythm. For example, when I start a piece I stay at the same speed when it goes to a different section and then returns to the frist section I usually lose my pulse and forget what speed I should be playing.
IMO sight reading could be one of my strengths, at least compared to the other skills. Scales staccato I usually miss notes in every octave when I play fast but when at moderate speed I'm ok with it.

JL

[fftransform]

Thirds trills in RH, 4-5 trills in RH, 4-5 or 3-4-5 repeated notes in RH, 10ths in RH.  Sometimes issues with accenting in very difficult passages (for instance, LH accents in the middle section of Rzewski NAB4).

[thalbergmad]

bloody everything

[pianoplayjl]

I'll add tremolos, trills with weak fingers, Very fast scales, double octaves, Arpeggios, COMPOSING, counting while playing at the same time. I'll add some mroe later.

JL

[danhuyle]

Keeping a steady tempo
Trills
Tremolo
Rushing rhythm

[pianoplayjl]

Keeping a steady tempo
Trills
Tremolo
Rushing rhythm

We are in the same boat! Hmmm no one is perfect after all. Even top notch pianists must have some degree of defficiency in their technique...

I just had another practice session and might as well add pedalling, something I HATE to admit to be a weakness. Pedalling should be a skill that a person should have mastered at this stage of Grade 8. I noticed how much errors were in my piece with the pedalling that was always late or early. It rarely hit the notes! It sounded very blurry and I felt really bad.

JL

[commissiona]

Hopping from piece to piece without without really mastering anything is probably the root to most of my technical problems.  I had a lot more focus and discipline to finish working on particular pieces when I had a keyboard instructor once a week.

[pianoplunker]

Today I was battling the trills and I just thought: what are your weaknesses in the piano? It can be anything from sightreading to singing notes to trilling to tremolo to duets to harmony. I know this is weird but I'm just curious.

I am very awful at playing ensemble works because I just can't work with others; my teamwork skills are the lowest of the low. Maybe I just need to work on my communication skills.

JL

My weakness ( es) in my humble opinion :

I cannot  grab 10ths. But at least there is plenty of music not using 10ths which is why I still play.
I cannot sight read even close to the level I can play.
I have a tendency to look at my left hand for some strange reason - even when not busy.
My technique is not well studied which I intend to change

since I dont want to feel sorry for myself I must declare my strengths :

I got rhythm , I got rhythm and I like jamming very well with other musicians
Improvising - this is something I have always practiced and done well enough to make one think I knew what I was doing. Plus I can "correct" memory lapses by using improvising even in classical pieces.
I am very good at expressing dynamics and emotions - in fact to me nothing matters more. Tears, Joy, Sorrow, etc.

Anyhow, I better get back to the Student's Corner so y'all can help me with my weaknesses

[jtguru]

I have a tendency to look at my left hand for some strange reason - even when not busy.

I would certainly not list this as a weakness; it is a perfectly normal practice. If I remember right, has something to do with right brain/left brain stuff; I don't know enough to speak about that myself though. But even when playing pieces in which my right hand is doing significantly more work than the left, I still hardly look at the right hand.


My biggest weaknesses:
Ornaments with LH.
Smooth thirds are more difficult for my RH than LH, though not easy for either.
Sight reading, which I am starting to put significant work into now.

[survivor23]

I go on to the next piece without perfecting the last one. I am a decent sight reader, so my repertoire from memory is low, and I can only play pieces of a piece, and not the whole thing. I am think I am one of the few pianists at there with ADHD issues.

My DJ neighbor wants to hire me to do cocktail hours for him, so now I have new resolve to learn songs from beginning to end, instead of getting bored and going on to the next best thing for me.

[korlock]

@survivor23 I think a lot of pianists are like that. I'm like that. I'm guessing you play a lot without lessons. What I found was that I would teach myself what I wanted to learn and just ignore things I didn't(Such as theory, exercises etc.) so now I can play certain parts of pieces but not the entire thing.