Bad days

[asyncopated]

Hi, 

Just wondering if anyone else experiences this.   There are somedays, where when I start to practice, I love the sound I produce and can go for hours on end.

Other days I absolutely loth it.  I can hear every string that is out of tune on my piano (need to get it tuned soon), and even though i can hear that on the good days, it does not bother me that much, because the overall music still seems good.  On bad days I don't seem as productive and my mind keeps wondering.  Everything just seems a bit less legato and more clangy.

The funny thing is that I'm not sure if this really has anything to do with the sound I am producing or if it's just my mood.  I suspect it has a little to do with both. 

Should I keep practicing if I hate the sound I'm making?  I've tried to stop and diagnose the problem, but can't seem to find anything concrete.  The only things that I do notice is that on bad days, and things are in general just less musical  E.g. uneven thirds, and right and left hands not completely sycronised, etc.  I do try to correct these problems when I do notice them but it's more of a general feeling.  On these days I am usually more tired or stressed out from work but still want to practice, or feel that i have practiced too much over the pasts few days (if there is such a thing) and just slighly irritatied with the progress (we all want instant results don't we).  Sometimes I even hope that practicing the piano helps me relax and often it does. 

So perhaps what I am looking for is a routine or something to get myself in the right frame of mind.   Does anyone have one?  How does one ensure that all the time that is put into practice is productive? 

al.

[marialice]

Well, I have found such a routine, but what works for me may not work for others. Sometimes I can try anything I can think of, but my practice won't get me anywhere. Everything just sounds bad, my fingers don't do what I want and I can't focus at all.

What helps then is to stop trying. If it doesn't work, then it doesn't work and I will only get more and more frustrated if I keep on trying. I will get an easy piece I like (which can be even a beginner piece) and just play it for fun. No self-criticism allowed, I just play it because I like it. Very often I find myself in the right mood for practice afterwards. It's as if I have to remind myself that I like playing the piano and that I like music.

[robo1001]

I agree with Marialice here.  If you're not being productive in your practice, and you're hating the sound that's coming through, then just take a break.  Either play an easy piece that you know really well, or simply go away from the piano, watch TV for a bit or something, and go back to the piano to play again.  You'll probably find you're mind has been refreshed , and that you can concenrate much better.

Rob!

[bwv]

What happens when a 'bad day' falls on a  'lesson day'?  Does one cancel the lesson?  In my case I've been learning BWV 926 using Bernhard's method, making great progress, almost up to tempo. A lovely piece. Come lesson time, the mordents are too fast, some notes do not repeat,  and we spend some time trying to slow them down. Impossible:  the mordents are like a reflex, I just play them and can't slow them down. (The lesson usually begins with scales and arpeggios, which also were too fast, and lots of wrong notes on the arpeggios ...) Of course when I get back home I can do exactly what the teacher wants me i.e. play the mordents slowly and I can even slow the mordents to a crawl.  So what causes this? Nerves? Fatigue?  Is it a psychological barrier that says that since my arpeggios were all screwy so will be the rest of the lesson?  Since it is not practical to take a few minutes and do something else during a lesson how does one 're-center' oneself?

[whynot]

I guess we're onto two subjects now, both of which I completely relate to.  Hope this isn't too long! 

About bad practice days in general:  I try to be specific and determine whether it's my hands that are not working well or my brain.  If it's my hands-- stiff, uncoordinated-- I find other ways to be productive.   Memorize, analyze, check fingerings... playing only a little, or not at all.  If it's my brain (scattered thoughts or pressing problems), then I put away my program material and either fool around on the piano as others have suggested or get up and walk away.  I can't practice without my brain!  When I do walk away, I try to be philosophical, tomorrow's another day etc.  I don't let myself be defeated-- I think that's important.  It's not a failure, it's part of my long-term plan.       

About playing badly in lessons:  Well, I haven't completely conquered this yet.  As a teacher, I know this is incredibly prevalent, and I work hard to help my students with it.  I never ask for scales first, because I think the jitters show up there more easily, then they've gotten off to a bad start and the whole lesson is about trying to overcome that.  BWV, just ask your teacher if you can start with something else.  S/he shouldn't care what you play first, you should feel good and get involved in the music as soon as possible.  As a student, I still rarely play my best for my teacher.  I play much better in concerts, and I think many people do.  Maybe if we dressed up and they clapped?...  Does your teacher's piano feel very, very different from your own?  My teacher's piano is so lightweight, I always feel like my hands are running away with me at first.  I don't know why your mordents have to be practiced slowly.  Playing them slowly is a different physical gesture from playing them at tempo, so that seems like an odd thing to practice.  If they're too fast when you play in your lesson, they can't be THAT much too fast, because "just right" is pretty fast already, if you see what I mean.  Just curious about that.   

