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Saranoya: Thanks for the plain speaking. And thanks for the confirmation that you know I can do better. It is hard to hold on to that thought when I feel so rattled.
and thanks for your suggestions - I'll give them a try.

Sweet06, yes I've been through the phase where I was nervous playing for my teacher, but I'm over that. I didn't expect to have these probmlems at the party.

rmaple: Playing at retirement homes is a nice idea but in my little town that's not really an option. Thanks for the "normal" rating
The Saturday night Live idea is fun - of course time zones make it tricky. I generally don't play the acoustic after 8pm and that's only 2 in the afternoon for folks on the east coast of North America. There might be chances with some fellow European ABFers...


FarmGirl, I read your advice here and the in the other thread, and in the PM you sent. Thanks very very much. These are all good ideas (well, except for the alcohol, I really don't think that will help me ) I'll give them a try!
In particular your info on the disconnect between the brain, eyes and fingers is very very useful. Please don't think you're "nobody" - you have a lot more experience than many of us and you can give us some great feedback and insights! Don't hold it in! We really like you too!!


SandTiger: While your advice on having realistic expectations is sound the idea of "lowering my standards" is painful to me. During the party, for the first 3 pieces I was orginially content with getting to the end, (I won't even talk about the 4th)...but later it hit me that even those 3 were such pale versions of what I was doing at home, it was very lowering.
What is important to me from your post is a very kind "reality check". I guess I should mention that I did actually feel pretty good about taking the plunge on playing duets with PatH. He was amazing - sight-reading the teacher's part - and I was able to play along though I hadn't played those pieces for over a year, I just read them. I felt they were a modest success.

EarlofMar - I have in fact done a lot of public speaking - and I know that skill takes practice too - I'm actually pretty good at it. At the beginning I needed a lot of notes, "clues" - word markers etc to get me through, now I'm much better at extemporising. I'm not shy, and I really do enjoy a few moments here and there being the centre of attention. I didn't even feel particularly nervous when I started out. (SwissMS played before lunch, but I took the first turn after lunch as I figured (rightly) I was not the youngest player, but the most junior performer )

PaperClip, thanks very much . Your suggestion of slowing down is a good one...the adreneline does make us want to try to "fly higher and faster" --- and for the unseasoned performer that's a recipe for disaster.


OK..... I want to thank all of you who took the time to share and offer some words of wisdom, comfort and support - I won't say "you don't know how much it means to me" --- because frankly, I am certain you know exactly how much it means!!!
What a wonderful, wonderful group this is.

Cheryl, Saranoya, I am pretty sure I've heard everyone except patH make mistakes at the party. Don't focus too much on your own! I've had numerous restarts as well as "oops wrong chord, hope nobody noticed"-moments. I am delighted that people enjoyed those performances nonetheless. I was only nervous while playing the first piece, yet still messed up during the rest. Just smile and keep playing

Kind and encouraging words David Allard. Thanks very much.

Thank you all for the congratulations. It's a great feeling to have it under my belt.

CasinItaly, I have the perspective of my music group. Many of the participants are life-long musicians that can know some of the songs backwards and forwards, and can play in their sleep. Still, sometimes they forget, sometimes they stumble, and they have no nerves.

So now take a beginner, that rarely performs in public, put them on an unfamiliar instrument, and anyone can see that expecting the best is unrealistic. It similar to what EarlofMar is writing about, someone that has never recorded, expecting to knock out their best effort on the first take and thinking that others are doing so. It could happen, but it would be truly exceptional if it did happen.

Like I said, I feel like I have done near my best about 10% of the time. I have less nerves than most. I perform on a fairly regular basis and still 90% of the time I don't think I hit the mark, if the mark is my best.

The upside, is that there are rare moments of magic that make it all worth while. There are times, a person can hear a pin drop, the audience is so enthralled by the music. Of course, there are other times, when people are chatting, shuffling their papers, checking their phones, or worse: walking out.

The special moments, I see as the height of being a musician. Even an amateur like myself, has had those moments, when time stands still, when I have connected with the audience. The 90% or more of the time when it doesn't happen, is part of the price of climbing the mountain.

I have in the past, mentioned some other memorization techniques. Playing the piece with eyes closed, with the sound off, away from the instrument. Ideally, I want to be able to play a performance piece, without sight, without sound, without touch. I don't always get to ideal. The other caveat is that many pieces are too difficult to eliminate 100% of the senses.

