# Practice Paradox...



## Ingélou

Just sharing my experience & wondering how yours compares. 

I start a new tune. I think, that's gorgeous. But in order to learn it, I have to listen to it over & over; play it over & over; identify the trouble bars & practise them over and over; try to improve the speed; try to improve the dynamics...

And you know what - by the time I can play it properly, I'm heartily sick of it.

If I go on climbing long enough, will I get my second wind? Do pukka musicians get sick of pieces they play for concerts, or, working at another level, do they feel they're understanding the music in more & more depth?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Once I get the technical aspects of a piece of music right I am often quite sick of it. When I add more musicality and expression into the notes I play I get a second wind. That's what works for me.


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## OboeKnight

Yep, this happens to me too. I practiced the same three pieces for months getting ready for college auditions...I never want to see them again lol. I can usually still enjoy pieces I'm sick of by trying to maximize expression, and performing always brings back a new thrill. I'm never completely satisfied with my playing, so I'm always working to get things just a little better.


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## Ukko

I suggest (humbly, I'm not a musician) that there is more to good classical music than melody and rhythm - those things that first please you. As a musician you have a clearer path to those _other aspects_ than I do as a listener. The musicians working together to learn a string quartet (think Bartók 4 for instance) are penetrating depths that I will never get to.

To put my message more succinctly: Quitcher bitchin, whippersnappers; you are privileged.


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## Taggart

Hilltroll72 said:


> I suggest (humbly, I'm not a musician) that there is more to good classical music than melody and rhythm - those things that first please you. As a musician you have a clearer path to those _other aspects_ than I do as a listener. The musicians working together to learn a string quartet (think Bartók 4 for instance) are penetrating depths that I will never get to. ..


Hmm! I think there's a major difference between those who play chordal instruments and those who play others. If you are faced with a piece with two or more distinct themes over the two hands then you are forced into a deeper understanding of the music.

However, the listener has it easy, they can concentrate on the music without having to worry about all the technicalities of playing. I think that's the point the Ingenue is making. In some ways all the mechanics can sometimes get in the way - I'm playing something at the minute and going through it bar by bar my teacher is making me concentrate on exactly what I'm doing - getting louder (or softer), use of the pedal, emphasising the legato in one hand compared with staccato in the other, getting the "gaps" between phrases right. That can take the soul out of a piece of music for the performer.

The trick is to get to the point where the mechanics become automatic and, like driving a car, you can relax and enjoy the scenery. The listener _only_ has to concentrate on lovely music the performer is making.


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## Ukko

Hah. Like driving a car, eh? You are taking the magic out of it, _Taggart_!


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## Taggart

Hilltroll72 said:


> Hah. Like driving a car, eh? You are taking the magic out of it, _Taggart_!


Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.


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## OboeKnight

Taggart said:


> The trick is to get to the point where the mechanics become automatic and, like driving a car, you can relax and enjoy the scenery. The listener _only_ has to concentrate on lovely music the performer is making.


Well put! Once you've worked on the music until you can play it without thinking about it, then you are free to make an expression with the music and thoroughly enjoy what you're playing. I've found that memorizing also helps free up the performance. When I play from memory, I'm saying: I know this piece forwards and backwards, and now my main focus is moving the audience.


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## MichaelSolo

OboeKnight said:


> ...Once you've worked on the music until you can play it without thinking about it, then you are free to make an expression with the music and thoroughly enjoy what you're playing....


This is generally correct. In practice, what helps, I think, is to never forget that what you are doing is not executing a sequence of tones with proper bowing, rythm, intonation and dynamics, but playing music, that is, directly communicating your feelings with the help of the melody. After every bar or two figured out, try them as the music, forgetting fingering etc.

Do not wait for the whole piece to be "figured out"; play every bit "as music" right away, as soon as you fix the fingers, and sometimes even before that!


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## Ukko

Taggart said:


> Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.


Given a little distance, so is the technology indistinguishable from magic. I have the distance.


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## Ingélou

Hilltroll72 said:


> As a musician you have a clearer path to those _other aspects_ than I do as a listener.
> 
> To put my message more succinctly: Quitcher bitchin, whippersnappers; you are privileged.


Musicians who are not much cop (like me!) may be less privileged than 'mere' listeners. During the years in which I'd given up the violin (most of my life), I felt guilty & uncomfortable every time I heard one play. And now I'm struggling to learn it again, when I listen to a virtuoso, I feel like a woman who just climbed Glastonbury Tor watching a film of a record-breaking ascent of Everest.

Hilltroll, I envy you: I've read a small selection of your prodigious output of posts here, and you've clearly got a Ph.D in listening skills.

