I ruined my recital, will it ever get better?

[senanserat]

So today I had a recital, I was going to present Chopin's Polonaise in G min (Posthumous). And I say was because...well let me tell you.

I arrived early today, first on the scene so I went to warm and practice on a piano upstairs (the recital was down) I played the piece 7 times on a row with if I may say so myself very pleasant results, but as time approached for my turn my hands grew cold and stiff... when I was called I was a nervous wreck, I tried to play and I succeed for the first 15 seconds....

That is where disaster struck one error become two and then four, I carried on the only thing I can salvage from the experience is that I didn't stop once I just pushed my away clumsily like if it was nothing, but inside I feel dead.

I failed my teacher, my family my honor and myself. When I got home and I looked at my piano I felt bone deep despair... Tomorrow I have classes and I don't know if I can face my professor
he was going to tell me something at the end when we were all leaving but I ran away like a B.

I guess my question is this:

I humiliated myself, I made a fool out of myself, I may have been the worst performance today...If I keep showing up will the stage fright go away? Kinda like getting used to it, one of my classmates has been playing for 7 years and he was just on another level, confident and cool, I wish that I could.

Thanks for reading.

[hfmadopter]

I'm certainly not going to drag you down more than you already are doing to yourself. It can get better yes, maybe not take all the stage fright away but make it controllable with time. Today you found a weakness in your ability, nothing more. You have not dishonored anyone or any thing, you learned that you need to prepare differently. And believe me, I know the work that goes into a recital.

Something my teacher taught me I'll pass on to you, maybe it will help and maybe not. Practice , practice , practice leading up to the day of your recital. Do not practice the day of your recital. I think you used up a bunch of good energy in that 7 times repeated practice session and at that on a different piano than you would perform on anyway. That's just a tip, not a blame. My old Father-In-Law ( now passed on) once told me that guilt, and I'd say the same may go for shame, is a wasted process because the result remains the same. We need to learn from our mistakes, not beat ourselves up. I suggest that tomorrow you begin going about discovering what went wrong and never mind agonizing over it any more than necessary.

Music must come from the heart, not from a total sense of accomplishment or showmanship. Play your music from within !

I hope you come to feel better !!

[senanserat]

Music must come from the heart, not from a total sense of accomplishment or showmanship. Play your music from within !

I hope you come to feel better !!

I have been fearing for some time that I am emotionally stunted as well...

[ranniks]

Are you asian? If so, this makes sense.

Remember the Japanese saying: failure makes success.

[hfmadopter]

I have been fearing for some time that I am emotionally stunted as well...

Hmm, not sure how you mean that ? But if you feel that way, then it is something you can work on.

[senanserat]

Hmm, not sure how you mean that ? But if you feel that way, then it is something you can work on.

I cannot put "energy" into most of my playing nowadays, my teacher says I should try to feel anger, passion and so on. But I feel dry and apathetic, as a matter of fact one of the only thing that worries me is the fact that nothing seems to do, until today that's it. Today I found I can feel shame and humiliation again and I don't like it, I feel like I can't trust myself if that even makes sense

[iansinclair]

In reply to the direct question -- yes, it will get better.  I agree with hfmadoptor -- over rehearsal may very well have a good deal to do with this particular disaster.   If so, it is a good lesson learned (maybe not the way you wanted to learn it, but any lesson...!).

As for feeling dry and apathetic -- well, we all do that from time to time.  Sometimes for longer times, some for shorter.  It varies.  It is likely that that too will pass with time.  One way to help, though, is to make sure that regardless of what you have been assigned to play (I'm assuming here that you are a student) you also make sure that you play at least a few things -- every practice session, and however simple they may be -- which you really do love.  I, for instance, use a few folk songs and popular songs which I happen to really really like as my warm up for practicing.  Are they simple?  You bet.  Are they sort of trite?  Yes indeed.  Can I play them in my sleep?  No problem.  Do I enjoy them?  I do indeed.

You cannot create anger or passion by just thinking about it (and I have never felt that anger is very helpful in playing piano!).  These feelings -- emotions -- are not really under mental control (even the great method actors can't generate them out of nothing) but come, often unbidden, from within.

