How long to spend on a piece that's "too" challenging maybe?

[Bob]

I have a few pieces I've spent a long time working on 6+ months, maybe over a year.  A few I have dropped and later revisit.  I do make some progress on them each time.  They are pieces I have the fingers down on.  I just don't have them up to speed.  For example, I have a piece that needs to go 120mm.  I can only play 100.  I know that I can notch up my playing to maybe 105 or 110 with a lot of hard work.  But that will take months too.  Maybe a year.   And with focused dedication to keep coming back to it with the ups and downs of progress.  Maybe my body doesn't develop fast or something. 

How long is too long to spend on a piece of music if you know that after a lot of hard work you still won't be playing it the right way?

[Torp]

How long is too long to spend on a piece of music if you know that after a lot of hard work you still won't be playing it the right way?

Your last sentence struck a chord with me, no pun intended, so this may drift a little off topic for a second.  When I was a teenager, maybe 15, I was playing around with a Beethoven piece.  I used to pull things out, see what they sounded like, and then kind of "experiment" with them a little.  You know, play with the rhythms a bit, adjust tempo, etc.  My dad walked in during one of these exploratory sessions and proceeded, in his most disdainful voice, to tell me "That's not the way that's supposed to be played."  While this may seem pretty innocous now, it crushed me then.  To this day every time I pick up a Beethoven piece I can still hear his voice.  BUT, I keep picking it up.  Some day I may actually have it all under my fingers.

It's been 25 years and I'm still working on it, so to speak.  I love the music and I can still envision playing it.  As long as you continue to enjoy the piece and enjoy playing it, **** the tempo and all that other stuff; after all, who's to really say what is the right way?

Jef

[steinwayguy]

While I can't agree with the first poster...

You're obviously not practicing as efficiently as you could be. As I like to say "You can't play something because it's too hard- you can't play something because you don't have the right coordination". Experiment. Analyze your practice methods. Analyze your playing of the piece- what parts do you ahve the most trouble with etc. Figure them out. It can't possibly be that hard, unless you're playing Boulez or Sorabji.

[Floristan]

What's the piece you have to get to 120mm?  Why that particular speed?  Composers rarely put in metronome speeds until the 20th century, and even then often put in a range.  Is the piece so entirely speed dependent that it can't be musical at 105mm?  Just curious.   

[lostinidlewonder]

You should choose a piece where you find that every day you can make some form of memorised bars progress. You can't have yourself stoppping midway gawking at the technical side of what you are playing, or get overly absorbed/effected by the sound that you are creating, that is when the music is playing you. We often just can't shake off the effect that this has on us and we happily play lost in idle wonder, just being facinated/overwhelmed by what we see/hear/play.

I say if you have to stop and play over one bar of music for more than one day, choose something easier for now for your own sake. Fair enough, if small parts of the music have bursts of technical impossiblities then thats ok to spend more time. Overall you should find yourself continously absorbing parts of the piece every day. If not there will just be no positive gain in your memorisation and the learning of the peice stagnates.

The music memorisation process has to always grow over your sheet music like some living organism! The momentum of your memorised bars per day has to be set and then maintained(every day) and excerted(push the limits of your memory, force memorisation of extra parts when you would usually stand up and finish) this all to give some life to your learning process. There is no point starting learning then stopping, it just slows down all the momentum built to learn the piece and in the end causes great inefficiency.

That is the rule I have always set myself, if the piece stumps me and I have to return to whatever technical side of things it explores too often, then it is too hard for me for now. I haven't experience enough music to which I can relate what I face. Choose something else. But when i was younger i did do a lot of harder stuff which was too hard for me, but they existed along side my normal study. That is perfectly fine and beneficial in my experience.

Oh and do i get a prize for using my nick name as a part of a sentence?

[kilini]

have you ever read Chang's Piano Lessons? It's here--https://members.aol.com/cc88m/PianoBook.html. Read it, it will help you immensely with the speed and all.
But here is a short advice: train hands separately, don't try to increase your speed with hands together.

[sznitzeln]

That depends on how much of your time it is taking... if you only have time for 1 piece and you arent getting anywere its pretty obvious that is a bad move...
If you are enjoying it and you feel its worth the time, then why not?

And it also depends on the meaning of "too"... too means that it is not beneficial for you... so "too" would mean that there is a great probability its not beneficial...
So either pick something that is beneficial, or as Steinwayguy says analyze your practice, maybe you can improve it so the piece wont be too challenging at all...
Often difficulities seem more difficult than they are...

Here is a book that is about piano practice...
https://members.aol.com/chang8825/entirebook.htm
going to read it, so I cant recommend it, but someone did do that on this forum.
I have gotten a good impression of it... but also somewhat of a too-good-to-be-true feeling... and also sceptical about practicing each hand for 5-15 SECOND intervals.

[vera]

There will always be pieces, that you cannot learn in one go. I do not know, what level you are, but this could  possibly apply to all levels.I have several pieces "in the oven" as I call it. Those are pieces that you , for some reason, cannot get further with. As soon as  you feel you are getting nowhere, and you feel you have practised as well as possible, give them a long rest. In my case there were for instance the Chopin Preludes, the whole set. Some remained elusive for a long time, but after a couple of tries, usually half a year or so, apart, they eventually came right. Of course you just aim for those "bad bits". Some people may take 10 years for particularly demanding pieces, like Pictures at an Exhibition-Mussorgsky. Not for the whole work, but for the bad bits. One keeps returning to it at long intervals. I think, when it is really too difficult for you, you will not be able to make progress on it  in that way either. You could also try to find something that has a similar problem in it.
Or create exercises that may overcome the problem. Analysing and understanding what the problem is, is essential.