practicing for perfection?

[cwjalex]

how important do you guys think it is to practice like you are in a performance and try to not make any mistakes.  Of course when I practice I'm not trying to make mistakes but it is not nearly the same intensity as if I'm trying to record something or perform and trying to really focus on not making any mistakes.

when i listen to professionals its like they never make any mistakes and i feel like almost every time I play something mistakes are fairly common.  I know they have been playing a lot longer than me but do you guys think practicing with an intense focus of not making mistakes is what I should be doing? or should I just not worry about it and assume the longer I play the less mistakes will occur organically. (been playing a little over a year now).

[louispodesta]

how important do you guys think it is to practice like you are in a performance and try to not make any mistakes.  Of course when I practice I'm not trying to make mistakes but it is not nearly the same intensity as if I'm trying to record something or perform and trying to really focus on not making any mistakes.

when i listen to professionals its like they never make any mistakes and i feel like almost every time I play something mistakes are fairly common.  I know they have been playing a lot longer than me but do you guys think practicing with an intense focus of not making mistakes is what I should be doing? or should I just not worry about it and assume the longer I play the less mistakes will occur organically. (been playing a little over a year now).

The courage of your insight deserves a certain modicum of respect.  Therefore, may I respond in a personal message?
 

[cwjalex]

sure, respond however you want.

i have the suspicion that I am over analyzing things (like i do with everything) and the answer could be incredibly simple and straightforward...something obvious like duh, of course i should try hard never to make mistakes...the harder you try the better you'll become.  i would still be interested in hearing people's thoughts about this.

[bernadette60614]

Just my thoughts:

I try to get each section of a piece on which I work as good as I possibly can given the limitation of my education and experience.  I find that the longer I practice/play, the more I learn as I play the piece.

I am now playing pieces I had "learned" 3 years ago and think to myself: This is the way the composer intended.

[iansinclair]

Several thoughts.  First, it is not true that professionals never make mistakes.  They do.  Not, perhaps, as many as you or I might, but they surely do.  Sometimes pretty colossal ones at that.

Second, though, and much more important, it being able to consider the mistakes you make, and think about why you make them -- and then set about, in your practice sessions, to working on correcting them or, more accurately, the tendency to make them.  This may not necessarily mean bashing one particular passage to death, but rather finding several pieces which all use the same sort of passage work (I still have a tendency to be uneven in fast scales or arpeggios -- so I work on pieces which use that skill, for example).

[m1469]

I believe that it's actually not truly possible to "over analyze" this kind of thing, per se, but it's more a matter of analyzing it correctly or incorrectly.  More and more, I believe that executing something perfectly is largely a matter of having a kind of order of operations as clear as possible in one's mind, even hard core programmed.  Most of the places that are "difficult" in a piece are actually just fuzzy in one's mind, and once that gets cleared up and concrete, so does the passage.  Sometimes I am lazy about this (well, I haven't truly practiced for about a year, so I'm also shaking off a few cobwebs).

There are also layers of images, like blueprints, stacked on top of each other, which form a piece of music.  It is like a big picture as the blueprint in the back, an overall kind of arch, and then other images with their own purposes stacked "on top" of that in layers (hard to explain), getting into more and more detail.  Maybe at some point it comes back out the other way, getting from the most detail back to the larger framework.   Sometimes, in learning a piece or learning the motions for a passage, one of the blueprints takes by accident, or must take, higher priority over another; like a detail taking priority over the big picture, or vice versa.  It is possible to perfect the image of one blueprint while ignoring (or messing up/being unclear about) another, like getting a big motion correct at the expense of some individual notes.  What matters is understanding where your success was and where the weakness was - in which image, and then correcting it holistically.  

The goal is to have sorted out which blueprint is which, what aspect of the music belongs to what blueprint, and to have worked out your ability to achieve each one.  Then, to achieve two together, then to add more, until they are all working, correctly, at once.  And this also goes back to what I was saying above, about an order of operations, or a cueing system.  And, even the motions that a person does not think of as causing sound directly, must have a cue or placement.  They have a blueprint, or are an aspect of a blueprint, too.

