Advice- Messing up in front of teacher

[justsheila7]

To start off, this piano teacher is new, I've been learning from her 2-3 months or so. I'm also a beginner so I don't really know much. 

I've been going to lessons and EVERY SINGLE TIME I would mess up. Even if I  practice for 6 hours at home I would mess up anyways. I'm not really "used" to adapting from my piano to my teacher's. I just can't get used to my teacher's piano.  It just feels so different and I start playing the wrong thing. I also get really frustrated at the dynamics since they sound absolutely terrible when I play them on my teacher's piano. BUT THEY SOUND SO GOOD ON MINE o: To make it worse, every time I mess up, I would start panicking and it would take me forever to recover. I can tell my teacher gets more irritated every time I mess up. And of course, I get panicky and do even worse.  . I really want to impress my teacher and show her that I do practice a lot at home but with all these errors, she never seems to believe me.

We've been studying for the grade 3 exam and I never really understand what she teaches me in class either. I always have to go back and look it up and study it for myself to actually know what she was saying the entire time. I can't seem to catch on very well like that. Advice?

P.S. I have my first recital coming up soon. Advice on how to perform well? 

[j_menz]

1) If you are going to mess up, in front of your teacher is the very best place to do it. It is not a cause to panic, it is an opportunity to learn.

2)  Discuss the differences between the two instruments with your teacher,  she may have some specific advice.

3) If your teacher says something you do not understand, stop her and say that you don't understand and ask her to explain again or differently.

Your teacher is there to help you with things you can't do and things you don't know. She is not there to be impressed by how wonderful you are.

[justsheila7]

Thank you~ . I never really was able to open up to her too much though. I guess I should be more comfortable during lessons since I was always scared for some reason...

[j_menz]

Thank you~ . I never really was able to open up to her too much though. I guess I should be more comfortable during lessons since I was always scared for some reason...

That seems to be not uncommon. It's not usually justified, though, and never useful.

[outin]

I think what you experience is quite common in older beginners. There are several reasons, but one is that you have high expectations. You should go there to learn, not to try to impress your teacher, but things like this are not always so easy to change. Time helps, when you get more used to the teacher and messing up, you will recover faster.

I don't know your teacher, but maybe she is not irritated by your messing up, but your inability to recover and move on. I have bad lessons and good lessons. Lately more good than bad, but in the beginning most were disastrous. I am often unable to focus or focus on the wrong thing. I am used to being a problem solver, it's difficult for me to move on when I make a mistake. I keep analyzing it in my head while trying to go on with the lesson and lose focus on what we are doing. Obviously it won't go well. I am also not good in listening to other people, so sometimes I am in my own mind when the teacher tries to explain/show me something.

I probably also have some psychological issues coming from my previous piano lessons over 30 years ago. I never practiced until the last minute and I was always trying to cover that I hadn't. So I never learned how to have an honest relationship with the teacher. I still get this subcounscious reaction the day before the lesson, that I need to practice more (even though I practice EVERY day and I have no other goals in this except those given to me by myself). I also feel that my teacher must think that I haven't worked because I haven't got the fingerings and cannot read the piece (it just takes me ages to get these things).

But it is not as bad now as it was, also now the teacher seems to be more aware of my weaknesses (reading, memory, concentration, physical issues) so I don't feel the need to complain and explain my inability to play my pieces so much. I think my complaining annoyed her, but she also has the right attitude that works with me (basically she tells me to shut up and go on, but not quite so blunt of course).

BTW. It took me a long time to get used to playing on my teacher's pianos. Not so much because they are difficult to play, my own is harder, but they look different and the lighting and the surroundings are different, so is the sound, so my mind kind of got confused. I am sure time will solve that issue for you as well.

[danhuyle]

Messing up in front of a teacher is inevitable.

You play a piece badly, they'll give up teaching it knowing full well you don't have what it takes to play it.

Strike 1, Strike 2, Strike 3 -> The piece is too difficult and you're not worthy of playing this piece.

