Picking Up the Pieces: A Piano Practice Journal

I am starting to hate the Chopin. Not really. But (in case you haven't noticed) it really bothers me that I can play it with no camera and no audience, but I fall apart when I'm recording. Even if I'm casually talking to the phone like it's a friend. Maybe it's worse when I do that. Below is a video where it takes me a painful 10 or so minutes to get through the 6-minute nocturne. I stop and complain a few times. I'm not upset in the great scheme of things -- I'm just very, very frustrated that I have put this much work into this piece, and that I know I can play it well ... but no one else will ever know. I am also baffled as to how people post videos online all the time of their playing this or that piece with no mistakes, or with mistakes that are so small that they're barely noticeable. When I try to record things? I end up with this video, and others like it. I need to go exercise. A tough workout should help things. Unfortunately, I have to go on a...

My last few practice sessions have been very frustrating. I'm making progess--I can see this from session to session--but I've just felt really tired and cranky, and I'm getting angry quickly. I think part of the problem is that I haven't been exercising. Between work, family, home, piano, travel, and volleyball, I haven't had a lot of time for it. And when I'm not exercising, I get cranky. And stressed. And tense. I think all of that is coming out in my practice sessions. I'm also very frustrated that I seem incapable of playing through the Chopin Nocturne without making some really huge, noticeable error--either a series of harsh missed notes, or a complete memory lapse altogether. I think I have this piece memorized backwards and forwards, but when I turn on that phone camera? My mind goes blank. Usually, I just take a deep breath and try again ... or not. But today? Not today. So, friends. That is my state of mind. I'm going to be in North Carolina t...

Yesterday I wrote a little about my performance anxiety. It's a weird kind of performance anxiety because I don't feel anxious at all before I play. I feel happy and relaxed. But then I start to play and realize my brain has gone on vacation and left me here with this hulking piece of wood and strings and plastic, and these pages with all these weird symbols on them, and this expectant audience ... and then the anxiety hits. And everything falls apart. THINGS THAT HAVE REALLY HAPPENED (I've never been an official church accompanist. I've always been the back-up to the back-up, which has resulted in the following scenarios, after which I've retired, once again, from ever agreeing to accompany anyone in public.) Here are some things that have really happened to me: Key Change:  I'm happily playing in F, but my right hand decides to play in F harmonic minor and starts flatting every A and D (and raising the E-flat to a natural) while my left hand plays merrily alon...

I got very frustrated Monday night. I have been trying for about a month to make a decent video of myself playing the Chopin Nocturne in F minor. I'm not striving for perfection; really, if I could make one that just had a dozen or so unremarkable errors here and there, I would be thrilled. But no. When I play for an audience--whether a real-life one or the imagined one behind the "Record" button on my phone--my mind freezes up and I forget how to play the piano. I become unable to read music. I can literally look at a middle C written in front of me and have no idea what it means. Friends, I have been reading music since 1976. I know middle C. I guess it's fight or flight, and my brain obviously chooses "flight." How do I stop it from doing that? I don't know, but I would desperately love to find out. I can play the nocturne pretty well by memory when I'm not recording. I've been very happy with my progress. But when I'm recording? I get som...

Last night I dreamed I was railing at my piano teacher. Then I dreamed I went to my old piano teacher--the one I had in junior high, the one I did not get along with--and told her how much better she was than Deborah. Why did I do that? A student's attitude and motivation (and lack thereof) has a lot to do with how "good" or "bad" a teacher is. I had a bad attitude when I was 13. I like to think I have a much-improved attitude now, 25 years later. Strange how times long past can pop up in dreams, and bring all the emotions and intensity with them. So I had a lesson Saturday and had several moments when I just wanted to cry. I hadn't had a lesson in a month. More than a month. For that time, I practiced 4-6 days a week, averaging approximately 50 minutes per lesson. Not as much practicing as I'd like, but it's what I was able to manage, so I was OK with it. Practice sessions were focused mostly on scales, arps, Schumann, and Bach. I didn't want to...

Today's 1.5-hour lesson included a lot of talking, but in a good way. I love my piano teacher. It was a great lesson, even though it was mostly talking. Today's theme seemed to be "Trust Yourself." See, I have very little faith in my ability to play well. Have you ever thought you looked good in a certain outfit, then, when you saw pictures of yourself in it, thought, "Oh, horrors! Why did I ever think that turquoise jumpsuit looked good on me? My butt looks like Mars!" OK, maybe you've never had that experience. But try to imagine. I've always been very critical of myself, not just in piano. When I don't play well, I know it. When I do play something well ... I know it. I can feel it. Or I think I can. And the other week in the group piano class, I thought I played the Prelude and the Liszt well. Not perfectly, of course, but beautifully. Then ... later ... I wondered ... "What if I just thought I sounded good? What if I really sounded ...