[goldentone]

The professionals make mistakes.  The recordings we hear in our time are sanitized, with mistakes spliced over from other takes.  So they aren't "true blue."  The desire for technical perfection is what drives the competitions, and the art of performance has almost vanished.  If you listen to live performances you'll hear mistakes.  Listen to Rubinstein, Michelangeli, Cortot, the pianists from the golden age, and notice their individuality, emotion, and interpretive abilities.  Those are the riches that the modern Model Ts do not possess.  Do not make perfection the high note.  You want to be an artist.   

[eusebius12]

Never play in a way that is lifeless and ultracareful. That, in my view, is worse than death. But you must master the technique. Even great players have made mistakes in performance. We seem to obsess over and fetishize robotic styles of playing which have nothing to do with music.

[goldentone]

The goal is to have sorted out which blueprint is which, what aspect of the music belongs to what blueprint, and to have worked out your ability to achieve each one.  Then, to achieve two together, then to add more, until they are all working, correctly, at once.  And this also goes back to what I was saying above, about an order of operations, or a cueing system.  And, even the motions that a person does not think of as causing sound directly, must have a cue or placement.  They have a blueprint, or are an aspect of a blueprint, too.

What I come away with in this system (which stimulates the blood in my brain), is each blueprint represents a goal for the piece, and one could have "masterprints" that govern the arch of all pieces, and then "specialprints" (redprints?) branching out that serve the needs and goals of that particular piece.  It's fascinating (for me alone?) to contemplate that you have created a science of practice-performance that will allow you to execute deftly your vision, and then to be able to perform "on call" if ever the circumstances arise, as in the salons of olde time.  Science and art thus married so well.

[louispodesta]

how important do you guys think it is to practice like you are in a performance and try to not make any mistakes.  Of course when I practice I'm not trying to make mistakes but it is not nearly the same intensity as if I'm trying to record something or perform and trying to really focus on not making any mistakes.

when i listen to professionals its like they never make any mistakes and i feel like almost every time I play something mistakes are fairly common.  I know they have been playing a lot longer than me but do you guys think practicing with an intense focus of not making mistakes is what I should be doing? or should I just not worry about it and assume the longer I play the less mistakes will occur organically. (been playing a little over a year now).

I will share with you two points, but first, the proper spelling is it's, and not its.  Millions of writers make this mistake.

So, when a classical recording artist enters a studio, today, and it is solo repertoire, the recording engineer/producer asks them to play a single measure from the beginning of the piece, then pause, and then play it seven or eight times again.  Accordingly, they then proceed throughout the entire piece.

After that, a collection of mixes are done, which are eventually decided upon by the artist or whoever is calling the shots on this particular recording session.  That is why, without being specific, when Alicia de Larrocha was asked which she preferred, live or recorded, her immediate response was that recordings were fakery.

Secondly, note perfect playing was never the case in the 19th century, which were the true glory days of original piano performance.  The audience and the artist were there for the purpose of producing beautiful music, and not a note perfect performance.

Whereas today, one can literally see some dumb piano major sitting in a audience counting wrong notes on their fingers.  And, when it comes to the preliminaries of any piano competition, once you hit their particular magic number of wrong notes, you are gone!

Then, you the OP, says, well can't you do both.  The answer is simple:  no human being ever has, nor will they ever do so.

The focal point of my discourse is that you have been brainwashed, as I was, by the myth of note perfect Urtext playing.  And, I AM NOT promoting sloppy playing, and no one, who has posted here, is.  The goal is to create beautiful music, and that only.

The following link to my video version of my soon to be broadcast news story, is a short summary of this logic.

 

[nyiregyhazi]

I will share with you two points, but first, the proper spelling is it's, and not its.  Millions of writers make this mistake.