This is exactly what I experience going to piano lessons. The piece is too hard, we play something grade 1 since if you play that perfectly, then we move to something else.
 

[outin]

Messing up in front of a teacher is inevitable.

You play a piece badly, they'll give up teaching it knowing full well you don't have what it takes to play it.

Strike 1, Strike 2, Strike 3 -> The piece is too difficult and you're not worthy of playing this piece.

This is exactly what I experience going to piano lessons. The piece is too hard, we play something grade 1 since if you play that perfectly, then we move to something else.
 

Then I am doing this wrong. Because I could never play any of the grade 1-3 pieces perfectly, still can't. Just don't have the stomach to keep working on them long enough. I get bored too easily, that's my biggest enemy   

[ajspiano]

Messing up in front of a teacher is inevitable.

You play a piece badly, they'll give up teaching it knowing full well you don't have what it takes to play it.

Strike 1, Strike 2, Strike 3 -> The piece is too difficult and you're not worthy of playing this piece.

This is exactly what I experience going to piano lessons. The piece is too hard, we play something grade 1 since if you play that perfectly, then we move to something else.
 

While you (and a lot of the forum members here) may have the required determination to push through something above your level, I don't really think that's the norm for a piano student. A lot of people experience a high level of frustration if their success does not come with relative ease. Giving students works that are going to be quite hard for them is a great way to put them off playing.

I rather think that you must have had some fairly uninspired teachers too. I absolutely hate taking a student off a piece once they've started it.. I'd put myself through a lot of extra strain and thought outside lessons to figure out how to help the student. I don't ever want to be caught saying "your not good enough we have to give up".

EDIT:
I'd add to that that success with "relative ease" would allow for a great many more than 3 errors.

[j_menz]

You play a piece badly, they'll give up teaching it knowing full well you don't have what it takes to play it.

Strike 1, Strike 2, Strike 3 -> The piece is too difficult and you're not worthy of playing this piece.

This is exactly what I experience going to piano lessons. The piece is too hard, we play something grade 1 since if you play that perfectly, then we move to something else.
 

Rubbish! If my teachers had never perservered with a piece past my third (or indeed hundredth) stuff up I'd never have learnt anything. At all.

[starlady]

I probably also have some psychological issues coming from my previous piano lessons over 30 years ago. I never practiced until the last minute and I was always trying to cover that I hadn't. So I never learned how to have an honest relationship with the teacher. I still get this subcounscious reaction the day before the lesson, that I need to practice more (even though I practice EVERY day and I have no other goals in this except those given to me by myself). I also feel that my teacher must think that I haven't worked because I haven't got the fingerings and cannot read the piece (it just takes me ages to get these things).

This is SO MUCH  my story too!!  I have to work through and correct everything I (or the teacher) did wrong back way back when I was a kid. So as if learning the WTC is hard enough I'm  trying to pay back karma--and get over neurotic perfectionism-- at the same time.   It's also no picnic for my teacher; until he met me he didn't appreciate how much music teaching can overlap  psychotherapy.

What helps me most is to keep reminding myself it's a lesson not a performance.  You are not in Carnegie Hall, there are no critics in the audience, there is no audience, you are there to LEARN not to be perfect.  Students have to make mistakes and go down wrong paths, it's the only way to learn. 
Repeat as needed, and good luck.

--s.

[danhuyle]

I rather think that you must have had some fairly uninspired teachers too. I absolutely hate taking a student off a piece once they've started it.. I'd put myself through a lot of extra strain and thought outside lessons to figure out how to help the student. I don't ever want to be caught saying "your not good enough we have to give up".

Of course I had uninspiring teachers. It's basically learning to keep your dog on a leash.

I went to university, and you have to play

Prelude & Fugue
Complete Classical Sonata
Romantic work
20th century piece

I get whole thing learned and memorized, then I slack off and let the teacher "do the rest" before my exam.

