Be careful not to make things more complicated than they need be. I have seen so many adult returning students decide that they had no technical foundation and become obsessed with it.
if you become too focused on the minute details there's a real tendency to lose musicality...which is far more important---actually vital to "not playing poorly." I am not saying don't pursue improving your technical abilities--by all means, do--just remember that as you improve a lot of those technical issues will resolve themselves.
I am not going to disagree with you because you are citing a true side to an issue which is not that straightforward. On the one hand, a student can become obsessed with "perfect technique" and tie themselves into knots. It can be like trying to "walk perfectly", controlling every micro-motion, which would create an unsteady awkward looking walk.
Or it can be seen as a series of formulas: the "playing crescendo technique", the "staccato with wrist" technique. As I say, I won't disagree, but I will offer other sides to this.
The pursuit of the technical side has been very important to me, and also a source of frustration to even get proper access to it. I ran into barricades: that I was "overthinking", my questions being diverted, technical instruction being largely skirted in my first lessons on a different instrument. There is a saying, "
The proof of the pudding is in the eating." So I can say that I was right in what I sought (and fortunately finally found good teaching for these things).
There are two sides of the coin, and your quote below, if I understand it correctly, may be that other side:
....as you improve a lot of those technical issues will resolve themselves.
One side of the coin is this: I'm playing, imagining a crescendo, doing this and that, and over time that crescendo emerges. Somehow my body has found its way through trial and error: my ear, my imagination, my feelings, and my hands have all cooperated. It is like the baby who tries and tries, and eventually gets that biscuit into its mouth every time effortlessly. The nerves, muscles, and senses all evolve because that is their nature. I think this is the kind of thing that you are describing - am I right?
Here is the other side of the coin. Again, I'm imagining this crescendo, which I feel as increasing passion and anger - so I tense my body increasingly, and pound ever more with stiff arm and fingers according to how I feel, and indeed, a crescendo arises. This, too, becomes habit. I'm sure you see the problem in that.
What if crescendo involves a relaxed body but increased amount of arm and hand being used in a loose, whip-like motion, and what if loudness involved speed more than brute force - and what if this is counter-intuitive and I'd never get there on my own?
Essentially the second is my scenario.
I see another side of the coin in this too:
if you become too focused on the minute details there's a real tendency to lose musicality...which is far more important.
I agree to the idea of focus on minute detail not being good. But I'd like to go past this to the more general idea of learning good movement (technique). I did not have the experience of oppressive detail-oriented teachers --- I had total spontaneity and freedom since I had no teacher and was self-taught. So I need to counter-balance the other way. In so doing, I am learning physical technical things, and also things like counting, refining counting for rubato, analyzing the music and doing things very deliberately and technically. There are stages of
unmusical playing and this is deliberately so. It might involve very strict counting at a very slow speed. It can involve going very mechanically through a physical motion. The result is unmusical. But after that the underlying skill is there for the timing, and for the physical motion. The first stage is that our crescendo might be produced mechanically and only carry away the listener to some degree. But in a later stage, as feeling gets married to this new control, you get more than what only feeling your way through might give you.
I hope this makes sense.
Topic: returning to piano after a long break: advice on a learning plan wanted