So, when a classical recording artist enters a studio, today, and it is solo repertoire, the recording engineer/producer asks them to play a single measure from the beginning of the piece, then pause, and then play it seven or eight times again.  Accordingly, they then proceed throughout the entire piece.

After that, a collection of mixes are done, which are eventually decided upon by the artist or whoever is calling the shots on this particular recording session.  

Bullshit. Give evidence please. Why would anyone record this way, a bar at a time? It fulfills no rational sense, even on the grounds you portray. Aside from the difficulty of editing it all together, it would be harder to maintain the unifomity of tempo that is so common today. Youy already said yourself that modern performers place accuracy very highly. So why would they need 8 goes at every individual bar in order to achieve a note perfect phrase or section? Why not just play it and then do edits according to necessity? Logically, the only people who would need to do that are those who are typically free with wrong notes in concert- yet who fear allowing wrong notes to go down for posterity in recordings.


You don't help the cause you wish to support when your best way to trying to support it is to invent complete and utter nonsense to argue against.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

So, when a classical recording artist enters a studio, today, and it is solo repertoire, the recording engineer/producer asks them to play a single measure from the beginning of the piece, then pause, and then play it seven or eight times again.  Accordingly, they then proceed throughout the entire piece.

After that, a collection of mixes are done, which are eventually decided upon by the artist or whoever is calling the shots on this particular recording session. 

Simply untrue. Both from my personal experience, and also from that of musicians I know.

[cwjalex]

I will share with you two points, but first, the proper spelling is it's, and not its.  Millions of writers make this mistake.

Whereas today, one can literally see some dumb piano major sitting in a audience counting wrong notes on their fingers. 

I know the proper spelling.  I type 150 words a minute and typing with perfect grammar and spelling on a piano forum is not all that important to me.  I wrote out the full contraction twice and forgot the apostrophe the third time.  

by the way, it should be "an" audience and not "a" audience.  just a word of advice...nobody likes people who point out spelling and grammar mistakes online...especially when you have mistakes in your own writing.

as for the topic of the thread I know that professionals make mistakes but they are rare and much less frequent than when I play.  I feel like my general question hasn't been answered.  The general question of how often should I play with an extreme focus on not making mistakes.  Sometimes when I practice I can get in a mode where I am very casual and not particularly careful about playing correctly.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

how important do you guys think it is to practice like you are in a performance and try to not make any mistakes. 

I'll have a go. Practicing as if you are in a performance is one thing. Practicing details is another. In the former a moderate level of errors is acceptable as nobody gets up on stage and plays absolutely perfectly. On the other hand, when you're practicing details, you should aim to get it exactly right.

[kevin69]

I feel like my general question hasn't been answered.  The general question of how often should I play with an extreme focus on not making mistakes.  Sometimes when I practice I can get in a mode where I am very casual and not particularly careful about playing correctly.

I think that when you are practising, it is very important to be listening carefully.
Playing casually and carelessly often comes from listening casually.
If you are playing and listening casually rather than with your full attention, i'm not sure what you expect to learn or improve on.

I don't think there is anything wrong with casual playing, but i would regard it as something different from practising.

More generally, i think that slow, error-free practising is the most productive.
If you are playing at tempo then i think that the main thing is to be able to keep going and play through any error. If an error stops you then it draws further attention to the problem.

[louispodesta]

Simply untrue. Both from my personal experience, and also from that of musicians I know.

It is very true, and has been verified on another website by a pianist who has been present several times in the studio when it was done.  Further, in his Memoir, Earl Wild references a recording session of a very famous concert pianist who took the better part of a week to paste together his recording of a piano concerto because he simply couldn't play the notes.

Glenn Gould used to rewrite his Bach pieces so he could record the soprano and alto with two hands, the tenor and bass with two hands, and then mix the two together in order to clearly bring out all of the voices.

[awesom_o]

So, when a classical recording artist enters a studio, today, and it is solo repertoire, the recording engineer/producer asks them to play a single measure from the beginning of the piece, then pause, and then play it seven or eight times again.  Accordingly, they then proceed throughout the entire piece.