Artur Rubinstein is alleged to have said that no one should ever play a Chopin Nocturne until they have been in love with someone.  There's a good deal in that.

Hang in there!

[kristinazx]

fear can destroy you. I was having the same problems. Maybe thats why i havent chosen Music and playing for my life occupation. Because I couldnt dealt that problem. I didnt want to have occupation in which i feel many stress.

but once Pogorelic said that he doesnt have ever stage fright, because he is always prepared like nobody. maybe you werent prepared enough or it can come from your personal feeling of insecurity in yourself

[mhhudson15]

It'll definitely get better as you continue to play in front of others. The problem it seems like you're having is stage fright, and it gets worse if you let one mistake get to you, especially if you're going on autopilot. One mistake messes up the flow of fingers' muscle memory, so if you can't recover quickly enough, mistakes will keep coming, and make you more nervous, etc. I'm not blaming you at all, everyone gets that at some point or another. There is a point of over-practicing, in which you'll make yourself worse instead of better. I know both of these very well-- when I first started playing in front of other people I had such stage fright my whole body, especially my left leg since it was the only thing not moving, shook so badly I couldn't keep my fingers in order. Broke a cold sweat and everything. For a while I had practically ruined my Pachelbel Canon in D, until I consciously fixed each note. So try not to over-practice, don't practice the day of the recital, hang in there.

[chopin2015]

Whoa, calm down. Besides, with pieces that are longer...you cannot expect to play a great deal after having that piece under your belt for just...what, a few months? So, there.
 

[senanserat]

Whoa, calm down. Besides, with pieces that are longer...you cannot expect to play a great deal after having that piece under your belt for just...what, a few months? So, there.
 

1 month and 1 week more or less is what it took me and I made and ass of myself, the little kids played better than me, my own cat won't look me in the eyes anymore

[slickypinky]

when i was 12 years old i had a disastrous recital and i stopped studying for a long time after that. now, over a decade later, i regret that i let one disastrous recital discourage me from developing my talent. don't let the same thing happen to you.

slow practice is a great way to prepare for recitals. in slow practice, play a piece by memory, with dynamics and emotion, but at a very slow tempo. play it stupidly slow. this will help familiarize yourself with every single note by heart.

what has been mentioned above is also good advice: playing the piano isn't strictly about how well you play, what truly matters is how you feel when you play.

[yuhan]

I believe that there is just a place for you to vent, after it, you are supposed to continue your life and performance. I suffered from the same things for many times but now I can deal with it easily cuz I failed alot and there is no denying the fact that I have more experiences than other, so it is why I am confident now. I know it is ridiculous but it work. So do not be afraid of failure, it will become your treasure. best wishes.

[gregh]

I failed my teacher, my family my honor and myself. When I got home and I looked at my piano I felt bone deep despair... Tomorrow I have classes and I don't know if I can face my professor
he was going to tell me something at the end when we were all leaving but I ran away like a B.

He was probably going to tell you that everyone has off days and that you're more worried about it than anyone else is, and you shouldn't let one recital out of a lifetime of performances get you down.

[senanserat]

He was probably going to tell you that everyone has off days and that you're more worried about it than anyone else is, and you shouldn't let one recital out of a lifetime of performances get you down.

Just came back from classes which I dreaded to go today and this sum it up pretty well. honestly I thought he would tell me to go away and never come back again.

[indianajo]

