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Topic: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"  (Read 2135 times)

Offline kopower

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I wish piano was easier!
After dabbling in piano in my youth - I am back at it with vengence!
In the last 6 months I have learnt a few pieces - the highlight being moonlight sonata mvt 1.

I have a lot of pieces to learn on my 'to-do list'

The problem is, when I open a cool piece to learn - I'm often frustrated that it's gonna take me a looooooong time to practice and master - the persistence required at that early stage is huge.  I am very impatient - and often give up early and try find something else that sounds nice and I can master faster.

How do you guys deal with this INITAL HURDLE??  How to stay persistent and motivated?? 

Wish I could pick up a piece and sight read and master it in a couple of days !!!  But that's not the case with me - take me a long while to learn a piece - section by section - repetition by repetition...

Offline outin

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #1 on: February 04, 2014, 06:35:17 AM
Happens to me a lot too. The best way to deal with it is try to ignore that initial feeling of despair and just start. Don't think about how long it will take, just concentrate on the thing at hand. Sometimes the piece is too much and it really takes too long. Then I decide to come back later and move on.

Offline nitros

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #2 on: February 04, 2014, 07:23:13 AM
Because I'm almost always practicing some piece or another, I usually read the new piece a little until I find the new hand motion (or difficult part) that I may need to learn, and practice that in between my other pieces until I am somewhat comfortable with it, then, when and if I decide to give it a real shot at learning the piece it's quite easy to get going, doing that gives me a more concrete idea of how difficult the piece really is and sometimes it turns out to be out of my current reach.

Offline gregh

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #3 on: February 04, 2014, 07:37:49 PM
This is what they mean when they say it's the journey, not the destination. Enjoy the learning process, because that's where you're going to be most of the time.

I find that if I keep coming back to a piece day after day, it slowly starts to work into shape. On the other hand, I could try to memorize a new piece in one sitting, and then two hours later it's gone, I can't even hum it. I've learned to recalibrate my expectations.

Offline swagmaster420x

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #4 on: February 04, 2014, 08:21:23 PM
Either learn to be accustomed to sucking it up yourself, or facilitate the process by getting a teacher or someone else who will guilt you into doing so.

Offline kopower

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #5 on: February 04, 2014, 09:18:18 PM
Great comments and advice by everyone so far! Thanks very much - and really appreciate it !

Piano is for the most part a journey and not a destination - I will have to work on this more !

I see these wonderful pianists on YouTube playing so beautifully - but I guess we don't see the HUGE hours they put in into practice and learning -
I guess I get too caught up in the destination!

Keep the comments flowing - and if more ppl can chime in?
I assume the learning process get easier with time ?  Your experiences ?

Offline j_menz

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #6 on: February 04, 2014, 10:48:31 PM
I assume the learning process get easier with time ?  Your experiences ?

Yes and no. There are still plenty of things to learn, and they continue to need the same time and discipline. You should develop a better understanding of how you learn best - what works and what doesn't - so some time is saved. The biggest change though, IMO, is that you come to understand both what is involved (this will take x amount of time and I need to do y), and that you can learn it.
"What the world needs is more geniuses with humility. There are so few of us left" -- Oscar Levant

Offline kopower

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #7 on: February 05, 2014, 12:39:15 AM
Yes and no. There are still plenty of things to learn, and they continue to need the same time and discipline. You should develop a better understanding of how you learn best - what works and what doesn't - so some time is saved. The biggest change though, IMO, is that you come to understand both what is involved (this will take x amount of time and I need to do y), and that you can learn it.

Thanks for advice ! Makes me feel better others experience what I do as well !

Like I said - those pianists on YouTube make it all look so easy !!!!

Offline slane

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #8 on: February 05, 2014, 01:26:59 AM
Mix easy and hard stuff. So if you like beethoven, learn the very cute sonatina in F.


Or if you're sick of beethoven try anna magdalenas notebook, or clementi op 36 or kuhlau sonatinas, or kabalevsky 30 pieces for children.

This way you get to learn lots of pieces and have lots of little triumphs while mastering the big pieces.
And every piece, even the easy one, holds tecnical lessons.

Offline Bob

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #9 on: February 05, 2014, 02:27:50 AM
Ditto.  Have a mix of pieces.  Helps for when you stop working on something.  It's not the end of everything.
Favorite new teacher quote -- "You found the only possible wrong answer."