Have you ever made a studio recording, louispodesta?

 

[ronde_des_sylphes]

It is very true, and has been verified on another website by a pianist who has been present several times in the studio when it was done.  Further, in his Memoir, Earl Wild references a recording session of a very famous concert pianist who took the better part of a week to paste together his recording of a piano concerto because he simply couldn't play the notes.

Glenn Gould used to rewrite his Bach pieces so he could record the soprano and alto with two hands, the tenor and bass with two hands, and then mix the two together in order to clearly bring out all of the voices.

Yes, and I have Earl Wild's Memoirs too. He makes it more than adequately clear that he thinks this is NOT how to proceed, and furthermore details how he, personally, made recordings!

[nyiregyhazi]

It is very true, and has been verified on another website by a pianist who has been present several times in the studio when it was done.  Further, in his Memoir, Earl Wild references a recording session of a very famous concert pianist who took the better part of a week to paste together his recording of a piano concerto because he simply couldn't play the notes.

Glenn Gould used to rewrite his Bach pieces so he could record the soprano and alto with two hands, the tenor and bass with two hands, and then mix the two together in order to clearly bring out all of the voices.

Firstly, there's no evidence gould recorded this way in Bach unless you can present some. He is known to have overdubbed in his wagner transcription and in liszt's beethoven transcription. Where is your evidence regarding Bach? It doesn't exist because you either made it or quoted someone else who made it up without any proof.

Do you think a piano concerto can be spliced one bar at a time? Well it can't. The edits would make it unlistenable. Long held notes in the orchestra would make it very hard. It's no secret that sections can be linked up but bar by bar in a concerto would never work. The reason they had such a hard time would be precisely because having a note perfect version of a single bar doesn't mean you can just splice them all together. Editing for note perfection typically requires a long section, as edit points are limited - especially with an orchestra. You cannot possibly assemble bar by bar without appallingly obvious breaks in the continuity. Having to do enough takes to get longer sections accurate enough to pass and simply being unable to play more than in  bar at a time are not the same thing.

Also, your ethos is inconsistent to the point of being self contradictory. You're complaining about pianists aiming for accuracy and then slagging off trickery in recording. Yet only pianists who are sloppy about accuracy need to use the trickery of editing to cover over inability. Learning to be accurate in general what prevents the need for editing. A pianist who could only achieve accuracy by recording one bar at a time couldn't even begin to attempt a meaningful concert performance.

[bernadette60614]

There is a documentary about Glenn Gould available on Netflix where you can catch snippets of his recording sessions. Gould became so attached to his sound recording engineer than he suggested legally adopting him.

As for the OP's original question, I think the nature of practice is understanding a piece of music and playing it to the best of one's own individual ability.  A recording artist is someone who has achieved a level of proficiency and artistry, which I think, realistically speaking is unreasonable to expect from those of us who didn't start at age 6 and spent the majority of their lives in a practice room.

My goal:  To learn and play a piece in such a way as to respect the composer.  If my goal was to play a piece to the level of a concert musician, I'd stop playing.

[cwjalex]

If my goal was to play a piece to the level of a concert musician, I'd stop playing.

everyone sets their own goals but I never understood this mentality.  I only play the piano casually and have no plans to be a professional but I still have the goal of being able to play like a professional concert pianist.  Even if it takes me several years to achieve this...or even if i never achieve this i don't see the harm in having high goals and standards.  everything I do I try to do to the best of my ability and I believe everyone is capable of playing at the level of a concert musician.

[awesom_o]

everything I do I try to do to the best of my ability and I believe everyone is capable of playing at the level of a concert musician.

Now that's a good attitude to have!

[outin]

I believe everyone is capable of playing at the level of a concert musician.

Only if they are willing to do the work...and wait long enough for the results...

[dima_76557]

how important do you guys think it is to practice like you are in a performance and try to not make any mistakes.