If you can do it in practice, you just need to get over the nerves.
You need to find a gig where you can play in public where the audience is not judging you.  Try a nursing home, one that has a piano.  Or a bar that has open mike on Tuesday night when nobody shows up.  A church that needs a pianist for Sunday School assembly (not the main auditorium).  
They talk about this all the time at pro golf matches on television.  Players that have played  a course a dozen times, get a big adrenalin surge in front of TV cameras and their control goes way off.  Your sense of muscle feel is highly affected by adrenalin.  So find a junior leagle performance venue to get rid of that feeling.  
As far as the emotion of piano, I don't feel that much very often.  i'm the kind of placid guy, that if an atomic bomb went off, I would just figure out the best next thing to do and try to do it.  I feel regret or annoyance, not pathos or hate.  I play piano because when I do it right, it is very pleasant; not to have some kind of psychoanalysis session.  So, calm down, IMHO.  I warm up with Scott Joplin rags, which is the kind of even tempered music that was played in bars and *****houses to people that weren't really listening.  If I get it right, I find it pleasant.  Chopin, you may have to play some to get through school, but he is not my favorite composer.  All that speeding up & slowing down is not necessary in my opinion. That got him a nice gig in a rich woman's house I guess, but I don't need that, I can pay my own way.

[johnmar78]

Sena, let me give you a good advice, I was trained to perform in public when I was doing my performance exams at the conservatorium. We have been told that it is wise to save your emotional energies and so as your playing till the last moment on your stage. This means no practice a day before the performing.  You have said you have had practiced 7 times upstairs before performing...this is a total contradiction, where as cold hands is not to blame.
On other hands, look all the Olympians, they train so hard, but always rest a day or two before the actual events. Next time, just a slow warm up with some other drills other than your performing pieces. I hope this helps.

[hfmadopter]

Just came back from classes which I dreaded to go today and this sum it up pretty well. honestly I thought he would tell me to go away and never come back again.

He would be a pretty lousy professor, not to mention less than optimal person if he did that, IMO .

Now work out your future performances ! I see at least two spots for improving.

1. Practice less or not at all on the day of the recital. If you must touch the piano the day of the recital, then just do a 10 minute sit down on something completely different than the recital work, even a scale.

2. Work out your recital pieces earlier on ( 5 weeks is not a lot of time) and spend a couple weeks ( more if needed) ahead of the recital to get them up to your personal performance level.

Additionally you need to get a little emotion going to play Chopin well ( you said you have trouble with this). You don't need to gush all over the piano but you need to evoke the mood of the piece and that can only come from within. It's not a reaction you get from the piece, it's something you have to put into it besides playing the notes mechanically.

[dima_76557]

You have said you have had practiced 7 times upstairs before performing...

Had Sena really "practised" 7 times, then it wouldn't have been so bad, but Sena indicated to have "played" the piece 7 times "with pleasant results". The rule I was given regarding preparation for concert performance is that for every couple of times you PLAY FOR PLEASURE (letting go), it is good to "clean" the piece slowly with a purely technical approach (taking back control), because by merely playing (=enjoying) a piece, the image of required movements in the brain for that piece becomes blurred. That, I think, is what happened to Sena. A lesson to learn from for the future, nothing more.

[starlady]

Sena, from the way you beat yourself up over this it is clear that you are a real perfectionist.  You need to learn how to handle this feature of your personality or you are going to suffer and not just in piano playing. (Believe me, I know all about perfectionism, myself, my whole family.....)

Here's some advice for all perfectionists: If you fall to pieces at the first mistake, you are not much use to anyone (because you're in pieces, very messy....). But if you keep going you'll see that you can do wonderful things even after that 'failure' and you've accomplished much more that way. So if you want to really achieve great things--learn to live with some great mistakes! 

----s.

[timothy42b]

The rule I was given regarding preparation for concert performance is that for every couple of times you PLAY FOR PLEASURE (letting go), it is good to "clean" the piece slowly with a purely technical approach (taking back control), because by merely playing (=enjoying) a piece, the image of required movements in the brain for that piece becomes blurred.

This makes a great deal of sense.

I direct a handbell choir, a group of amateur musicians who perform once a month in church.  I make sure they're ready, but they insist on a warmup in the morning.   I would prefer no run-through.  I like to touch all the trouble spots - repeats, page turns, key changes, bell drops, anything special to watch for.  Their nerves don't tolerate skipping a run-through.  What I've observed is the run-through is perfect and the performance is flawed, sometimes badly. 

This month after the run-through I went back to all the trouble spots and made them concentrate, then did NOT allow another time through the piece.  The performance was the best they've done yet. 

