When is it finish?

[chopinisque]

How do you know when it is time to move on from technical work to expression work?  When do you count a piece as finished and move on to a new one?  And please, no theoretical answers (for example: when the piece is perfect), just practical usable ones.  Hopefully this isn't an over-flogged subject...

Thanks.

[pytis]

well i made up my own rule by playing it 3 times with no mistakes. But thats just me

[bernhard]

There are two questions here. Let us start with the easy one:

When do you count a piece as finished and move on to a new one?

When you can perform it without embarrassing yourself (so as you can see this involves not only how “perfect” the piece is, but also how “thick skinned” you are. So, if your technique/interpretation sucks, work on your embarrassment and learn how not to give a toss ).

How do you know when it is time to move on from technical work to expression work?   

This will take longer to answer because the question itself reveals a basic misunderstanding of the subject. So we have to clear that up first.

The division “technical work” X “expression work” is a linguistic one, not a real one.

We use it to talk about the subject, but in real life you cannot play a passage without expression. It may be  an inadequate expression, it may be terrible expression, but the expression will be there.

Likewise with technique. There is no such a thing as “playing without technique”. It may be bad technique, inappropriate technique, but technique will be there from the beginning. The definition of technique in its simple terms is a way to do things. If you are doing something you are doing it in a certain way and by definition you are using (some kind of technique). So the question is not when to stop doing technical work and doing expressive work. From the moment you touch the piano you are already doing technical and expressive work; both are unavoidable and inseparable.

The problem now becomes a very different one. The problem with our brains is not that they are slow to learn, but that they learn everything too fast (good and bad equally). The problem now is that the first time you touch the piano chances are that your technique/expression will be terrible and completely inappropriate, but your brain will learn it nevertheless. And if you keep at it blindly, soon it will be habitual and you will have a lot of fun trying to get rid of all the bad habits (many of which you may not even notice or recognise for what they are).

Also consider that a technique/fingering may prove unsuitable to convey a certain interpretation. Therefore you do not want to keep practising and ingraining a certain fingering/technique until the piece  is learned and then find out it is not the most appropriate for the interpretation you had in mind and then have to change it.

The main reason for starting on expression as soon as possible is that technique and interpretation are closely related. So score analysis should precede any piano activity. Ideally the student should only go to the piano to start learning a piece once s/he is thoroughly familiarised with the piece (through score analysis and CD listening) and has a pretty definite idea of how s/he would like it to sound.

A much fuller answer dealing exactly with your question can be found here:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/board,4/topic,5995.0.html#msg58756

Best wishes,
Bernhard.