Playing exactly what is in the score and nothing else is a very good habit. That's exactly what is should be: a positive habit. Concentrating on not making mistakes sounds too negative to me to be productive.

[bernadette60614]

I would never suggest that someone with lofty goals should strive for less.

My thinking is:  I love ballet, I love to dance.  I didn't start dancing at the age of 4 and spend 60 hours a week in a ballet studio as a teenager.  I will never dance like someone who has.

I wish everyone the best of success with their goals.

[timothy42b]

Isn't it a bit counterproductive to try NOT to do something?

I never try to NOT miss notes.  I try hard to PLAY correct notes. 

That said, errors can be random but at beginning stages are usually caused by something that can be fixed.  Record yourself, figure out why and where you make mistakes, and drill those until you can't make them anymore.

[outin]

My thinking is:  I love ballet, I love to dance.  I didn't start dancing at the age of 4 and spend 60 hours a week in a ballet studio as a teenager.  I will never dance like someone who has.

And it's the same with playing the piano.

There's another reason why people don't play like concert pianists without having studied from a pretty early age:

People seem to forget that while the brain has plasticity, the adult brain has already formed a lot of connections that have been used for a long time, are still being used and can be very strong. In the best case one has been engaging in activities that are beneficial for playing the piano (like juggling if we believe Mr. Awesome). But it is just as possible that one has been mostly engaged in activities that are counterproductive for playing the piano. All those connections have been formed in the brain and they cannot just be erased and replaced by other ones by will. Unlike with a computer, one cannot format the hard drive and install a new OS to the brain. (Although it seems to have happened that after being hit by lightning, a person's brain functions have been changed).

So even with those people who did not have any cognitive deficiencies to begin with, their current make up can prevent them for mastering piano or music in general. It's not like one just decides to do things differently and learn to play as an expert in the similar way as a young person could gradually do. What one needs to do is slowly and carefully practice againts one's nature to make the changes in the brain. Depending on how it has been used previously and for how long, it can take a decade to achieve a decent level of playing, which is still far from concert pianists standard. Clearly in many cases our limited life span and the inevitable decline in physical functions will get in the way of virtuosity.

Also while one is trying to practice the right things to form the connections required for mastering the piano, one may still at the same time be practicing the same things one did before (sometimes not by will, but required by work). That means one might also still be reinforcing the old, non piano productive connections. With all this in mind, it takes enormous willpower and ability to concentrate to make all those fundamental changes to your system and most people will stop reaching for the concert level standard when they realize how slow the progress can be.

[bernadette60614]

Also, I've been fortunate enough to live in a city which seems to be on the concert route for some of the most acclaimed pianists.

What I note, aside from the superb music, is how completely "one" they are with the instrument.  That, I think, comes from serious study from an early age when the mind and the body are most "plastic".

[j_menz]

Millions of writers make this mistake.

Which is almost as many as those who use hackneyed hyperbole.

Firstly, there's no evidence gould recorded this way in Bach unless you can present some. He is known to have overdubbed in his wagner transcription and in liszt's beethoven transcription. Where is your evidence regarding Bach? It doesn't exist because you either made it or quoted someone else who made it up without any proof.

Quite so. I would add that both the Beethoven/Liszt (9th Symphony) and Gould's own Wagner transcription are impossible to play as written without doing this.

[nyiregyhazi]

Which is almost as many as those who use hackneyed hyperbole.

Quite so. I would add that both the Beethoven/Liszt (9th Symphony) and Gould's own Wagner transcription are impossible to play as written without doing this.

It's the 5th. Definitely a cheat in that case though. Katsaris managed to get around it.

[dima_76557]

Katsaris managed to get around it.

Not only that; he found that while playing, he still had some unused fingers left and added notes in certain places from Beethoven's original.

[timothy42b]

Not only that; he found that while playing, he still had some unused fingers left and added notes in certain places from Beethoven's original.

Well played, sir!

