I think one of my biggest issues that is hindering my progress is lack of confidence (I've been told by more than one person that I'm too hard on myself). Does anyone else suffer from this and how do you cope? I feel like I am progressing technically but performance wise my music is still choppy and often uneven. I know that the main pulse of the music is as (or more) important as the notes but yet I know that I can often lose it when a mistake happens or I am generally nervous.

Try to get away from the mindset that you are a piano playing robot who,s job it is to faithfully reproduce the dots on the page without error.

Instead think of yourself as an artist with something to say. Don't be afraid to personalize the piece a little. Singers do this all the time.

i do the same thing. music is a feeling and to play with feeling 1 you have to really know what your doing and 2 you have to let everything go and just feel it and be confident no matter what and don't worry about anything. I'm not one that practices what i a preach but i try and I' am working on it. just keep on swimming

One thing that's helped me is to press the keys all the way down Elementary, right? But I don't alway do it. It's the old "I don't want to be in the way" sympton, and comes out musically. But it's amazing how much difference it makes to "play thru" the keys - I even sit up straighter And I make music.

Cathy

Very interesting notion. I am definitely going to try this one.

Work on a (much) easier piece - at least part time. Get it into a shape where you are happy with it. Nailing easier pieces gives you confidence that (in time) you will be able to deal with harder pieces.

Also get as much outside validation as you can. Yes, that's really tough when you don't think you are good enough, but if you can force yourself, you will be pleasantly surprised by the result.

Thank you for all your suggestions. I do need validation....I think. And playing through the keys is something a teacher once told me and I'll think about that again.

I've been thinking alot about this problem... I think also there is a lack of focus as soon as I get nervous or make a mistake. That little voice inside my head seems to take over (The Inner Game of Music didn't help - it just gave me a name to put on the little voices). I have a wonderful teacher and we study technique but I've never really asked him for help with the 'little voices.' When I mess up he usually looks for a technical reason - and often there is but sometimes I think it's more about focusing on playing and not overthinking.... It's like I KNOW what to do but haven't been able to make it work.

It's funny that your signature says "It's the journey, not the destination" which is a great quote, you just aren't following it. Sounds like you're focused on the destination and not admitting you're on the journey. You have to enjoy the journey, mistakes and all. Try to laugh at your mistakes and not take them so seriously.

I'd love to say this goes away, but you will always have nerves and that feeling of not wanting to mess up. I get it on every new gig. Affirmations like "Come on, you've got this" seem to help, until you make a mistake. But the more you worry about it, the more mistakes you end up making. Weird mental thing. It takes constant reminding from myself to "Relax, breathe, etc" to calm those nerves.

Keep working at it. It does get easier to tame those nerves.

Playing notes through is really important. Playing with a firm rhythm is really important. Playing the right notes actually isn't that important. You need to tell yourself this and believe it. It is actually true. The wrong notes, played firmly and with good rhythm, sound better than the right notes played half-hearted.

so, partly you need to adjust your attitude to mistakes. Then you need to practice continuing after a mistake. So, sometimes, you assign yourself a line, or a piece and you play it through regardless of mistakes. Doesn't matter what you do, force yourself to play the next note. Move on. This is a skill and it takes time to develop it.

Once you can do this, most people won't even notice the mistake.

No, I'm not mad.

Well..... I do enjoy the journey or I would have given up long ago..and I don't really have a destination because I know it will keep changing. I just have this hurdle to jump over or through or something.... Sometimes I can laugh at my mistakes. It's mostly when I've worked so hard at a particular piece and feel like I've made good progress and then at the first mistake it falls apart at a lesson (or when I might be playing when someone is in the room) .......it drives me crazy.

I read your thread right after reading Legal Beagle's thread, so here's my flash of insight: What you really, really need is to go play for a kindergarten class. I'm serious. Or play for some other audience composed of non-musicians who will be appreciative. I'm guessing that a large part of your current lack of confidence is because you take your studies very seriously and both you and your teacher hold your playing to a high level of excellence. And holding the bar high is a good way of making progress... but it ain't so hot at making people feeling warm and fuzzy about their playing.