We all know how boring it is to practice the same junk repeatedly. It reminds me of the Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore movie "50 First Dates".

Relax, they're not going to push you to do more (and they never will) until you "get all your ducks perfectly lined up".

I practice pieces outside my exam repertoire and the teacher will find every excuse in the book to get me away from the pieces I wanted to learn. Like any ambitious student having a world class renowned pianist as a teacher, who wouldn't ask questions? It's a no-brainer.

I remember that day when I performed Liszt Transcendental Etude in class... I remember that day like it was just yesterday. A day I'll never forget. Then the day when the teacher shattered my spirit to play Chopin when I played Ballade on that other day.

If you mess up a lot in front of your teacher, I'd question if you're learning with the right person. You paid them for the lesson and you shouldn't be intimidated by any means. You're a student learning, you'll have loads of unanswered questions, it's nothing unheard of.



  

[outin]

I get whole thing learned and memorized, then I slack off and let the teacher "do the rest" before my exam.

  

I don't get that. How does the teacher do the rest for you?

Maybe it's because for me "learning and memorizing the whole thing" IS the hard part. The rest is easier, I just get some hints from my teacher on how something is easier to execute or how it sounds better/more appropropriate for the era/composer. I so envy people who can just pick up the fingerings and memorize without much pain...

[danhuyle]

I don't get that. How does the teacher do the rest for you?

I come to a lesson with a piece prepared and they help with phrasing the music to make it sound good, rather than spending the lesson on the note learning, writing in fingerings or sight reading just to get through the music.

No point in wasting time practicing exam pieces when teachers spend all 1.5 hour lessons on the same 4 pieces for over 8 months. How boring. It only works if you're studying at a music school, so don't do this if you're not taking lessons for a music degree.

[outin]

I come to a lesson with a piece prepared and they help with phrasing the music to make it sound good, rather than spending the lesson on the note learning, writing in fingerings or sight reading just to get through the music.
No point in wasting time practicing exam pieces when teachers spend all 1.5 hour lessons on the same 4 pieces for over 8 months. How boring. It only works if you're studying at a music school, so don't do this if you're not taking lessons for a music degree.

I always wondered how it is possible to spend that many lessons on just 4 pieces? I can spend an eternity on polishing something that I like, bring it up every now and then and learn it better for my own enjoyment, but having lessons on one piece for that long? If the pieces are so much above my level that I need 8 months of lessons with them, I think I won’t be able to polish them anyway. We normally use a small fraction of each lesson on one piece over a month or two and that gives me enough information to either keep working on it on my own or just drop it if I don’t like it that much.

I just don’t get it. If the student is advanced enough to play something really long and difficult, shouldn’t they already be able to do most of the work themselves?

[danhuyle]

That's what university students learning piano go through, at least I did anyway.

My final year I played the following

Shostakovich Prelude & Fugue Op87 No2
Beethoven Sonata Op10 No2
Brahms Op118 No2, Op118 No3
Albeniz El Puerto from Iberia book 1
Debussy Prelude no4 (with the A major/F# minor key signature) from book1

Chamber work - Ibert - 2 movement piece
Tan Dun 8 Memories in Watercolor

Everything had to be memorized, except for the Chamber Work and Tan Dun pieces.

Preparing a 60 minute program, taking 90 minute lessons for 40 weeks (10 weeks per term) over a course of 8 months.

1st and 2nd year you do 35 minutes and 40 minutes worth of music respectively.

Essentially, once you pick your exam pieces, you stick to the same pieces for the year. Then rinse and repeat.

[brogers70]

I really want to impress my teacher and show her that I do practice a lot at home but with all these errors, she never seems to believe me.

You don't have to impress your teacher; all you have to do is pay her. She's working for you; her job is to help you learn. As long as she helps you learn it doesn't matter whether she thinks you are great or thinks you are a lazy good-for-nothing.