But yeah, you're right (much as I hate to admit it): it feels like a miracle that I'm fiddling once more.


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## LordBlackudder

its good that you can play those songs to other people though. to them it's astounding and the first time they have heard it.

perhaps if it takes you so long your are playing above you're level.


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## Ingélou

LordBlackudder said:


> its good that you can play those songs to other people though. to them it's astounding and the first time they have heard it.
> 
> perhaps if it takes you so long your are playing above you're level.


Ah, milord, I'm only playing to my violin teacher at present! Well, I did do a concert turn at a friends' dance at the New Year, but my bow shook like a jelly & I was mortified. As for playing above my level - undoubtedly, but that's my gifted teacher's strategy, 'taking me out of my comfort zone', and it certainly has improved me.

I do a lot of practice because I can't bear to disappoint him. If I did less, I wouldn't get as sick of the pieces, but he would get much sicker!


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## hreichgott

I must have a bit of the one-year-old in me still. I like to hear and play pieces over... and over... and over... and over...

The only pieces I have ever gotten tired of playing are the truly exhausted ones - Canon in D, Fuer Elise. I'm still happy to teach them though, as there's always something new that comes up in working with a student.

I do get to the point where I've been practicing something for too long and I just need to stop for the day, or give it a break for a few days.


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## Feathers

I also like to play pieces over and over again, although I admit that's partially due to my lazy attitude towards learning and mastering new pieces.  

Personally, I find that the magic in a piece of music can be retained by pretending to be performing every time I play the piece. Even when I'm practicing with no audience, I would pretend that sitting right next to me is an enthusiastic and curious audience with their ears open. That way, I naturally "maximize" my own playing by showing my "audience" what I can show, giving them what they deserve to hear, and attempting to do the piece as much justice as I can. After all, I'm not playing not for myself, but for my imaginary "audience", to whom everything in the piece is fresh and newly discovered, which triggers my urge to show them and guide them through every detail of this experience. I find that this kind of attitude helps me practice.


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## Ingélou

What a great idea, Feathers. 
I have three bows (all cheap-ish) & one thing I do to 'keep myself going' is to play my practice piece with each bow in turn & try to decide which I like best. (Funnily enough, it's the cheapest one of all.) Or when I am playing my beloved Lully, I imagine that I am a French aristocrat, Madame la Marquise, playing for her private salon. This is quite a good one, because I'm in awe of my violin teacher in reality, but in my fantasy, he jolly well has to be polite or Madame will throw him out on his ear!


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## OboeKnight

My friend, a bassoonist, and I give pretend recitals in a local university's recital hall. We address our non-existent audience and give ourselves applause xD sounds kind of sad, but hey, the acoustics in there are amazing!


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## Feathers

OboeKnight said:


> My friend, a bassoonist, and I give pretend recitals in a local university's recital hall. We address our non-existent audience and give ourselves applause xD *sounds kind of sad*, but hey, the acoustics in there are amazing!


Hey at least it was the *two*of you . For me it was often just little Feathers and the stuffed animals :lol:, but they were attentive listeners and didn't clap between movements!


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## Ingélou

Ingenue said:


> What a great idea, Feathers.
> Or when I am playing my beloved Lully, I imagine that I am a French aristocrat, Madame la Marquise, playing for her private salon. This is quite a good one, because I'm in awe of my violin teacher in reality, but in my fantasy, he jolly well has to be polite or Madame will throw him out on his ear!


It just shows what a fabulous teacher I have - not at all a French fiddle flunkey! - that today I felt dreadfully ill but I didn't want to just cancel, so I sent my husband along instead, Monsieur le Marquis, & my teacher helped him with his keyboard accompaniments.

Reality is better than fantasy! 

PS I have a fabulous husband too...


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## hreichgott

Feathers said:


> Hey at least it was the *two*of you . For me it was often just little Feathers and the stuffed animals :lol:, but they were attentive listeners and didn't clap between movements!


cute 
When my smallest piano students are preparing for performances, I have them play "pretend recitals" for my daughter's stuffed animals. They become endearingly nervous. Afterward I help all the animals cheer.


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## Feathers

hreichgott said:


> cute
> When my smallest piano students are preparing for performances, I have them play "pretend recitals" for my daughter's stuffed animals. They become endearingly nervous. Afterward I help all the animals cheer.


Awww! They make a good audience don't they! (Except for that one bear that always can't sit properly and falls over in the middle of the performance.)


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## Novelette

My two pianos are in the music room, the grand in front of a window.

When I play at night, the people walking down my street not only hear me clearly but can see me very well too. In a way, when I'm playing the grand, I am performing in a sort of concert.

The amazing thing is that after all these years, my neighbors haven't showed up with torches and pitchforks...

