Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Your greatest frustration

Learning to play the piano is just another way of saying...you're going to experience more moments of frustration than you could think possible. :p

However, we all have our favorite (not sure this is the right word, but you know what I mean).

Mine is...after spending months of learning a piece, practicing it everyday religiously, putting every ounce of focus and determination into the task, we FINALLY are able to play it fairly well. How proud we are of ourselves!

So, we go on to learn something else and leave the other piece rest for a few days, a week or so, maybe. Just because we're kind of sick of it by this time. :rolleyes:

Then, we pull out the sheet music once again...just to keep it performance ready, only to discover that we have practically forgotten most of it. It's almost like we have to start all over again.

Argh!!!

What's yours?

Kathleen

I agree with you there, Kathleen!

My greatest frustration is when I first start learning a new piece. When I get a section learned fairly well, instead of pushing ahead and learning the other bits, I keep on playing the bit I already know.

My other frustrations are:
a) knowing it is going to be ages before I can play the Chopin Ballades
b) knowing it is going to be ages before I can afford a grand piano.

But I don't tend to focus too much on the negatives!

Never ever seeming to be able make it through a piece without making some sort of mistake and almost always losing it when I know someone is listening

Ditto to you Kathleen (by the time I posted 2 others had posted before me! )... and I'm experiencing that right now with my one of my old recital pieces!!!

Second, however, would be those songs that are physically challenging because of ackward reaches or very fast sections which are "clearly" impossible for anyone to play consistently until you practice it for a month straight and realize it is possible.

To echo the above...

"Memory rust" on pieces I've learnt. Very annoying because it means my repertoire never feels as big as I'd like it to.

Complete loss of skill when someone is listening to me play.

Getting stuck or making a mistake at the same place in a piece seemingly no matter how long I spend practicing it.

How slowly my sight reading seems to improve.

But then again...

How good it is when I successfully play a full piece from memory with little to no slip-ups.

How good it is once I warm up to having someone stood there and begin to relax and play almost as I normally do (playing in the piano shop was a good test of that).

How good it is when repeated hammering of the difficult section finally gets in and flows properly.

How good it is when I see that my sight reading is very slowly progressing and on the odd rare occasion I can sight read something from start to finish successfully.

There are so many positives to be found from the frustrations of piano playing if you look hard enough.

Oh I soo empathize with all of the above. Forgetting those pieces that took me months to learn, not being able to play pieces I "know inside out" without making a mistake - drives me crazy!! One additional is not being able to practice as much as I'd like and having to compete with the TV.

But isn't it so very cool when a piece that seemed, only a few months ago, to be too far out of reach suddenly isn't so scary? or when a piece finally comes together after weeks of struggling.

I haven't quite figured out how to prevent the first from occuring though.... I try to keep a fresh repertoire but it's hard to focus on newer more advanced pieces and still work on older ones.... too much music and such little time!!

Well, I've said this before. Before you select a piece to learn, it had better be one that you like, because you will have to play it over and over again. Plus, you have to continue to play it on a regular basis, or you will lose it.
Mike

Not being able to play worth a darn when that Red Dot is going...

I agree with all the above.

If you're not making mistakes you're not human.

How about finding that the guy who wrote that pretty piece of music was writting for a LH 10th when you can only reach a 9th?

Definitely Ditto to what Kathleen had said.

After spending so much time learning a piece and only to forget it afterwards is surely my No1 frustration.

I agree with all of the above but most of all I get frustrated when *stuff* happens and I can't practice for an extended period of time. A little over a year ago I was doing good, making progress and then we move half way across the country. We had to go into an apartment for 2 months first after we had sold our house so for at least 2 months no practicing at all. I was so upset that I had finally just gotten my skills back up to where I left off 25 years ago and of course the time off put me back quite a few paces.

Since then I've not had as big a gap but if work is super busy or the holidays come up etc etc and my work and being a mom of course have to come first I get very frustrated!

My frustrations??? All of the above and then some. Right now it is being born with small hands and wanting to play a piece that requires a span of 11 keys. Ugh. I know can roll the chord,but the one that frustrates me the most is marked FFF, and somehow rolling it instead of pounding it down with a resounding triple forte just doesn't cut it. Gaby Tu

I think I'll give this thread a couple of days, then I am going to post a list (you know, like the one David Letterman sometimes does). Starting with #10 and working up to #1. I'll do it by counting the number of times something is mentioned.

And we have to come up with a great name for it. Something like: To Be a Pianist is to Dread These. That isn't very creative. Maybe someone can come up with a more catchy phrase.

Kathleen

oooppsss, double post

My number one is....... tension.

Followed by .......OK, tension.

My brain understands relax, practice, and it will come. My hands buy in for the first few minutes, then take over. The harder I try to relax, well, you get the idea.

As far as a title, Kathleen, keeping the Letterman spirit, may I suggest "The Top Ten Reasons Why I Will Say NO if Carnigie Hall Calls"

I actually have no problems remembering pieces, even if I have not played them for quite awhile.

A big problem for meis getting through a blasted piece. The self-motivation to do this is just ridiculous.

Another problem is tension in the hands, as gmm1 said.

The worst problem I must overcome, though, is convincing myself that I can never become as good as I want to be. I've convinced myself of this many times, and I just flat out stop practicing. You know, when there are so many people who you know you can never become as good as, what's the point? I'm listening to Rubinstein give a flawless rendition of Chopin's E minor concerto, and I know I could never get that good. So I sit here and pout about it instead of getting on the friggen piano and practicing. *Sigh*, what am I supposed to do.

All of the above and reading Nancy333's post about her attempt to learn the Aolian Harp Etude - unsuccessful. I have it in a folder that says Patty's repertoire in 2014 - will I ever?

Patty

1. Not having the adequate technique to play a piece the way I can hear it in my head is probably my biggest frustration. This is particularly the case for slow pieces. Why do they seem so much harder to play than fast ones?!

2. I don't have a practice schedule that allows me to cover everything from technique, ear training, transposition, scales, chords, arpeggios, theory, sight reading. I can't cover all of these things in one practice session but I should able to work it out so that I practice some things a few times a week. I also would like to set up weekly or monthly goals for things that I want to accomplish.

3. Pedaling is a real challenge for me. Like it's not hard enough coordinating two hands that are moving independently, now I have to add one foot and eventually both feet. Not only do I have to learn when to press and release it, but I have to work on doing it silently. I keep making this KA-PLUNK sound when I press and release the pedal. A bit distracting, especially on slow pieces. It sounds like la la la la KAPLUNK la la la KAPLUNK la KAPLUNK la KAPLUNK :rolleyes:

My biggest frustration never being able to bring a piece of music up to "speed".

I'll practice like crazy every day with my tempo going up every day towards that "Allegro" tempo marking. A week or two later, I feel like I'm getting close. I can practice it nicely and accurately without the metronome. Two weeks later, I'm almost there... I shed the training wheels (metronome), and then crash and burn only to have to start over because the piece falls apart under my fingers! Where did all that work go?

Another frustration I have is starting a piano project only to be interrupted so much at that critical learning time that the piece ends up ship-wrecked forever! I also noticed that I seem to be interrupted in the same place every time too like someone is trying to tell me something!

I'm with you Soleil_nuage! I can hear all the Chopin Ballades, Scherzi, and Etudes running in my head, but to get the fingers to follow - HA what a joke!

John