Offline pianoplunker

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #10 on: February 05, 2014, 02:43:50 AM
I wish piano was easier!
After dabbling in piano in my youth - I am back at it with vengence!
In the last 6 months I have learnt a few pieces - the highlight being moonlight sonata mvt 1.

I have a lot of pieces to learn on my 'to-do list'

The problem is, when I open a cool piece to learn - I'm often frustrated that it's gonna take me a looooooong time to practice and master - the persistence required at that early stage is huge.  I am very impatient - and often give up early and try find something else that sounds nice and I can master faster.

How do you guys deal with this INITAL HURDLE??  How to stay persistent and motivated?? 

Wish I could pick up a piece and sight read and master it in a couple of days !!!  But that's not the case with me - take me a long while to learn a piece - section by section - repetition by repetition...

Me too !  But what I find are numerous hurdles AFTER the initial hurdle. The initial hurdle is a combination of how much I like the music + can I be honest with myself about being able to do it at this time. while I think about that , I may learn something short and simple or practice sight reading.  That is where a whole bunch of other music will help me get there eventually. Learning how to learn is a great thing. Dont get stuck on only one piece of music , a mistake I made more than once

Offline kopower

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #11 on: February 05, 2014, 11:55:48 AM
Mix easy and hard stuff. So if you like beethoven, learn the very cute sonatina in F.


Or if you're sick of beethoven try anna magdalenas notebook, or clementi op 36 or kuhlau sonatinas, or kabalevsky 30 pieces for children.

This way you get to learn lots of pieces and have lots of little triumphs while mastering the big pieces.
And every piece, even the easy one, holds tecnical lessons.

Thank you for your helpful suggestions - I will look up all the pieces you have mentioned -

I guess working on a number of pieces seems to be the consensus

Offline gregh

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #12 on: February 05, 2014, 07:04:22 PM
This sort of seems relevant... I've been told that adult music students tend to quit early, and a lot of teachers don't even want to take adults. It seems to me that kids have some advantages, besides having an external authority to enforce practice time, and no real responsibilities besides getting their homework done. Kids don't know how bad they sound and nobody expects them to sound good, the kid is just happy to be making noise. The adult knows what an adult should sound like, and what he wants to sound like, and knows that he doesn't sound like that.

So the adult quits while the kid begins to sound the way the adult wanted to.

Offline kopower

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #13 on: February 05, 2014, 11:08:36 PM
This sort of seems relevant... I've been told that adult music students tend to quit early, and a lot of teachers don't even want to take adults. It seems to me that kids have some advantages, besides having an external authority to enforce practice time, and no real responsibilities besides getting their homework done. Kids don't know how bad they sound and nobody expects them to sound good, the kid is just happy to be making noise. The adult knows what an adult should sound like, and what he wants to sound like, and knows that he doesn't sound like that.

So the adult quits while the kid begins to sound the way the adult wanted to.

Yes I agree - the trick is that the adult must stay persistent.

If so, the adult can accomplish more - and accomplish faster.  This is my experience when I compare myself to when I was a child taking piano leasons.

Offline bronnestam

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #14 on: February 07, 2014, 09:18:56 AM
I wish piano was easier!
After dabbling in piano in my youth - I am back at it with vengence!
In the last 6 months I have learnt a few pieces - the highlight being moonlight sonata mvt 1.

I have a lot of pieces to learn on my 'to-do list'

The problem is, when I open a cool piece to learn - I'm often frustrated that it's gonna take me a looooooong time to practice and master - the persistence required at that early stage is huge.  I am very impatient - and often give up early and try find something else that sounds nice and I can master faster.

How do you guys deal with this INITAL HURDLE??  How to stay persistent and motivated?? 

Wish I could pick up a piece and sight read and master it in a couple of days !!!  But that's not the case with me - take me a long while to learn a piece - section by section - repetition by repetition...

You know - I used to feel exactly like that, back in my youth ... I wanted to master the pieces, not to LEARN them. Today, I have managed to make a shift in my thinking. When I see a difficult piece, my reaction is more like the one I feel when I see a big, lovely jigsaw puzzle with 2000 pieces: Great, here I will have much fun work to do, for many many hours!

So it is really possible to enjoy the learning process itself, to enjoy your progress - you just don't have to be impatient. If you want to listen to the piece as it should be, then go ahead and listen to some master pianist playing it. Be proud that you are not just a listener now. You have the score, you know every single note of it after you have studied it for a while, you get ideas from the performances that you can use later ... And do not waste time on thoughts like "ohmygod, I will NEVER play that well!" Instead you can think "I would play like this and that instead" because you will realize that this pianist has his/her interpretation ... and you have yours. Or you think "I definitely agree about that!"
Then go home and keep on working with small chunks of the piece, HAVE FUN, make it yours. Congratulations, you are a pianist now. I also agree with other posters that you should work with many pieces, and don't feel any contempt for "easy" pieces.