A good teacher will know how to see past the stupid mistakes that are amplified by nerves and anxiety to see what you are doing well and what you are doing badly. I just had a first lesson with a new teacher. I hated her piano; the touch was different, the sound confusing, and I made tons of mistakes on pieces that I can play just fine at home. But she was still able to see what was sound in my playing and what needed tweaking.

With a previous teacher I found that about once in four lessons I'd have a bad day and play much worse than I had played while practicing. Those lessons were often the best, because they'd highlight a fixable problem.

So don't worry; you are learning a skill. Nothing about it is a reflection on your work ethic, your virtue, or your general worthiness. The teacher works for you; you don't have to impress her. If you are working hard and making no progress and she's not helping, then find another teacher.

[scherzo123]

I've been going to lessons and EVERY SINGLE TIME I would mess up.

I thought I was the only one...

[pianoplunker]

To start off, this piano teacher is new, I've been learning from her 2-3 months or so. I'm also a beginner so I don't really know much. 

I've been going to lessons and EVERY SINGLE TIME I would mess up. Even if I  practice for 6 hours at home I would mess up anyways. I'm not really "used" to adapting from my piano to my teacher's. I just can't get used to my teacher's piano.  It just feels so different and I start playing the wrong thing. I also get really frustrated at the dynamics since they sound absolutely terrible when I play them on my teacher's piano. BUT THEY SOUND SO GOOD ON MINE o: To make it worse, every time I mess up, I would start panicking and it would take me forever to recover. I can tell my teacher gets more irritated every time I mess up. And of course, I get panicky and do even worse.  . I really want to impress my teacher and show her that I do practice a lot at home but with all these errors, she never seems to believe me.

We've been studying for the grade 3 exam and I never really understand what she teaches me in class either. I always have to go back and look it up and study it for myself to actually know what she was saying the entire time. I can't seem to catch on very well like that. Advice?

P.S. I have my first recital coming up soon. Advice on how to perform well? 

Here is my advice :

1. You are a beginner, please stay at the beginning until you are comfortable trying the ending.
2. As a beginner you are expected to mess up, nobody hates you for it, all part of learning
3. Make sure you keep rhythm in all your music- humans like rhythm
4. Cry a little - not all the time but realize human emotion is what drives music.
5. Recital - do all the above - you'll be fine and get applause - just dont expect autographs-yet. Ask your teacher about his/her first recital. How did it go.

[justsheila7]

Thanks for all the advice . I greatly appreciate it and all that advice shall help me in further lessons~
On the other note, I got back from the recital. My gosh, I messed up so badly.  Boo, I completely blanked out in the beginning. I'm pretty sure I repeated that part around 10 times until I finally skipped to another part. The rest of my piece wasn't played out very well either. The audience was really polite and still applauded though  . I hope all that doesn't repeat in my next recital o:. Although, I'm still happy because it was a great learning experience for me.  .

[outin]

On the other note, I got back from the recital. My gosh, I messed up so badly.  Boo, I completely blanked out in the beginning. I'm pretty sure I repeated that part around 10 times until I finally skipped to another part. The rest of my piece wasn't played out very well either. The audience was really polite and still applauded though  . I hope all that doesn't repeat in my next recital o:. Although, I'm still happy because it was a great learning experience for me.  .

The bright side is that after messing up in your recital, messing up in front of your teacher should feel like nothing. And look how well you are coping with it 

[teran]

I've always been conscious about screwing up but my teacher helped me through that by getting me to realise that maintaining musicality and flow is the most important thing.

Anyway I know exactly how you feel about the different feel of the piano, I have an upright and my teacher has 2 grands, it is a completely different experience to play. I usually play a short piece or some scales focusing on varying dynamics and technique for like a minute before I start a piece, just to get accustomed to the feel of the instrument.

You might want to try that out.

[keypeg]

I'm reading this thread for the first time.  A couple of questions and comments:

To start off, this piano teacher is new, I've been learning from her 2-3 months or so. I'm also a beginner so I don't really know much. 

