Concentration, Visualization & Mistakes

Hi Alan, I purchased your DVD and I am enjoying it very much. Thank You! I started studying piano at the age of 15. I studied for five years with a student from the McGill Conservatory in Montreal. I had to stop once I began my university studies in Commerce. I am now 40 years old, and a father of two young children. I work in the Information Technology business which requires me to spend many hours of overtime at work and constant learning in trying to keep up with changes in technology. Time is a rare commodity for me. I spend time at the piano whenever I can, but not as much I would really like. Not enough for me to ever achieve virtuoso status. Q1: Given my time constraints, I strive to make the most of my time at the piano. My piano teacher had introduced me to a book titled "Piano Technique". It is actually a compilation of two books: "The Shortest Way to Pianistic Perfection" and "Rythmics, Dynamics, Pedal and Other Problems of Piano Playing", based on teachings of Walter Gieseking and Karl Leimer. Have you read these books, and what is your opinion of them. I do recognize some similarities in their methods and what you teach in your DVD. They place a lot of emphases on visualization as a means of mastering piano works quickly. It is more difficult than it sounds. I find it takes a lot of mental discipline. Are you a proponent of this approach? Q2: I recently finished studying a piece from Mendelssohn (“Meditation” from Songs Without Words) which I have practised for several months now. I am frustrated with making new mistakes each time I play the piece. My mistakes are never the same. Is it a question of poor concentration? If I force myself to think of each note as I play, I find my playing to be stiff and mechanical. If I let my feelings take over, my mind wanders off and I start thinking about life’s events – which actually gives my playing more feeling, but it may also be the cause of making mistakes. When you play, what are you thinking about? Do you actually visualize the notes and are you aware of each individual note that you are about to play (whether fast or slow), or does your mind reflect on events inspired by the music and your fingers are working in auto-pilot? I hope these questions make sense. Regards, Giovanni

Hello Giovanni, Welcome to the Forum, fellow Montrealer! Your questions are very much to the point. 1) I am very familiar with the Geiseking/Leimer books and admire them highly. And yes, visualization is extremely difficult, demanding a really significant investment of mental effort. That's why it works! 2) This is a more complex question. a) I am glad you make different mistakes each time. If you made the same ones, it would mean you learned it wrong at the beginning and now cannot break the habit. But this is a much more interesting problem. Moshe Feldenkrais observed that making mistakes is an essential part of learning. It's as if the brain NEEDS the 'wrong' versions in order to have something to compare the right version to. Only then can it understand that the 'right' one is indeed right. This is for me a fascinating neurological process. I have stopped getting angry when my student plays it right and then immediately muffs the repetition. I see that his/her brain needed that. However I don't know if this is what's going on with you. b) When I play, I don't let my mind wander. But I don't just think about the text - what actual note to play. Instead I think about the sound, the colour, the phrase intention and contour. The feel of the music, but in pragmatic, practical, measurable terms. In other words, I . The meaning of this word becomes ever richer over time, and the experience of listening becomes deeper and broader. Auto-pilot is a musical myth, but mechanical note production is a musical death! Develop your listening to overcome this problem. AFF

This topic brings up a very important issue, regarding the nature of mistakes and how they fit into practice. There are some musicians who insist that you must overpractice the difficult passages, learning them at 150% instead of 100%. They say that you must practice well beyond the point where you feel secure with the passage. The rationale behind that kind of practice is that if you overpractice, you will know the passage so well that no matter what happens on stage- no matter how bad a day you may be having- you can feel secure that the passage will work. There are other musicians who believe that overpracticing does more harm than good, as it can solidify bad habits. Some people believe that practicing a passage three times correctly is preferable to practicing it nine times correctly and one time incorrectly. Supposedly, in the former instance, only the correct way would be ingrained in your muscle memory, while in the latter instance, both the correct way and the incorrect way would be part of your muscle memory- which may cause you to revert to the incorrect way at times. Even among great musicians, there seem to be contradictory reports regarding styles of practice. Heifetz allegedly practiced very efficiently, never more than three hours. I have heard contradictory reports about Horowitz' practice time. In one interview from the 1930's, he was quoted as saying that he practices for four hours a day, but he allegedly told Byron Janis (in the 1940's) that he practices for two hours a day. However, one friend claimed that when Horowitz would play the Tchaikovsky Concerto in Bb minor, he would practice octaves for six months: six hours a day for six days a week. Another friend claimed that Horowitz would spend five or six hours practicing two measures from a Chopin Mazurka. Do you think that Horowitz may have been underrepesenting his practice time (as some musicians are prone to do)? Which style of practice do you think is best- the overpracticing (e.g. six hours of octaves) or the "efficient" route (e.g. three correct repetitions as opposed to nine correct and one inoorrect repetition)? Perhaps six hours of octave practice is what is needed to play octaves like Horowitz.

Even when he practiced 6 hours he did not do so mechanically. He always did it with awareness. Thus he would never build bad habits into his muscle memory. Unfortunately it is more often NINE incorrect and one correct rather than vice versa. So, in a nutshell: 1) Awareness is needed. 2) Repetition is needed - WITH AWARENESS. AFF