[lostinidlewonder]

You're experience is quite normal for a human. We are not perfect, we make mistakes.

Everyone is different as well, some people benefit from practicing a lot before going on stage it helps them with their confidence to perform, then on the other hand it can drain other people as has been mentioned in previous posts.

It is important to learn what works for you and experiences good or bad help you work out how you work as a performer. Just do not stress which I know is hard to do. Use that negative sinking feeling you get thinking about your failure to motivate your desire to perform. Don't hide from it or get upset with it, embrace it and face it head on. Performance is a risk for everyone, there are no safety nets, great players can be destroyed by it, others will rise to its challenge and learn to deal with its risks.

[andrewkoay]

I know this feeling all too well. I completely shut down in an international competition (where the stakes were indeed quite high!) and succumbed to the pressure that I missed a gazillion notes. I too cried quite hard after it   

Firstly, you make one stupid mistake, then you get scared and then you doubt yourself, and that interferes with your muscle memory and you then proceed to make even more mistakes and it's a vicious cycle I would say.

How I got over it:

1) Not playing overly difficult pieces for my level. I chose pieces that I can play in my sleep, and really trying to perfect those and bring them to recording/studio quality! 

2) Slow practice. Fool around with the notes, play it in different rhythm, different tempos, different styles. Start in the middle of the pieces. Play with a newspaper in front of you. If your muscle memory is diverse, it becomes quite hard to mess something hard and not know how to get back in. If you only practice one way, it will fail you when something happens on stage. 

3) Start to make music instead of playing notes. What I mean by this is that, you shouldn't ever be focusing on notes, whether in practice or performances. A few wrong notes really doesn't matter at all and you shouldn't be concerned about it. Hell, I have been to pop concerts where the singer failed and sang out of tune for an ENTIRE song, and the audience still sang along and loved it because the emotions the lyrics and the artist was so into it! You're making the piano sound like a sport, as if the goal is to play difficult pieces and show off your unbelievable technique and not miss anything at all. If this is the case, you might as well stop playing piano, because you'll get so stressed out by it and you won't be able to bring enjoyment to yourself and the audience. When you play you should be thinking "how should I express this piece". I think of bottled up anger when I play the 1st movement of the Appassionata and an silent inner peace and confidence in the 2nd movement, and a torrential rain in the 3rd, and with Chopin I think of every note as a beautiful jewel that I want to give to my beloved. Thinking about these things would help distract you from the mistakes (which doesn't matter anyway!) and would make you a better musician who wants to communicate with the audience.

[senanserat]

My teacher told me he insist I do the following:

1.Play right hand naming the notes
2.Play left hand naming the notes.
3.Play right hand naming left notes
4.Play left hand naming right notes.
5. Even while performing count aloud, in my case un y dos y tres y cuatro for 4/4

Also I decided that you guys are right and that for my next recital I will play the Polonaise again plus another piece, perhaps some Bach.

That said I don't really trust myself and my confidence is my growing skills wavered greatly but I guess that I will have to man the hell up =p

A problem is that I know I can do better because I have but a failure like this brings into light a looot of doubts and fears I didn't even knew existed. As for the "energy"while playing I will have to look for a solution quickly, lately my life feels like a rocky road filled with potholes of despair and long stretches of loneliness. 

Nevertheless no one will said that I didn't try so from this day onward I wil double, nay triple my efforts.

[gregh]

If you can do it in practice, you just need to get over the nerves.
You need to find a gig where you can play in public where the audience is not judging you.  Try a nursing home, one that has a piano.  Or a bar that has open mike on Tuesday night when nobody shows up.  A church that needs a pianist for Sunday School assembly (not the main auditorium).  

There was a story about a concert violinist who played in the subway every day. She wanted to get used to playing in front of crowds.

Hospitals often have a piano and a volunteer musician program, which I think is a grand idea.

