Practice Block?

[gentlewind]

I am 59 yrs old and still trying to learn to play the piano, but right now, I find myself having "Practice Block." Yes, it is something like writer's block. I just don't want to go practice. Any advice or suggestions? Thanks

[quantum]

Go listen to a recording or attend some live music.  Practice and learning does not happen exclusively when you sit at the keyboard. 

[maxyim]

Leave the warmup and arpeggio scales alone and set big goals.  Pick something impressive that speaks to you, imagine yourself playing it, and then start conquering it, piece by piece.  Your practice will be the committing of each chunk to memory and playing over and over again.  At least this is what works for me!

I may have a few recommendations on pieces to work on if you can share your skill level and favorite composers.  Offhand I would recommend Bach's Prelude No. 1 in C major if you are a beginner, the more intricate layering of the Ave Maria theme within the same Prelude by Gounud or Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata 1st movement if you are intermediate. 

[outin]

I am 59 yrs old and still trying to learn to play the piano, but right now, I find myself having "Practice Block." Yes, it is something like writer's block. I just don't want to go practice. Any advice or suggestions? Thanks

I am very familiar with such blocks, but they've never actually stopped me from practicing. There are ways to work them out. In fact I work it out similarly as I do when I have a "writers block".

Don't think about having to practice. Just casually sit at the piano and think you'll only play a few notes and then do something else. Works for me every time, the few notes always become a few thousand notes

If this doesn't help, then you must look into what you are practicing and why does it not motivate you at all. Wrong kind of music, too hard pieces, too much or too little work for the time you have available, something wrong with the piano or then environment...?

[bronnestam]

If you have seen my earlier postings you probably already know what I'm going to say now:

1. Plan your practice. Instead of going to the piano at once, sit down with your journal (or whatever) and make a few notes, IN WRITTEN, about your plans for the upcoming practice session. When you know exactly what you are going to do - do it. Don't sit at the piano until you are absolute sure of why!

2. Make goals for your practice, NOT FOR ACHIEVEMENTS. What does this mean? That goals like "I'm gonna learn the first page of this piece and make a final polish of that piece to perfection" are absolutely no good if you struggle with practice block. When I say you should plan your practice I mean you should have clear intentions on what to practice and exercise. For example "I should work with that tricky bar 18 and figure out exactly why it does not work for me, and find a solution." "I should work with transpositions of that page. Now, what do I need to know in order to do that?"
A good way to get a "flying start" is to start practicing in your head first, think about what you will do, do it mentally, sing the piece to yourself until you are bursting with eager to go and do it for real at the piano.

Achievement goals will come later, when starting your practice is not an issue anymore.

3. DON'T BE TOO AMBITIOUS. In fact, be so little ambitious that even less would be zero. Believe me, I have tried, I know what works. Big progress is made through ridiculously small steps. Play for five minutes and praise yourself for this success. You can also set a timer on 10 minutes and decide that you will not keep on playing more than that. By restricting your practice time you will be forced to make it more effective, and you will reluctantly leave the piano and wish to continue, which will make it easier to return next time.

You see what I'm aiming at? Yes, to create a "draught" that will make a positive, energized atmosphere around your practice, to make you more and more attracted to piano playing. That seat should be the best place in the world, a place filled with inspiration and positive energy, and you need no magic wand to create that. You just need positive thoughts AND positive experiences. Completely ban any negative experiences and emotions, they will stay in your memory and poison the atmosphere. I know this sounds very mumbojumbo, but it is a very essential and simple thing. Every child knows about this, instinctively. Fun places are connected with fun memories which will give you positive emotions which will make you want to go there again. And same thing goes for negative emotions. Or, do you like to go back to the restaurant where your loved one finally broke up with you? No, I guess not. It will give you bad associations to pain, you know that.

And it is the same with your piano. If you experienced moments of frustration, stress, aimlessness, disappointment, failure, boredom when you were at the piano, you will be a bit more reluctant to return. You will remember those bad feelings and revoke them again, and if you force yourself you may enforce those feelings, making it even harder to go back next time, etcetera ...

In these steps you should be able to create an air of inspiration, energy and success around your piano. Do it in very, very small steps where you simply cannot fail. Then you ... cannot fail, right? 
And when you have worked that atmosphere up, I guarantee that there will be no blocks.


Then, of course, there is also another story: perhaps you have other issues in your life that need to be resolved. I have had a period here when I have not been practicing very much lately because I have had other important things requiring my attention, so I have not been able to prioritize piano playing. On the other hand, I am not worried because I have tried the methods described above and I know they work!

[bernadette60614]

I noticed that there is a pattern to my cycles of practice block:

1)  I begin to compare myself to professional pianists or highly accomplished students and subconsciously, I fall into the thinking of "oh, what's the point."

A response which helps me is to remind myself why I play. I play to learn.  Not to impress my friends or to have the best YouTube video out there, just to learn.

I think as an adult student (I call myself a rebound student), part of what keeps me engaged in piano is that now I can learn for the joy of learning.  Not with some outer directed goal in mind.

So, enjoy learning.  You don't have to be perfect.  Just learn something new.  For me (and we're about the same age), taking on something new, failing, persisting is the essence of youth.

2)  Learn something which speaks to you.  It doesn't have to be your favorite composer, but find a personal reason why you are playing this piece.  I'm working on Mozart right now, since I've identified that flat fingered playing is something I need to work on.  Plus, Mozart is lovely.

3)  Sometimes I "play like a Lab." This will sound very goofy, but if you've ever had a Lab or played with a Lab, there is one thing in their mind: Throw something.  Not, am I'm going to catch it?  Am I going to be good enough? They just want you to throw something cause their greatest joy in life is when someone throws something.

Let piano be a joy again. Throw something. Sit down and just play.

GL!  I think we've all been there.