Rescue and repair?

[dorfmouse]

I feel discouraged when I attempt to play pieces I supposedly “learnt” in the past and which are, of course, riddled with all the hesitations and insecurities that I diligently practised and ingrained at the time. (Long before I found this forum, or had a teacher who actually taught one how to practise!)
I don’t see any remedy other than starting from scratch, as if one had never seen the piece before, tiny sections, HS, etc. etc … but of course it’s very hard (impossible?)  to eradicate ingrained habits.
My question is - short of trying hypnosis to wipe away all memory of a piece – does anyone have any useful strategies for renovating leaky pieces?
They say I'm an optimist ...

[galonia]

Ah, the signs of having made progress!

I have your experience all the time - pieces I learnt years ago, but now I am a much better pianist, and suddenly I can hear all the flaws I had never realised were there, because I never listened for them before, nor knew to listen for them.

And I think that's the key - listening.  So to break my old bad habits, I tape myself playing and force myself to listen to it, then I go and fix the things I dislike, and do it again and again.

I try to tape myself occasionally when practising any piece, but if I have decided to go back and "re-master" old pieces, I'll do this much more intensively.

[pianowelsh]

Its scary going back to really old pieces. you often realise how poorly you learnt them in the first place. Often the best way IS to start from scratch and relearn it especially if you memorized something incorrectly. I know our piano master always lays into someone who plays something old in class because invariably they think it will be fine with a bit of practice but under pressure the cracks show. Im sorry but i don't think there is really a substitute for going back to picking consciencious practice. You should find that it comes back quicker after the initial shock of it not being the way you remembered it. The best way is not to let it go so far in the first place. Opperate a rotation system with your repertoire so you can play everything you learnt perhaps once a fortnight or once a month so nothing ever gets too far out of hand(literally)

[dorfmouse]

Thank you both for your replies. I had a horrible feeling there would be no painless remedy! I should get into the habit of recording. (When the result is as horrendous as I fear, I'll blame it on my primitive taping technology ...)