I've been going to lessons and EVERY SINGLE TIME I would mess up. ......... I also get really frustrated at the dynamics since they sound absolutely terrible when I play them on my teacher's piano. BUT THEY SOUND SO GOOD ON MINE o: ........ I can tell my teacher gets more irritated every time I mess up. And of course, I get panicky and do even worse.  . I really want to impress my teacher and show her that I do practice a lot at home but with all these errors, she never seems to believe me.

We've been studying for the grade 3 exam and I never really understand what she teaches me in class either. I always have to go back and look it up and study it for myself to actually know what she was saying the entire time. I can't seem to catch on very well like that. Advice?

Is this your first teacher - did you come to her as an absolute beginner?  If not, were you self-taught, or did you have (a) different teacher(s).  The reason I ask is because you say you're a beginner and have only been with this teacher for a few months, yet you prepared for a grade 3 exam, and you're writing about dynamics - that doesn't sound like somebody who just started piano for the first time.

A good teacher will be trying to give you skills.  The mistakes or weaknesses that you show while playing will give her ideas of where she needs to help you, and in this sense mistakes are welcome.  The help might not be in the sense of "remember to play F# in measure 6", but rather, "needs help remembering key signatures / chords", "needs help in moving to new hand positions" or whatever.  If your teacher actually is annoyed (shouldn't be showing it), then maybe it's because of your own reaction.  Being annoyed at a learner's mistakes is uncool, imho.

This is important:

I never really understand what she teaches me in class either. I always have to go back and look it up and study it for myself to actually know what she was saying the entire time.

If you don't understand what she is telling you, then you have to let her know so that she can fix it.  It is her job as a teacher to make things comprehensible.  Does she literally "tell" you things?  Or does she also demonstrate, maybe have you try things so that she sees whether you understand?  Are you able to ask questions?  Can you give an example?

[pianoplayjl]

That is the same problem that I have. Every time I play in front of my teacher it's as though I haven't learnt the piece, which sucks. It sucks when I play for someone. When I practice, I play well because there is no one to please but myself. So every time my teacher comes along or I go to my teacher's house,  I just imagine the Teacher isn't there.

JL

[keypeg]

That reminds of a very early time.  I was mad at my teacher for some reason and got in a huff.  I decided to ignore him and pretend he wasn't there as I played.  "Surprisingly" I played very well, he was pleased, and the rest of the lesson went well.  I registered the fact that I had always had part of my mind on his reactions, and when I was in a huff I had concentrated totally on the music - as I should.

[adam2]

Ya I had the same thing. The long and hard way of solving this problem was coming to terms with the eventuality and study as well as I could.  But after accidentally overcoming what is ultimately a complex case of stage fright and flaws in my performance skills, I realized that this is what I would have wanted to know when I started lessons.

Your teacher just might be a wee bit better than you at the piano and unimpressed with your musical skills abilities for a time, or in my pedagogy's case forever. So remember your value as the customer of knowledge.   Yes,  have respect for what you don't know or understand fluently, but we go to get better so make your worst common mistakes there at the lesson purposely if not otherwise.

Also, do not let your sheer lack of knowledge of diddling on the keys or your fear of frustrating you teach get in the way of you banging out a simple progression or a scale, even just literally dropping your fingers on your teachers piano as much as you want in before or even during your lesson to get the feel of the piano.  Warming and loosening up physically and mentally is not just required to practice well, it is needed to learn efficiently and especially(the reason why you bother at all), to perform rehearsed skills and pieces.  

Plus, every piano is different and very rarely can anyone pull a Liberace and have their custom fitted piano hauled to every place you wanna play. If you can only play chromatic glissandos on your own piano, it is a worthless feat. So, find over the next few months every piano in the area and request to play on them time to time.  It's like cross training, or like learning to drive bad weather if the other is dingy or subpar. Determine what is different between them and what is hardest to adapt to for you. A great pianists expression shines through a cruddy piano not just because his technique is refined in the general sense but because he has learned to intuitively adjust his skill parameters to the height, resistance, traction, depth etc. of the keys, not to mention the tone and timbre of the piano.