One day, probably soon, you will have the experience of a performance just going "right" - your playing, to that audience, in that situation will transcend anything that could possibly have happened in a solitary rehearsal room. And that's why we do it. Isn't it?

(And the next day you'll play even better, but the stars will not align :-)

cheryl,

You've had enough folks tell you not to beat yourself up, so I won't.

But......

You just went to another country, to play if front of a group you'd never met in person, and you played not one, but FOUR pieces, on a strange piano, in a room you'd never been in before.......

I have just one question........

How many times have you tried that before?


(ps. I'll bet you'll do it better the second time at EPP-14)

lol... Giacomo..ok, you've got me there. (of course I could say that except for Sara, everyone else was in the same boat...but I won't )

I'm not beating myself up any more. I did the self torture routine pretty intensely for a while, but in the end I just don't have enough energy to keep that up--- and beside, when you get such great suggestions and encouragement and reality checks from people who really get what you are talking about ...well, it helps tremendously.



When the moon, is in the seventh house... and Jupiter aligns with Mars.... lol....

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm well on the road to recovery.

I played quite a bit today and made a date to have a friend over and play for her next week. I may even get someone in before that too.

I've also really been thinking about all the advice I've received and I want to come back to what Sand Tiger said about lowering expectations. ..... What strikes me is that yes, you're right ST. I'm in the group of people who can perform in front of others - maybe not as well as I would like, but I've done better in the past, and God willing, I will do even better in the future! I'm not afraid to play, to try, and I always set the bar very high for myself - and I think it is ok to have high expectations.....but here's the key... they also have to be measured, realistic, and the simple fact of the matter is that I don't have enough experience to be realistic about my immediate expectations. (or rather... I didn't. - - Now I think I do).. So in the short term - smaller bites, smaller steps, focus on the satisfaction therein and set the bar higher for farther down the road, not today or tomorrow.

So, I feel I'm ending the day basking in the glow of friendship and kindness that has been extended to me from - literally! - around the world.

Thanks a million to my AOTW buddies!!!!

I get an image of you grabbing everyone you can just to play for them...
"It's no longer safe to walk down the road by that lady's house. Strange things happen there. People disappear. Then reappear hours later full of milk and cookies."

Seriously.....on the Saturday Night Live... I thought it would work if there isn't a restricting time. Just use the weekend. Say....on (eastern) time at 6am Sat to 6am Sunday. Could play at anytime. Just reserve a time. This would cover Saturday night for most everybody...at one time or another. Could even get "Piano World" to have a box on the side that lists who is on or not open right now. Kinda like a moving web cam. Besides....we could watch FarmGirl's dogs wash the dishes.

That could work - I don't know about the technical aspects of having it show up as to who is on line, but we could create a weekly thread ie: July 20 - Saturday night live 6am EST + 24 hours and see who connects....I'd suggest sharing Skype addresses via PM rather than in the forum, but it could be well worth a try!

If you guys put all the energy you expend on self-analysis into something useful like piano-playing...:-)

Wow, FarmGirl, you've really got it. You're now major league!

Not quite. It does not happen so often. Usually mediocre performance. One thing I learned from the college performance class is that you can get over performance anxiety. It's like anything else. It can be learnt. Only small % of people need medical attention who has an uncontrollerable shakes sweat and other extreme symptoms.

I also noticed that most of people make mistakes. Yes even professionals sometimes. Its just some are extremely good at covering up. In my performance class I often follow the performance with the score and amazed that I was not the only one who make mistakes or memory issues. Some people forgets a whole bar and still manage to pull out a moving performance.

This is so true, If I'm not familiar with a piece someone is playing or unless they hit a real stinker, I don't notice it if they recover well. One of the hardest things I had to learn to do early on was to just keep truckin right through them. I only ever had one real paralyzing brain lockup but I still remember it vividly each time I play for an audience of more than two or three and it happened in my first recital 2 years ago.

To Saranoya and Casinitaly - You both played much better at the EPP than you make it sound! And as Allard said, we all made mistakes and had restarts, memory lapses, etc. And, don't forget, Casinitaly, you did a great job on the duets with PatH!

I do not think any of us expected to play four or more pieces at the EPP. I will be better prepared next year! It was a great learning experience. After my piano party and this one, I discovered that I am learning to enjoy playing for others. It is like the payoff for all of the hard work. I made mistakes, but I shared my music, and that is what it is all about!