And finally a true fan girl story from me, which you can read or ... don't read, if you don't want to. (I had it in my blog years ago ...  ;)  )
I got to know Mr. Tengstrand in 2008 and got fascinated by his superb technique and this was also what finally made me start with my own piano playing again. But this happened in 2009 while I still was just an admiring fan and listener ... So he informed me that he was to play Tjaikovskij 1, the FAMOUS one you know, and I was thrilled by excitement. As a student I played this concert on my grammophone over and over and I DREAMT of being in the audience and hear it live one day. It was just a dream for 20 years, and so it became true, with my favourite pianist as well. Wheee! I bought a ticket ... and got one one the first row (there were 30 ...), which was not my wish, but it turned out to be great as the acoustic in the concert hall was terrific and the podium not very high. It was like sitting inside of the orchestra, just 3 metres away from the piano!

Before the concert I was so bold - some would call it rude, I guess - that I wrote to Mr. Tengstrand and give him my very amateurish opinions about that concert, just because I cared so much about it. I wrote that I had heard a version, with a very famous pianist (who is great otherwise, but not in this concert) who had managed to make the introducing three chords sounding like ... walz, or something. Uneven. I wrote that I wanted this introduction to sound more like "a rolling full-rigged ship" and the poor pianist was kind and replied to me that actually one of his old teachers had described it the same ...

So, concert time! And I got my full-rigged ship. When I occasionally opened my eyes - I use to listen with closed eyes - I saw the whole piano SWAY from side to side, and the whole section of the 1st violins was practically surrounding me. In the 3rd movement I felt tears of joy running down my cheeks. Normally I'm not that sentimental but oh, this was my greatest concert moment of all times. Mr. Tengstrand later concluded that he had never nailed that concert so well before, and I believe him, because it was pure magic all the way.
As encore we got the 2nd movement of Sonata Pathétique, and this happened to be the very piece I learned as my "comeback" to piano playing four years later ... Took me more than 2 months to learn, but finally I played it with my own hands. What a feeling!

But, well, I'm not the kind of person who enjoys sitting there as a pure fan  :o in long terms, so I picked up piano practicing myself thanks to this, like I said. My first attempts with this sonata adagio were so bad that you cannot believe it. And, as a funny bottom line of this story, I attended a little lecture by Mr. Tengstrand about piano playing, and he asked me to come up to the stage as "demonstration object", and I had to start playing that adagio, from which I had just tried 10 bars so far.


Yeah, me. In front of an audience, sitting at a real Steinway D. Oops ... Started by hitting the wrong key of course  :-[  and then he rather quickly interrupted me. "You need to use much more force. You know, you should be able to play chords like THESE as well". And so he leaned over and fired the introduction chords of the Tjajkovskij concert right in my face, so that I nearly fell of the chair.

So, actually these chords have been played with me sitting at the piano. Rather cool, don't you think? Still, I consider this concert to be far out of my reach, but maybe ... one day ... I don't think it is "impossible" anymore, I realize that I just need to work, and do some more work, and some more. And I look forward to that work!
I have also learned the painful way, that you must not hurry, because you can get injuries if you work too hard with something that is too difficult for you at the moment.

So go on working with different material and just enjoy the ride! Learning to master a new skill is the best thing in the world.


Offline kopower

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #15 on: February 07, 2014, 10:36:59 AM
Thank you bronnestam for your wonderful msg and words of wisdom.

Indeed I agree looking at these piano pieces more like a jigsaw puzzle is a better positive attitude !

And to work at your own pace and with your own abilities.
And by all means to admire the beautiful work by pianists as well at the same time !
And who knows - with enough practice you can closely mimic some pianists for some pieces.

Offline future_maestro

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #16 on: February 07, 2014, 03:23:02 PM
Yeah, everyone that tries to play a new piece experiences this (unless your a master).

What always keeps me going is I think about how great it's going to be when I can finally play it. Sure the road there is long, but you will get there sooner or later. I look at every piece that I am about to play and picture it as a road stretched out before me, some of them are longer than others. I just know that eventually I will get to the end of this "road," and when I do, I'll have a new piece in my repertoire.