[rmbarbosa]

If you have not a low arterial tension, try a beta-blocker before your next recital.
But before your next recital try to play in front of friends, parents, etc...
To fail one presentation isnt the end of the world.
You are exactly what and who you are, not what the others think about you.
If you can play that polonaise well, you are someone who knows that you play well.
Much of your listeners cant play piano, a lot of them dont feel anything wrong in your playing if you play with 4, 5 or more mistakes. So, be calm ))
I develloped a technique: when I sit in front of the piano, I abstract me from the listeners, I only feel and "think" the music and for me its completely indiferent what the audience thinks or feels. At the end, when I listen the applauses, sometimes I think: oh, were you there? thank you... I do know your next recital will be a very good one.
Courage and best wishes.
Rui

[hfmadopter]

My teacher told me he insist I do the following:

1.Play right hand naming the notes
2.Play left hand naming the notes.
3.Play right hand naming left notes
4.Play left hand naming right notes.
5. Even while performing count aloud, in my case un y dos y tres y cuatro for 4/4

Also I decided that you guys are right and that for my next recital I will play the Polonaise again plus another piece, perhaps some Bach.

That said I don't really trust myself and my confidence is my growing skills wavered greatly but I guess that I will have to man the hell up =p

A problem is that I know I can do better because I have but a failure like this brings into light a looot of doubts and fears I didn't even knew existed. As for the "energy"while playing I will have to look for a solution quickly, lately my life feels like a rocky road filled with potholes of despair and long stretches of loneliness. 

Nevertheless no one will said that I didn't try so from this day onward I wil double, nay triple my efforts.

Wonderful ! And so there is your plan already in place. You will do fine next time.

[chopin2015]

another thing you could do is practice away from the piano, if you really want to practice the day before a recital. Do it with the score! Sing all the parts.

[chopin2015]

Here is a device I found at the music store. It is a display of GH action for yamaha clavinova. Has only 6 keys.


I take it with me on trips and such. good for when watching tv, reading, etc. Fun to keep under your fingers when reading a score.

[timothy42b]

Here is a device I found at the music store. It is a display of GH action for yamaha clavinova. Has only 6 keys.


I take it with me on trips and such. good for when watching tv, reading, etc. Fun to keep under your fingers when reading a score.

Wow, can you buy those?  Great idea. 

[chopin2015]

Idk, I saw this as a display for the keyboards in the music store that sells pianos. To get this, my dealer had to call yamaha for a price. The dealer orders these as as a vendor for yamaha/ not for sale. You could try to call yamaha or a keyboard dealer! Otherwise, I am fixing to ask my wonderful dealer on how to order these, so my friends could get one!

Would you like me to let you know? I am going to write him, right now. (Supposedly, they are 40 dollars. Before I called and asked to buy the display, I could not find any online.)

Thanks for checking it out!

[senanserat]

Idk, I saw this as a display for the keyboards in the music store that sells pianos. To get this, my dealer had to call yamaha for a price. The dealer orders these as as a vendor for yamaha/ not for sale. You could try to call yamaha or a keyboard dealer! Otherwise, I am fixing to ask my wonderful dealer on how to order these, so my friends could get one!

Would you like me to let you know? I am going to write him, right now. (Supposedly, they are 40 dollars. Before I called and asked to buy the display, I could not find any online.)

Thanks for checking it out!

I want one...and OMG Chopin don't look at me D;

[chopin2015]

I want one...and OMG Chopin don't look at me D;

"Julia,
These sets are not available for purchase. I just happened to have two and made an exception for your request.
Thank you, David"

I will call yamaha and see what I can come up with. Ttys.

[pianoplunker]

So today I had a recital, I was going to present Chopin's Polonaise in G min (Posthumous). And I say was because...well let me tell you.

I arrived early today, first on the scene so I went to warm and practice on a piano upstairs (the recital was down) I played the piece 7 times on a row with if I may say so myself very pleasant results, but as time approached for my turn my hands grew cold and stiff... when I was called I was a nervous wreck, I tried to play and I succeed for the first 15 seconds....

That is where disaster struck one error become two and then four, I carried on the only thing I can salvage from the experience is that I didn't stop once I just pushed my away clumsily like if it was nothing, but inside I feel dead.