Still, I very seldom tire of a work that I'm playing, no matter how many times I play it.


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## Jaws

Ingenue said:


> Just sharing my experience & wondering how yours compares.
> 
> I start a new tune. I think, that's gorgeous. But in order to learn it, I have to listen to it over & over; play it over & over; identify the trouble bars & practise them over and over; try to improve the speed; try to improve the dynamics...
> 
> And you know what - by the time I can play it properly, I'm heartily sick of it.
> 
> If I go on climbing long enough, will I get my second wind? Do pukka musicians get sick of pieces they play for concerts, or, working at another level, do they feel they're understanding the music in more & more depth?


I personally think that if you are having to do this you are trying to play something that is actually too difficult for the stage of learning that you have got to. It is more satisfying to find something that has maybe one or two bars that are a challenge but not the whole piece.

Try not to rush onto the next stage and try to make the increases in difficulties much more gradual.


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## Ingélou

Jaws said:


> I personally think that if you are having to do this you are trying to play something that is actually too difficult for the stage of learning that you have got to. It is more satisfying to find something that has maybe one or two bars that are a challenge but not the whole piece.
> 
> Try not to rush onto the next stage and try to make the increases in difficulties much more gradual.


As it happens, I agree with you. But my teacher's strategy is based on the idea of 'stretching me'. His theory has pros & cons to it & at my age I probably won't stretch very far. I actually posted my dilemma on violinist.com & got a variety of answers, some saying I needed to be challenged & that they'd 'kill for my teacher', and others that it seemed a shame not to simply enjoy myself in my third age!


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## Jaws

Ingenue said:


> As it happens, I agree with you. But my teacher's strategy is based on the idea of 'stretching me'. His theory has pros & cons to it & at my age I probably won't stretch very far. I actually posted my dilemma on violinist.com & got a variety of answers, some saying I needed to be challenged & that they'd 'kill for my teacher', and others that it seemed a shame not to simply enjoy myself in my third age!


There is a difference between a bit of stretching and something that feels as if you have been put on the rack.

My theory is that lots of pieces with one or two challenging bars will eventually add up to a whole piece of challenging bars but will be much more fun along the way.

Why is your teacher in such a rush to push you onto difficult pieces that you can't enjoy, because you are too busy trying to learn the notes. All playing is useful practise so even so called easy pieces mean that you are practising the basics and making your foundations more solid.

Just as a matter of interest, what level does you teacher teach to? Would they be happy to teach someone for their FRSM exam or do they feel that they don't want to go much above grade 8?


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## Ingélou

My teacher doesn't do exams but as a structure he is using the Suzuki books. I am nearly at the end of Book 3 now, having started Book 2 last June. As to why he's in such a rush - it's just his character! To be fair, my rate of improvement has been pretty amazing. Plus, he's a gifted performer & very charismatic, so even though as a retired teacher I may look askance at his pedagogy, this is still the chance of a lifetime. I don't know how long it will be before his career 'takes off' & he's no longer able to teach me so I mean to enjoy it while it lasts... 

Thank you, Jaws, for your friendly posts. Have a lovely Easter holiday.


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## Trumpetcat

Ahhh I feel that way  But I just fight through that, haha. My teacher gave me this concerto like a month ago and I am just DONE with it.. We were supposed to rehearse with the accompanist like two weeks ago, except he was always busy, and I kept practicing it as always and just got fed up. Oh well, there are always things to improve, so that's what keeps me going!


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## PetrB

Hilltroll72 said:


> Hah. Like driving a car, eh? You are taking the magic out of it, _Taggart_!


But it is not magic! It is real work, methodical work, repetitive work. The illusion to the listener watching a performance may be one of "magic." It is anything but.

AFTER THE WORK IS DONE:

Then, freedom re-enters the picture, and the player's ability to make more of it than a bunch of notes can take on such a power of communication it does enter an entirely abstract realm.

But in classical standards of performing -- now get this whippershappers, amateur or training pros -- you do not know a piece, nor "own it" until you have learned it, memorized it and performed it, _then later forgotten it_, then do that two more times.

After that thrice learned and set aside formula, you can begin to think you own it a bit, and the real freedom to interpret it (within stylistic parameters, puhleeze) starts to be in your pocket.

Until then, feel free to complain, the frustration is palpable enough complaining is justified to a degree, but as long as the complaint takes but a few seconds, the rest of the time dedicated to practice... well, alright then.

[[P.s. if it takes you forever to learn one piece, the piece is beyond the technical capacity level you should be challenging yourself with at the moment, and / or you seriously need to work on your sight-reading until it is on an equal level to the technical level of demand of what you can play.