[rmbarbosa]

My goal is to play to the level of a concert pianist... in my practice room.
Because my goal is to be perfect and that`s what I allways try.
But even when I play well or very well I do not like to listen myself in the recordings I do. Because I never reach what I "listen" in my own mind. And this is a very sad reality... so many years playing and the perfection so far...

[piano6888]

I share the same sentiments as well.  I strive for perfection not only musically, but also technically as well.  I believe that the end goal is to get close to both, but in reality there will always be some amount of mistakes in any take or performance because that's just human nature.  In other words, it is a noble goal to strive for, but ultimately I believe if one is able to put an amazing performance, to the best of one's ability, effectively convey the musical meaning (through beautiful sound) and touch the audience's heart with the music, then that's my view of a very successful performance.  Also, being happy with where one currently is, and then striving to improve one self in the long run equates to a successful musician. 

[iansinclair]

Consider this, for what it's worth.  Over my career I have probably played or conducted several thousand services, each with at least three or four pieces of music (and sometimes more).  I honestly don't think that either I or my choirs ever made it through a service without a few mistakes -- and sometimes some real howlers.  We always strove for perfection, both in terms of technical execution and in terms of expression.  We never reached it -- but sometimes we came sublimely close.

As has been said above, we practiced two ways: detail work on some passages or entrances, and more general work on shape and feeling and emotion.  One has to do both, but they are different.

Perhaps the central question is -- why are you playing?  And that will help you shape what kind of practicing you want and need to do.

[krzyzowski]

Mistakes. Who cares? Audience? Listeners? What do they know. If you worry about them, you will make them. Plan for them. Make some. Have fun with them. Practice a perfect correction routine. There are no wrong notes. It only sounds like a mistake if:
 
You pause. Never break rythym; people notice immediately.
You stop. Don't ever stop. Victor Borge would break into nursury rhymes.
You hit a wrong key. I heard Monk break into a chromatic run after a booboo. Priceless.
You flounder, as hitting a couple of adjacent keys. Thats' because you need solid technique.

[diomedes]

Practice a perfect correction routine.

Agreed. And if you happen to be ocd in conjunction with that you increase your odds of achieving the closest thing to perfection.

[rmbarbosa]

In youtube, there is a video of Horowitz where he says: oh, I made a mistake. I made a mistake.
I tried to discover where. A lot of times. I couldnt ))
To make a mistake is not a bad thing.
Bad thing is if one is so worried to do not make mistakes that one does not make Music...

[ballade345]

there is no perfection the only perfection is imperfection everything is imperfect. so seeking for perfection is a waste of time also a huge barrier in front of you you can never progress if you seek for perfection let everything be imperfect make mistakes don't fear of making mistakes after you make maybe 10 thousand mistakes now you are not perfect but you hit your peak potential and that's enough you can call yourself good but throw away the thought of perfection in your brain even liszt make mistakes but too less than us because i'm sure he made every mistakes that can a pianist imagine

[gr8ape]

Well for one thing hearing a mistake that causes a change in rhythm, or worse starting a phrase or a section again is much much easier to hear than a wrong note here or there, which I believe concert pianists do from time to time.

Here are 2 things off the top of my head:

-Very good/professional/concert pianists make mistakes that are concealed by the fact they play a wrong note or two but the rhythm of their interpretation remains intact. In more complicated pieces, where the result is already impressive, most people will not even notice a few wrong notes because they are absorbed by the performance, the visual aspect of the artist, and the amount of sounds/notes coming in. Finer musicians might hear those wrong notes and think for a second "heh that major third was supposed to be a fourth" and then keep on listening because everything else is intact.

-Hitting wrong notes : its one thing to miss a note and hit 2 instead, but to miss a note and hit another instead is less noticable. Pianists of considerable experience and talent might be so used to hitting the right notes that if they DO make a mistake they will at least hit a note cleanly. Perhaps not the right one, but they will play it as if they had played the right one. This is, I believe, as mentionned above, not noticable to normal people.

[gr8ape]

.