I failed my teacher, my family my honor and myself. When I got home and I looked at my piano I felt bone deep despair... Tomorrow I have classes and I don't know if I can face my professor
he was going to tell me something at the end when we were all leaving but I ran away like a B.

I guess my question is this:

I humiliated myself, I made a fool out of myself, I may have been the worst performance today...If I keep showing up will the stage fright go away? Kinda like getting used to it, one of my classmates has been playing for 7 years and he was just on another level, confident and cool, I wish that I could.

Thanks for reading.

As others have stated, playing it 7 times in a row as a warm-up did you no good. In fact, leading up to the day you should play through only 1 time each practice session and then working on sections. Then on the recital day play other pieces as a warm-up, That way your brain will be more fresh and more eager to play that recital piece. If you ever want to be a pro, you must move forward and learn from your mistakes. this time the mistake seems to be "playing" before the time you were supposed to be playing in front of a crowd. It is OK, stand up and try again. Even the greatest have bad days

[hfmadopter]

Wow, can you buy those?  Great idea. 

I get a kick out of this because most folks around here dislike digital pianos, tell everyone to buy acoustic pianos but yet want this piece of a digital piano for practice. Funny how the piece of keyboard is fantastic suddenly !

Incidentally, at their website Kawai shows sections like these as well. I doubt they are for sale though.

[timothy42b]

I get a kick out of this because most folks around here dislike digital pianos, tell everyone to buy acoustic pianos but yet want this piece of a digital piano for practice. Funny how the piece of keyboard is fantastic suddenly !

Incidentally, at their website Kawai shows sections like these as well. I doubt they are for sale though.

It should be possible to remove the action from a junk piano and cut a small section, maybe a couple of octaves, to use for a silent practice piano. 

I have it on my list of projects, but it's right behind building the boat in the basement, and that's pretty far down the list itself.  I keep saying this year for sure - but then I get busy, and there's always that nagging fear I'll join the community of people who have a boat in their basement that fits through the door, because they carefully measured - but it won't make the turn onto the stairway. 

For 10 years or so I've been saying I AM going to Punkin Chunkin this year.

And this year, I'll SEE YOU THERE! 

[chopin2015]

I shall post pictures of this device. We should make this a project! I would like one with a little more than a octave, that would be groovy.

[senanserat]

I shall post pictures of this device. We should make this a project! I would like one with a little more than a octave, that would be groovy.

Care to explain your sig? My teacher found it hilarious even in our language and I don't even know...

[timothy42b]

Care to explain your sig? My teacher found it hilarious even in our language and I don't even know...

I think he's quoting Victor Borge, one of my favorites.

A "flat" is the same as an apartment. 

[senanserat]

I think he's quoting Victor Borge, one of my favorites.

A "flat" is the same as an apartment. 

Oooooooh....damn I'm dense, I will punish myself accordingly later.

[chopin2015]

Oooooooh....damn I'm dense, I will punish myself accordingly later.

Punish with care! Make sure you are still able to enjoy even a punishment...o_O lol

[perprocrastinate]

So today I had a recital, I was going to present Chopin's Polonaise in G min (Posthumous). And I say was because...well let me tell you[...]

It's been more than a month since you posted this, but I think I'm going to share my experience from my recital today.

Similar to you, I was going to present Chopin's Etude Op. 10, No. 3 today, and the level of failure I brought upon myself was worse than I imagined. I, too, practiced the piece several times before the recital, no pedal, with pedal, fixing up sections, etc. Mistake #1. I really felt like I had a solid grip on the piece, even though I couldn't manage it at the standard tempo, at least not without sacrificing cleanness of sound.

Nope.

The recital piano was a grand, and I wasn't used to the action of a grand, even though the heavier keys make voicing and pianissimo much easier. Mistake #2. Actually wait. This wasn't something I could prevent, but over-practicing on an upright on the day of the recital wasn't one of my brightest ideas. It gets worse. The guy (or girl? I forget) before me left the music stand up, and I forgot to put it back down. Since I wasn't used to a grand, I wasn't used to the timbre of sound coming from the piano, and this (I'm sure) screwed up my intended voicings. Mistake #3.