When it comes to playing that one piece that you've been working on and gutting it in front of the teacher, This is the bare bone of your defense against musical butchery. Take an inventory of the piece's purpose in learning music in all aspects. What I mean by this is don't just practice the piece casually, take everything about the piece that seems difficult or represents a skill needing some catch-up, every aspect of the piece that represents something you are working on with the teacher, and make a list.  My pedagogy is very subtle in my charges and duties for the week, but speaks most loudly by the kinds of pieces he has me practice.  This week, one of the several pieces I'm working on is a frustratingly simple piece for my level as far as harmonic and melodic complexity. It took an examination of interpretive possibilities to realize the neatest part about it was this syncopation of a motive in the right hand lifting off as the downbeat came in the left, calling for emphasis on the off beat in the right hand as the rhythmic motive picked up off a weak beat diad in the middle voices. It is a juggling act, and it is an opportunity to realize vitality in the piece, and it opens several new avenues for creating dimension and expression for the piece as well as( AND HERE'S THE POINT) for every piece that I am given after it. Once I practice this piece with its checklist of difficulties or challenges in mind, no matter what I sound like when I come in to play this piece I have only sat on for a week, the work I did will be evident.  

One last thing and important to boot... And I recommend bulletproofmusician.com's practice hacks to further elucidate this.  Record yourself.  The first and maybe many times you do this it will be incredibly painful or scary to listen to, but it is the most important tool a modern musician has; in order to be objective about your performance you must record it and identify everything that ain't so pretty.
  I sounded retardedly loud. my arpeggios were all triplets, why did I raise my arm like that? Why am I speeding up? That scale was incredibly uneven. I LOOKED like I hated that song. I clearly do not justify the rhythm here. Each recording is an endless and yet tangible list of, not problems, opportunities to improve.
This recording trick is how all excellent modern day musicians in the big bad world come to the stage and give dazzling performances 5 times out of 5.  This will work for you if use recording to evaluate your performance and chart your progress.

If you know where you are and what you sound like, if you know where you wanted to improve and worked on it, if you remember why you started lessons and that they are a means not an end, if you see that every performance has flaws and the one at your lesson will be no exception, and that playing on other people's pianos is as much a skill as much as playing beautiful scales

THEN

it will be no surprise to you if you go in and bomb it or knock it out of the park

It'll probably be the latter though

[asuhayda]

Your teacher is there to help you with things you can't do and things you don't know. She is not there to be impressed by how wonderful you are.

THANK YOU!!! You speak the absolute truth.

[slane]

After fumbling through a piece the other day I said to my teacher "I guess there's no point in saying I can play it at home?" and he said "Oh that's a given!" and laughed.   Lots and lots of good advice in this thread but on the subject of the rehearsal ... should your teacher have made/encouraged you to play a piece you weren't confident with?

This happened to a girl at my daughter's school. For the end of year concert the teacher made her play such and such and the girl was saying two days before "but I don't know it" and she stuffed up on the day, was jeered at afterwards by her peers and it was a very unhelpful experience which may rebound for ever. I felt very bad for her and thought it was very bad teaching.

[lloyd_cdb]

should your teacher have made/encouraged you to play a piece you weren't confident with?

Even given the rest of your story, I'd still say yes.  That being said, I believe an important aspect of performance is recovery.  I would never perform for anyone had my teacher not taught me to recover.  Stalling on a piece while performing is clearly a devastating moment.  But even in panic, repeating a section, playing a few wrong notes by accident, forgetting a repeat, etc. shouldn't be considered a problem as long as you can continue playing without stopping and beating yourself up.  It can actually result in being a confidence booster.  Knowing that you can still perform even if you can't play a piece absolutely perfected 100% of the time can be hugely beneficial to performance confidence and willingness.