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Committed to memory for almost four years now, I've been playing an E flat when all this time it should have been a D flat in the Menuetto movement from LvB's Op. 31 No.3, measure 7. No matter how I try to correct this, my finger will not cooperate. Four years of an ingrained mistake -- can it be corrected? Is it worth the trouble for one note?
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I don't quite understand. If you know which note you should be playing, it shouldn't be that difficult to rectify the problem. However, it sounds as though you're not actually playing from memory; you're just letting your fingers do as they want. If you are playing the piece through on autopilot, then it's only natural that you will reproduce the mistake - without fail, no doubt.
Have you isolated the bar/passage in which the note occurs, with the score in front of you, and played it through as it should be? I'm sorry if that's stating the obvious, but it is what I would recommend.
David
"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." - Aldous Huxley
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Cognitive psychologists will say that it takes ten times as much effort to correct a learned mistake than to learn it right in the first place.
Play the measure correctly several times. Then play from the beginning several times so the correction is in context. Practice the corrected version regularly and verbally remind yourself what the correct note is as you approach it.
You need to get your fingers and your ear to play and hear the correct note. It's "easy", but takes work.
I had the same problem with one note in Jacques Brel's "If You Go Away" that was at the top of a chord, and it's already so dissonant that I didn't even realize it was the wrong note. It took a month or so to unlearn it.
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Plays, have you considered transposing the rest of the piece UP one step? Or are you too much of a "purist"? Bob
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It is more difficult to unlearn a mistake and relearn the correction.
The first thing you should do is get the sound of the passage with the correct note in your ear, so you're used to the hearing it correctly.
The next thing you should do is learn the passage the same way you did when you first worked on it - slowly, hands sep, repetitions, etc.
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I don't find this terribly difficult. It's basically the same mechanism as changing a fingering or incorporating a new idea, which I do all the time. I think it's a memory issue. I have to be consciously aware that something needs attention before the event, so to speak. Try waiting and thinking about the piece for a few moments before starting to play it. Ask yourself each day, "What things do I have to remember about playing this piece ? What new things did I discover about it yesterday, or the last time I played it ?"
I doubt your memory is so bad you would discover something and forget it the next day. It's more a question of taking mental control and bringing more of the conscious mind to bear on your playing.
"Mistakes are the portals of discovery." - James Joyce
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by jazzyd: If you know which note you should be playing, it shouldn't be that difficult to rectify the problem. However, it sounds as though you're not actually playing from memory; you're just letting your fingers do as they want. If you are playing the piece through on autopilot, then it's only natural that you will reproduce the mistake - without fail, no doubt.
I think my memorization of this piece is more from muscle memory -- is that what you mean by "autopilot? "
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Thanks everyone for your very good suggestions. I only just discovered the problem today, and Phlebas yes, I do know what the right note sounds like now, it certainly is more interesting (as only The B would write it in the first place)and I'll do my best to be patient in re-learning, hands separate, s-l-o-w-l-y. I just wasn't sure if it was worth the trouble to change one note, having had it one way in my head for so long. And Bob, I am actually rather good at transposing things (just to see if I can!), but please, never, EVER suggest I do such a thing with anything by The B. That's blasphemy!
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Originally posted by RKVS1: Plays, have you considered transposing the rest of the piece UP one step? Or are you too much of a "purist"?
Bob lol... well it's hard to correct a memorized wrong note.. but it's way harder to unlearn the wrong musical intepretion of a piece..
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I think beginners have more trouble unlearning mistakes than advanced players.
This is because there's a bit of a difference in the way beginners and advanced players approach the piano.
In the early years of study, a lot of beginners learn by forcing their hands to hit the right notes. (This is because their technique isn't that well developed yet...)
More advanced players have a better developed technique, and by "developed technique," I mean a playing mechanism that responds cleanly and fluidly to the brain's instructions.
Therefore, an advanced player is better able to send the corrected note to the hand and it responds. The beginner, however, sends the message, but the hand doesn't respond as well because it's playing the note more by force of habit than at the urging of the will of the player.
Hope that makes sense. It's crystal clear in my mind, I promise!
"If we continually try to force a child to do what he is afraid to do, he will become more timid, and will use his brains and energy, not to explore the unknown, but to find ways to avoid the pressures we put on him." (John Holt) www.pianoped.comwww.youtube.com/user/UIPianoPed
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1. See if there is a physical reason why you made the mistake in the first place. The brain will confabulate when a finger is not available to play the right thing. The most obvious thing to check is the fingering.
2. Assuming that the right note is as easy for you as the wrong one, play the right note, then play it from the preceding note, then work back a note at a time, until the whole bar up to that note is correct. Always stop on the note you are trying to correct. Do every one of these steps many times.
Then play from the preceding bar, many times, then play from the preceding phrase, also many times, still stopping on the note you are trying to fix.
Next do an abbreviated version of the above, but this time allow yourself to play through the note.
This could take some time.
Of course it's worth it. Beethoven endlessly worked at and corrected his music. It is in the spirit of LvB to care deeply enough about every little detail to spend hours polishing and correcting.
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