Now I'm sure all of you are thinking, "Wow, this guy sure makes a lot of excuses." True, I could have better prepared the piece a million different ways, but that's a different story.

So I walk up on stage all confident, take a bow, and start to play the piece. The first, slower section wasn't that bad, although I did screw up several chord voicings I had been working so hard on. "Did I even play that note? Maybe if I play a little louder.." Well, my "experimentation" apparently lead to the recording of my performance sounding like a horse with a shorter leg galloping, with random accents on the wrong beat, etc. I get to the faster second section, and this is where it starts to get really bad. There was this bar in the etude with double thirds using the weaker fingers that I never was able to master. As soon as I started it, I could have sworn I missed every chord. I stumble through to find that I can't pedal correctly now..because I'm not used to this piano. More chopiness and broken sound ensues. At this point, I've made so many mistakes that I just (with genius instinct ) decide to play faster and more convincingly (whatever my reasoning was at the time, I couldn't even explain it). Guess what? The already dissonant sounding double sixths section in the etude just turned into the sonic embodiment of flying shrapnel.

I eventually finish the piece, and walk off stage feeling like a complete moron. Even though most of the people in the audience weren't exactly knowledgeable of what constitutes "good" piano playing (it was a casual recital, and these were parents of students), some of them probably wondered how I was even allowed to play in a recital.

Yep, today I disgraced Chopin, my teacher, and myself. And it's not even the bad performance itself that disappoints me. It's that even with several months of hard work, I still wasn't able to ever play this piece 'correctly'. Why on earth would my teacher let me learn the piece in the first place? Sure, I may have a slightly faster learning ability than some, but my ambitions tend to be pianistically suicidal.

[outin]

Why on earth would my teacher let me learn the piece in the first place? Sure, I may have a slightly faster learning ability than some, but my ambitions tend to be pianistically suicidal.

How long have you played now? A couple of years?

I could understand your teacher letting you learn a Chopin etude, but to let you play it in a recital? That's a bit too much I think and maybe your teacher is the one that should be punished...

Not that you shouldn't use your own head as well...You need to get rid of those suicidal tendencies 

Sh*t happens, just try to make better decisions next time.

[timothy42b]

Yep, today I disgraced Chopin, my teacher, and myself. And it's not even the bad performance itself that disappoints me. It's that even with several months of hard work, I still wasn't able to ever play this piece 'correctly'. Why on earth would my teacher let me learn the piece in the first place? Sure, I may have a slightly faster learning ability than some, but my ambitions tend to be pianistically suicidal.

You did pick a piece you weren't ready to perform, but my reading of your post suggests a different failure mechanism.

I have this theory that failure comes mostly in 3 modes.

Mode 1 is the activation of the DMN.  The brain has an autopilot called the Default Maintenance Network.  It takes over when the task is easy, there is little risk, things are going well, and your attention can be freed to go elsewhere.  This INEVITABLY leads to an unexplainable error. 

Mode 2 I call the glaze.  Things come at you too fast and overwhelm you, like playing a shoot-em-up video game for the first time, or trying to sightread something above your level.  This can happen when you're playing something right at the edge of your ability, because anything that throws you puts you here.  I've had this happen playing in church a number of times. 

Mode 3 is what athletes call the choke.  It is sometimes mistakenly called paralysis by analysis, but that is completely wrong.  The choke is actually a self reinforcing cycle of self consciousness.  You become aware of your motions, they start to go wrong, that feeds more awareness, and soon it escalates to self consciousness.  This cycle is VERY difficult to break when under the pressure of performance.

I think from your description you choked.  You started paying too much attention to the mechanics of what you were doing. 

[mjames]

I could play Bach's 1st and 2nd sinfonias with my eyes closed

but during my first recital I couldn't even finish them, like it's as if my hands froze and my memory was erased. I just sat there......doing nothing....

Then I played a Kuhlau sonatina, I did alright for the first two movements then by the time the third movement came i fucked up soo badly. It was going perfectly until the end. I was like "wow I totally got this, its almost over" and then I just started failing failing and failing. Couldn't finish it either.