If you are struggling to learn pieces by ear, rather than spending the time to learn to read, and since one can teach oneself to read music, at least a bit adequately, you have made a choice about which there is no sympathy given in that quarter ]]


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## Ingélou

I agreed so much with this post until it reached the end - then 'no sympathy' - ah, rather scary!


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## Downbeat

Ingenue said:


> Just sharing my experience & wondering how yours compares.
> 
> I start a new tune. I think, that's gorgeous. But in order to learn it, I have to listen to it over & over; play it over & over; identify the trouble bars & practise them over and over; try to improve the speed; try to improve the dynamics...
> 
> And you know what - by the time I can play it properly, I'm heartily sick of it.
> 
> If I go on climbing long enough, will I get my second wind? Do pukka musicians get sick of pieces they play for concerts, or, working at another level, do they feel they're understanding the music in more & more depth?


You are probably thinking too much about technique. Once you have mastered that, listen to various interpretations of the piece and look for the musicality or expression...that is what really counts.


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## Ingélou

Downbeat said:


> You are probably thinking too much about technique. Once you have mastered that, listen to various interpretations of the piece and look for the musicality or expression...that is what really counts.


You sound just like my fiddle teacher!


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## PetrB

Hilltroll72 said:


> Hah. Like driving a car, eh? You are taking the magic out of it, _Taggart_!


Magic is for passengers: operating the vehicle so the passenger is completely unaware of your operating the vehicle is, primarily, work, and for the driver, once that level is attained the real exploration can begin.


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## Ingélou

Ah, Petr, haste ye back... 


My teacher's away for a fortnight & I'm cutting down my 'leet' so I can fiddle away at what I like for a bit. I think I might look back at all the stuff I've moved on from - cavort through Suzuki Book 2, also the pretty baroque bits in Eta Cohen's Violin Method II, and all the pibrochs, jigs, reels & 'divisions' in the scrapbooks I keep (all with sheet music that I own). I shall travel very joyfully! 

While the cat's away, this mouse will play & play & play...! 


One point to raise for this thread, on practice: what do members do about music they learned and then moved on from. Do you revisit? And do you find that you've grown rusty - or that you can play them better than before?


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## Praeludium

When I finish a program I try to start another one as soon as possible (sometimes there's a blurry period where I sight-reading and trying many things) and then go full throttle on the new one.
So I forget everything I learn pretty quickly !

BUT if you've worked extensively on a piece for months, you can perfectly relearn it really quickly one year or more later. It's like if it were still here but needing a reanimation and some cleaning. You'll probably play it better, if you have made progress during the break (which is probably the case if you have a good teacher).


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## hreichgott

Once I have learned a piece it's in my repertoire. Unless I really disliked it by the time I was through with it. I play enough that it's important to have a repertoire of pieces I can play well. (and Suzuki training taught me to value the pieces I'd finished, rather than treating pieces as disposable!)

As I tell my students, it can get frustrating if the only pieces we play are the in-progress working pieces... because those are the hardest things we've ever played and we can't really play them very well yet. Recently mastered pieces are the most stressful to perform, because they're often the hardest things we've ever played, we only recently started playing them well, and we haven't been friends with them long enough to really understand them. "Old favorites" are a nice stress reliever both at home and in performance.

If it's been a while since I played something, then there is definitely a bit of a cleaning phase as Praeludium mentioned. But sometimes that happens with frequently played pieces too, particularly if I decide I want to take a new approach with some of the details... or if my hands are just not cooperating that week!


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## Forte

Ingenue said:


> One point to raise for this thread, on practice: what do members do about music they learned and then moved on from. Do you revisit? And do you find that you've grown rusty - or that you can play them better than before?


If I've learned a piece I've usually memorized it and stored it somewhere in the back of my head. But there are pieces from last year that I wouldn't be able to play at gunpoint. If you feel like revisiting a piece of music, which I suppose can be often, there will probably be technical things that you need to fix again, but it's usually much faster, you can relearn it a lot quicker. Then, there are often things you missed before that you see now, and you can make those little changes that often make a big difference.

After being in more advanced repertoire, the stuff you struggled with before often becomes more easy. It's like your brain suddenly says to itself, "What I've been working on is the _real_ difficult stuff, how can I possibly do badly on this mortal piece I've conquered before!"

So in regards to learning things - if you've learned the notes, you haven't necessarily learned the music. You've learned where to put your fingers on the fingerboard and when to put them there, and where/when/how to use the bow to produce the marked dynamics, articulations, etc. A true connection to a piece of music usually doesn't come right after you've gotten the technical things settled, even (or especially) if you're tired of it already. That connection can take months, years, lifetimes to come.


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