Take a few minutes to play a tune or two at some hotel lobby piano, or knock of a few pieces at a retirement home. When a total stranger walks up to you and says "that was beautiful! You're really good!", you'll start feeling more confident. And it will also help you learn how to play through mistakes, which I agree is another important part of feeling confident.

Monica, you are so right! ...

First I have to revive some old or learn a few new easy pieces....... I think this could be a goal for the new year. Have you ever played at a seniors place? Not sure about kids.....they can be brutally honest. I have a 4 year old granddaughter!! :-)

I find kids, so long as you don't bore them, are generous with their praise. Don't forget that most young kids don't appreciate the gap in learning they have so to them you are a complete master!

"Confidence" is NOT an explanation. These people who told you this are not using their brains properly.

Q: How do they know you have no confidence? A: Because your performance is choppy and uneven.

Q: Why is your performance choppy and uneven? A: Because you are too hard on yourself.

Q: How do they know you are too hard on yourself? A: Because they have seen you being too hard on yourself.

Q: Why have you been so hard on yourself? A: Because your performance is choppy and uneven.

Q: Why is your performance choppy and uneven? A: Because you are too hard on yourself.

Q: How do they know you are too hard on yourself? A: Because they have seen you being too hard on yourself.

And so on, and so on, and so on.

Do you see, these people are using circular logic. Point it out next time because this type of "explanation" is neither acceptable nor useful.

Here are some examples of useful things they could have said:
-Practice your piece in front of people, the more you do this the better you will get at it.
-Practice playing with conviction. (i.e. play a sad piece sadly, play a happy piece happily, etc.)

I hope you didn't read that as being harsh, because I didn't intend it that way. Just trying to point out the "be in the moment" part of playing is sometimes the best place to be. Not on that mistake you made a few seconds ago, or the hard part coming up. I get that playing in front of others adds a level of tension and nerves that can destroy a performance. The more you can be in the moment, the more free you can be to play.

I hope you didn't read that as being harsh, because I didn't intend it that way. Just trying to point out the "be in the moment" part of playing is sometimes the best place to be. Not on that mistake you made a few seconds ago, or the hard part coming up. I get that playing in front of others adds a level of tension and nerves that can destroy a performance. The more you can be in the moment, the more free you can be to play.

also try not to be too hard on yourself or expect too high expectations do what you can nobody said it was easy like the coldplay song

+1

This is so important! Music should be a creative endeavor, not a mechanical one. But when we get bogged down with note-perfection and metronomic exactitude, we lose all creativity in the process. Certainly one must understand the notes and rhythms that are on the page, but to stop there and think that is all to playing are missing out.

Listen to great opera singers, especially from previous eras. The notes they sing are not always on beat, in fact most often they are delayed or anticipate the beat, depending on the feeling they want to convey. This menas they end up falling behind or ahead of the orchestra. If you think of your melody as the singer, it too, should fall behind or ahead of the accompaniment. This takes some practice, so to start simply try separating the melody from the accompaniment somehow. Usually this will be separating the RH from the LH Most people don't go far enough, so you really have to try to go too far to free it up. Of course, this is completely random, but it is an important step in the process.

Once you can play with the hands separated with sufficient ease, then look at the score and make decisions. When would it make sense for the hands to separate in a given phrase? Cadences are importnat points, peaks of phrases, etc.

Other aspects of playing that are good to consider in expression: dynamics, tempo changes (rubato), rolling chords vs. playing blocked, use of pedals.

I'm usually very shy when it comes to play in front of peoples if I'm not confident 110% on what I'm going to play and still... my performance is going to reflect 95% or so if I'm lucky...

I feel the pressure so I have memory slips, I tend to miss more notes and so on... my tactic was to:
restart studying the piece from the beginning when I had the feeling that I can play it through well, by myself, on my piano. get at the point where you can sing or whistle the whole piece, right hand and left hand part alone...
when you can do that, add that you can visualize/feel the position of your hand on the keyboard and the feeling of the pressure under your fingers...

than add another month of practice... :-D
you'll play with great confidence.