Thankfully my dear old frederic saved the day and I managed to leave a somehwat good impression on the judges. Love that guy.

[domocles]

I had a complete train wreck last week.  Felt utterly ashamed.  I pretended that I wasn't broken on the inside and cracked a joke to make everyone laugh, I just about got away with it.  I managed to slope out of the building largely unnoticed but now I can't even think about the pieces I tried to play. 

I was devastated but it's given me the motivation to not feel like that again.  Practice, focus on a goal, seize control and come up with a plan.  I know where I want to be by next Christmas and whether he likes it or not, my teacher is gonna show me the way.

Death...or glory.

[d3boy2002]

This happened to me once too. Was luckily at a small concert, but it wasn't just a few missed notes, it was just absolutely stopping altogether. I don't know what happened, it's just as if my mind just stopped, and the piece I was playing was completely gone in my brain. I had to stop the concert all together, that's how bad it was!

Embarassed, absolutely. It was one of the worst feelings of my life. To have prepared for such a long time, and to go blank on the one day that it mattered. But was it necessary? I absolutely think so, because ever since then, I've been motivated to practice that extra musical mile to prevent that from ever happening again. I lost a lot of confidence that day, a LOT, but it's things like that that teach you what you need to know.

[hfmadopter]

I had a complete train wreck last week.  Felt utterly ashamed.  I pretended that I wasn't broken on the inside and cracked a joke to make everyone laugh, I just about got away with it.  I managed to slope out of the building largely unnoticed but now I can't even think about the pieces I tried to play. 

I was devastated but it's given me the motivation to not feel like that again.  Practice, focus on a goal, seize control and come up with a plan.  I know where I want to be by next Christmas and whether he likes it or not, my teacher is gonna show me the way.

Death...or glory.

I know what you feel like, my first work shop I attended went a bit rough and surprise ones here and there as well where I really thought I had a piece down well.. But this is what was so so valuable about my teachers work shops back then. We got to play our pieces in front of a group of our peers the second wed of the month. If we put on a recital on our own the pieces were well prepared and practiced live. It's so different to practice and make it sound wonderful, quite another to play it for someone. It's an acquired taste so to speak, not everyone is born to naturally feel comfortable doing this. And recitals are so stiff, it's not like being in a crowd where we converse with people and ease the tension. We walk on stage and  wham, one offs !

[gregh]

These last few comments remind me of a speech class I had taken. A fellow classmate had a fear of public speaking, sort of. He actually had no problem at all with sitting in his seat and telling the whole class about the police car that started chasing him because of some goof he had made, and then lost him. He was a friendly and chatty guy. But when he had to get out of his seat and go to the front of the class to give a prepared speech, he would almost choke.

Ever since, I've wondered how he could be so easy and casual about the one, but mortified of the other. I think it must be a sense of performing and being judged. I've wondered if the mind-set could be retrained, because his fear obviously wasn't just of a group of people listening to what he had to say.

[hfmadopter]

These last few comments remind me of a speech class I had taken. A fellow classmate had a fear of public speaking, sort of. He actually had no problem at all with sitting in his seat and telling the whole class about the police car that started chasing him because of some goof he had made, and then lost him. He was a friendly and chatty guy. But when he had to get out of his seat and go to the front of the class to give a prepared speech, he would almost choke.

Ever since, I've wondered how he could be so easy and casual about the one, but mortified of the other. I think it must be a sense of performing and being judged. I've wondered if the mind-set could be retrained, because his fear obviously wasn't just of a group of people listening to what he had to say.

It's definitely a frame of mind thing, being judged on performance is tough. I knew a lady who showed up to these work shops I mention now and then in the forums. She was so fearful and shaky but yet you just knew she had potential. She tried and tried at Fur Elise, you could see her hands trembling at the keys. Then at the end of one year she just ran it off as if there was never a problem, no trembling very confident performance and she got applause. The next year she wasn't there and wasn't taking lessons. We got word that she had died from breast cancer. I guess the cancer was the bigger demon than playing Fur Elise in front of the crowd.