Of course it helps if you actually like the piece that you are going to play, but sometimes, you don't, and you just have to do it anyway.
"To play a wrong note is insignificant;
to play without passion is inexcusable."
    - Ludwig van Beethoven

Offline momopi

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #17 on: February 09, 2014, 05:21:11 AM
I tell myself I already lost so much time in the past so I better get working on it now so I can play more amusing pieces in the future!  :D

Offline deidre

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #18 on: February 09, 2014, 05:48:47 AM
Something that has helped me with picking up new pieces is composers *typically* have a style unto themselves that helps me prepare a bit as to what might be expected. Mozart for example, I expect a lot of scale work and movement. The only composer who has a "few" styles IMO is Chopin. What I mean by that is I may listen to a piece of music of his for the very first time and be taken aback to learn that Chopin was the composer. lol

Like others have said, and I agree--it's the journey not the destination. This is true for anything worth having. The Winter Olympics are running right now, and while there is much raw talent amongst the competitors, they still had to work to get there.

Nothing worth having comes easy.

Piano has its challenges; I'm sure there are areas of it that cone easier to you than others.

For me, when I view a new piece and ask myself if I want to pursue it ...if it's very difficult from a technical standpoint...the question always becomes "can I see myself ever memorizing this?"
My predicament is memorization. ;D

Continue the journey for yourself as that is the beauty of life. :)
Without a piano I don't know how to stand, don't know what to do with my hands. ~ Norah Jones

Offline malaguena

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #19 on: February 09, 2014, 05:56:21 AM
I've been studying for six years now, and even at an advanced level I still will look at a piece and it seems like so much work! I am working on an extremely complicated 11 page quartet right now along with three other major pieces, as well as multiple pieces for an upcoming festival. Every time I look at all that work I become nervous. But I gut it up, place my fingers on the keys and dig in, frankly, because that's the only way to make progress. Progress doesn't just come easily. It takes work and patience. I'm not a patient person, and I don't believe I ever will be. Patience takes work for me, and an extreme amount of my impatience occurs at the piano. You just have to conquer it, gut it up, dig in, and determine to be patient. This is one of my favorite quotes, and it inspires me in my work:

"Music is the hardest kind of art. It doesn't hang up on a wall and wait to be stared at and enjoyed by passersby. It's communication. It's hours and hours being put into a work of art that may only last, in reality, for a few moments...but if done well, and truly appreciated, it lasts in our hearts forever. That's art. Speaking with your heart to the hearts of others." ~Mr. Dan Romano

That's what music is. It takes work, and A LOT of it, but in the end it's worth it. Think about what music means to you, and what it means to share it with others; and that, in itself, I believe is the best of inspiration.  :)
Malagueña
~Piano teacher and student~

Offline vansh

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #20 on: February 09, 2014, 09:45:41 AM
Just take it step by step, one section at a time.

For example, right now since I'm still learning the first (slow) part of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody 2, I will only play the second (fast) part in public. No one is the wiser (that it's actually just the second half). Also, I've only learned the first and last parts of La Campanella, so I only play those, leaving out the last parts. Basically turning an ABABABA piece into an ABA piece. Obviously I'm not performing them, just playing them at a public piano to see how they sound. It'll help you show yourself that you're making progress, if you can break a piece into individual sections (ideally that have an opening and ending) and bring them up to par before tackling the next section. At least that's my strategy.
Currently working on: Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody 2 (all advice welcome!), Chopin's Revolutionary Etude, Chopin's Fantaisie Impromptu

Offline bernadette60614

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Re: When I see a new piece to learn -> "oh my so much work!!!"
Reply #21 on: February 26, 2014, 07:53:04 PM
What  a timely post!

I start with sitting down with the score without even touching the keyboard.  I number each measure, I highlight the dynamics and I just "read" the score measure by measure.  For 6 pages of new music this may take an hour or more.

Then, I let it "sit" in my mind for a day.  I then listen to a professional recording to give myself sort of a sense of the mood of the piece.

Only then will I sit down with the score. I start with working on the most difficult measures first, since those are the ones which will require the most frequent accurate repetition to reinforce muscle memory.   Then, I've move onto the first page and take it by 4 measure blocks, playing hands alone till I can play accurately and fast, then hands together very slowly.

I also do a Practice Calendar..what measures I'm going to work on daily.

For me, with any task, be it work or something like cleaning the house before the ILs come, I start with the toughest task first and then break things down into manageable increments.
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