My AOTW (other than playing at the EPP!) was that I managed to find a piano to play at every hotel on my way to and from Brussels, so I maintained my MOYD! They were not the greatest, but they were pianos. The one in Luxemburg had a silent F4 and a weird damper pedal, and the one in Oberwesel had not seen a tuner for a while, but I could still hack out some practice!

Welcome back SwissMS! (I have had to correct every time I've written you name in the last few posts as I've typed your real name first! oops!)

It's great that you were able to find pianos everywhere you went! ..odd ones perhaps, but still - functioning pianos!

Thanks for your feedback on the party. I know I have trouble keeping perspective. I let myself get overwhelmed by the last bit rather than focusing on the first and the duets (- that was SO MUCH FUN --Thank you Pat!!!!)

I had a coffee with my old teacher today and we talked about this and she had some tips for me, but basically I think it comes down to developing concentration skills.
I also emailed my current teacher to update him on what happened (he wanted me to do that) and to let him know I want to work on conquering the problems I had, when we re-start in Sept. He sent me a very nice reply and told me that he had already thought about working on performance standards and was really happy we were on the same wave length, so we can start with lots of positive energy ! I was very pleased.

Greetings all
First a big congratulations to the Hound for passing your exam even with the problem areas. Good for you!!!

As I read all the conversation about the EPP I have several thoughts. First, I wish I could have joined you and met all of you and listened to your music. I'm confident that each of you added to the party. Second, on PW we're really part of a small proportion of people who say they "play the piano" who WANT to get over our fear of playing on strange pianos, for new people, in public. Most people are content to say it will never be. It must be normal to have the adrenaline rush that throws us off. The challenge is to harness that hormone for our benefit...to have it help us be more energetic and passionate about the music. Certainly can't say I've achieved it but I've glimpsed it. When we played the final performance at Summerkeys my Mozart was not the delightful graceful movement I had hoped for. I WAS able to stay focused on the music however and moved past each glitch without stops. THAT was improvement for me. I only beat myself up for a few minutes and THAT was an improvement too.
The only things that seem to work is play more more more in front of others and let it go go go as soon as the piece is done. http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/images/icons/default/smile.gif

Those who said that someday we might experience that magic moment where it stays together offer a great inspiration for us.

My AOTW (maybe the year) is that yes, indeed, I did pass the Level 5 exam even with my hands that shook so badly during the technical exercises. I don't have the comments yet but earned a pass with Honors. I passed the basic theory too. Don't know if I'll do another but learned from the experience of preparing for it. Thank you to all of you who supported that crazy venture.

This week, my teacher warned me on a challenge piece. It had heavy pedal incorporation which is fairly new for me still. (right when i get comfortable with stuff he gives me new things haha)
I was having a hard time making the foot even work while i played. got it down fine and the song had a Eb and I was most definitely was playing Db thinking man this is REALLY hard fingering and doesn't really make sense! then i really looked and slapped myself haha. tried it the correct way, super easy. haha i was glad to finish the song well.

My efforts recently have all centered around the idea of rubato vs. underlying pulse. I'm in this Grieg thing with other ABFers. I chose a piece that seemed within my reach because it was slower and seemed to be "mostly chords" and I've been working on the motions for chords. Well, it's not an "easier" piece, because if you try to make slow music musical, everything you do sticks out. Grieg uses the same formulas over and over: the same chord progressions in different keys, and the same rhythms. There is no variety whatsoever. It has to be supplied by the musician. That's where the fun with rubato vs. pulse started.

I listened to three performers: Richter, Andsnes, Gilels. All of them did this bit of stretching of some notes, things that seemed so natural that you say "but of course". I even figured out how they were stretching - play the note just a titch after count 2, kind of thing. Feedback: it sounded rather nice at that spot, but the wholeness of the piece didn't "hang together". It was more like a patchwork of pretty selections that had nothing to do with each other. So I went back to listening to R,A&G - yup, there was an underlying pulse in what they did. Back to pulse and strict counting. Now it was correct, but back to boring. Cautiously adding in stretches here and there and trying to hear the pulse. New recording. Rinse, lather repeat. At one point I was coming in early for every beat 4. Work on that.

One achievement was this: When I did the old recording, I was sure that my rhythms were all spot on. I was counting and checking while doing it. But obviously they were not correct. Then I worked on the weaknesses that were pointed out and did a new recording. Then I thought "I'm going to listen again to the old recording, because there were some cool things there." Now I DID hear how the counts were off, and it was clear as day. So I knew I was hearing things I couldn't hear before. And that was one achievement.