Recital at Year End Need Advice

[the_librarian]

Hi everyone.

I'm a 4th year piano student. I consider myself rather awful at piano, and I have a recital at the end of the year. I would really love some advice from the community on how to practise and prepare for something like this.

First, some issues. I feel as if I have gotten off on the wrong foot at the start of this year and don't want to have things go the way they went previously. To elaborate...

I am a self taught musician (from age 19). At first I thought it made me special, then as a I began to learn more about music I believed it made me flawed. I felt like other musicians had been brought up right and that they had something secret which I did not. I spent a long time looking for this but did not find it.

Recently (the last year or two), I have been unable to memorize pieces. This is a confidence issue which stems I think from when I started out in the degree. At the start, I would memorize pieces very fast, but the dynamics were wrong and I couldn't seem to achieve what my teacher wanted from the piece. So I forgot about memorizing. I saw it as a fault, something to look to only when I can play the piece flawlessly (probably a naive assumption at the time). Now I find that I can't memorize pieces for fear of leaving out any details. It causes all sorts of confidence issues (starting and stopping while playing is a big one).

Now I face a recital program which is probably 30-40 minutes of music. I feel like an outsider to music because of the problems I have in playing. I don't receive much insight or support anymore from my parents about it. Once they saw I was worried about it they just kind of backed off. I feel extremely frustrated for not being able to turn to someone. This is also not helped by the fact that my appointed teacher is one of our country's foremost musicians, someone to whom I can barely relate in the slightest. When she makes comments, most of it goes over my head. She also stops me while playing which drives me nuts (is this something most teachers do?).

This probably sounds quite rambly, but I would really appreciate some advice from anyone who understands my position a little better than me. I want to get through this. I feel like its going to take a huge effort on my part if I don't talk about it more.

[hfmadopter]

How is it that this recital has come about ? When you say you have a recital at the end of the year, is it the end of a teaching cycle year ( physcal year, so coming in June lets say) or years end for 2013, as in Nov/Dec ? makes a big difference how you have to prepare.

What types of repertoire are you considering and or know ?

Yes teachers interupt your playing. They are there to teach you how to play not to just sit back and listen to you play for them. Additionally, the more advanced you get then all the more they may be likely to stop you from playing ( reasons, things get more technically difficult, more to teach). A teacher can't teach you very much while you are playing the piano, they need enough to see and hear what you are doing. They aren't picking at you, they are teaching you and that's why they stop you, so you can listen to them.

There are volumes of books written about piano, confidence, even memorizing. Don't feel alone, they were written because people just like you and I have these issues !

So I gather you are 23ish now. How much influence are you expecting from your parents about this ? For instance, at 23 I was living on my own and starting a family and working career. Some today won't cut loose from the parents till much later. Parents are always an influence but at 23 I'd expect most of the control to be in your own court regarding a recital. The parents roll to be support.