Posture. Sitting straight with confidence will channel positive energy into your upper extremities.

Mind. A relaxed state of mind, through simple breathing exercises to vacate distractions, will promise a practice session filled with pleasant bonhomie.

Find your special space and focus on it. If it's a grand piano, it is the triangle space for me between the lid (opened) and the horizontal part of the piano just above the keyboard. I stare at the space and tell myself "the triangle right there is the best place on earth and I will play into the triangle space". It somehow has a magical effect to quiet my mind to the point I forget about the audience. It works for me and I hope it will work for you too.

If you learn the piece very well by repeating every 2 beats 10 times or more, you will know the piece a lot better and feel more confident.

Then you should remember to breathe, and focus on whether you are relaxed (are your shoulders high, or are your elbows and forearms out of place?). Place your hands in your lap, that is the feeling you want to maintain. Then make sure you keep plenty of weight on the keys (don't pull back like you are afraid of the keys).

Practice not stopping when you make a mistake. Even if you get completely off track , try to find a way forward. This is an important skill to learn and you will gain more confidence when you know you are capable of finding your way out of several tight spots in the past.

The more performance experience you get the easier it will be. Keep looking for performance opportunities in front of friends and in different situations.

This link has been posted elsewhere, but it is brilliant and addresses this very issue. I especially like his idea of "one buttock" playing!

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.html

Here's the starting point for the confidence/mistakes thing:

Forget about music.

Yes, forget about music. Just sit at the piano, relax, and press keys. It doesn't matter which ones. There are no wrong notes. Close your eyes. Just noodle and doodle around for a few minutes. Keep going until you get bored, then a little longer.

Now go back to your regular practice.

Thanks for posting that here. Really cool.

Cathy

That was wonderful. Thank you!! I'll be thinking about this when I play!

Confidense is the result of a predictable outcome. If you've successfully done something many times before, the outcome (even before you do it) for the most part is already a known. It's predictable. The fear of the 'unknown' has been removed.

Speech writers purposely leave in pauses in certain places to allow time for a predictable responses. They knjow what's going to happen before it even happens.

This is why performing a piece in front of others is so very important. It gives you the opportunity to build confidense by gaining the experience of performing in front of others and living through it. You now know you will survive...(assuming you do).

Even if you crash and burn, the 'unknown' is now a 'known'. You will either do fine in future performances given your piece is properly practiced and prepared or you will know you have a stage fright issue that really needs some more work.

Everyone is different when it comes to this. Play in front of others and see what happens.

I personally think that while learning to relax and roll with the punches isn't bad advice, it often doesn't do much in the moment. You can't inject someone with a syringe of adrenaline and tell them: "just chill out" and "be easier on yourself". Sure, there are some underlying psychological issues a person might want to work with to improve confidence but generally speaking most everyone has to deal with this issue.

I've found a few things to be really helpful. Videotaping yourself playing can recreate in some ways the conditions of performance more than you might think. Doing a lot of mental practice and visualization so that you have a "top-down" understanding of the notes and know you can handle things when your muscle-memory falters. Practicing in a concentrated way to prepare for the mental intensity that comes during performance. (For example: trying to play a few lines perfectly a set number of times with full concentration.)

Hope this helps!

Well i'm not really a pianist (I play the sax), but i'd say what's helped me most is playing with other people. I've found that the more you play (and perform), the more confident you'll get. So i'd suggest (like Monica K says), playing for a non-musical audience, since i've found they're always easy to play for

And I don't know if you're in to jazz, but i've found improvising is really good for helping with your confidence.

Hey! Who let the sax player in?!?

I agree that most nerves come from uncertainty. The more secure you are with something you are doing, the more confident you are. Then it's a mental game, telling yourself, "you got this". Channel nerves into positive energy. Tell yourself it's just excitement that you get to play for others.

By the way, if you think your playing is bad for whatever reason, you will make that come true. For it's Henry Ford that famously said, "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right."