One more thought about lessons:  I guess teachers usually set the goals from week to week.  I find that if I set my own goals and tell my teacher what they are, then:
  1.  I definitely get my work done, because it was my own idea to, say, memorize a whole movement this week, and
  2.  my lesson is not a pop quiz "can you play this, how about that," to check up on me, it's more like going to a professional advisor... can you help me with this problem.  This approach has really helped me get more done at home and feel more comfortable in my lessons.  Not drinking-a-martini comfortable, more like no-longer-a-disaster comfortable.   

   

[bwv]

I'm quite relieved to learn that 'bad' lesson days are 'incredibly prevalent'.  I thought at one point it was just me, for lack of talent or whatever.  Nerves maybe, but I'm getting used to that.

You are so right though when you say that jitters show up more easily in scales and the remaining lesson is spent trying to overcome that.  This is exactly how it feels.  Ick.  And I told the teacher half-jokingly that if I miss my arpeggios, well, there goes the whole lesson.

Interestingly, one of the 'best' lessons happened two weeks ago when we started with the prelude, it was more of a 'workshop' feeling than a 'teacher-student' feeling, in other words I felt I was approching the teacher with specific questions and problems and we worked through them, as opposed to a 'let's hear the waltz' or 'let's hear the Bach piece.'  We ended the lesson with the arpeggios. Great.

My teacher's piano is quite different than mine, I think one could describe it as 'amplitude', it is easier for me to play soft on mine (they're both uprights) than on hers.  Her piano always sound loud, but again, this is a piano I see 45 minutes a week only.   I was just reading another interesting thread this morning where this person said  "listen to the sound you are making: It may seem obvious but it's actually quite hard to do - one's natural inclination is to play by touch and listen in one's head."  Certainly this is something I'll look out for.

The Re, Do#, Re (with 2-3-1) mordent I played too quickly and caused the Re not to repeat.  At the same speed the mordent sounds good on my piano. So I had to slow them down to get each note to sound cleanly.  This was difficult as I just could not do it, I just played them as one "blurp" so to speak. It's only when I got home that I could slow them down fine.  I was also able to play two previously-impossible mordents HT in sync. Go figure!

[lagin]

Just a thought on the mordent.  An upright piano's action is not as fast as a grand's--meaning the keys do not come back up again fast enough.  Even in grade six (out of 11 for those not familiar with Canada's system), I was close to beating my piano's action.  If you are playing to fast for the metronome--slow down, but if when you slow down even a little bit you are too slow for the metronome at tempo, know that you might be able to blame it on the piano

[asyncopated]

Hi,

Thanks for all the posts.  I find many of the suggestions very helpful!

Just a small anecdote from a couple of lessons ago.  I was just warming up at my teacher's piano.  She has a beautiful Ibach grand and I got myself a small German upright, so our pianos are worlds apart.  The action feels completely different and I was trying to sink myself into the action, looking at her keyboard slightly engrossed, I must have had a funny look of my face.  And she asked, 'Is my piano so strange?' 

I almost said, 'yes' -- I meant strange as in foreign not weird, but managed to catch myself just in time and said, 'no, it's just different'. 

You both are certainly right in saying that the best lessons I've had were 'diagnosis' type lessons.  I suppose it's a better way for adult learners.  A lot of the time, kid (and some adults) just don't know what questions to ask.  I find that a have better lessons when I'm armed with a list of questions, or worries.  Does not matter how small they are - every detail counts.  I also understand that teachers find it hard to switch modes, after having to teach 5 kids.  I have friends that perpetually have the 'hold hands when you cross the road' twang in their voices. 

One further comment.   I find that a lot of the time, having learnt the piece or even sometimes when practicing, I play best in a certain mental mode.  I'm not sure how to describe this or how to put it in words, but I'll try.  It's when the music gets to you, and all the motions around the piano are easy.  When this happens, I play each passage only semi-conscious of what I'm doing, but listening very closely to the sound I'm producing.  My moment automatically responds to the sound and I don't notice playing individual notes.  I find that it is quite a fine balance to keep.  If I'm too conscious of the piece, I usually make mistakes because I worried about technical bits here and there.  If I just forget and start playing, I just go round and sometimes am not sure where I am in the piece -- 'getting lost' .  In this mode it's a little like looking at yourself playing from a third person's view.  I'm in control of the overall situation, but the details just fall into place.

So, I was wondering if people do experience this when playing the piano.  I'm pretty sure they do.  Is it correct to say that this is the best state of mind to play in?  Do concert pianist play in this state of mind and finally, how does one get there consistently, not leave it up to chance as I'm doing now?  Is there a way to do it in front of another person, i.e. your teacher or an audience? 

al.