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I've been reading some piano books from my local library, as well as some "practice tips" articles online, and it seems that a lot of them advocate the "Do it right from the beginning" theory when it comes to learning a piece.

While I do think it goes without saying that you should TRY to get it right as soon as possible, how on earth does one avoid making the inevitable mistakes?

For example, as an adult beginner I frequently forget my accidentals or hit the wrong key due to reading a note wrong. Sometimes at the end of the day when I'm quite tired, a whole series of wrong notes can pop out unawares. Oops!! :rolleyes:

I would love to hear anyone's input on this, as well as how successful it is/isn't.

Its waste of time to learn piece so well, that you could play it at performance level, except if you are going to become Horowitz 2.

But its good to learn piece well.

I've read this too and that statement always made me a little anxious thinking I could never make a mistake. Obviously we want to strive for accuracy but of course we will get notes wrong while we are learning.

I think the idea is not to committ any wrong notes to memory.

Also, if you make a certain mistake regulary you might want to mark that in your music as a reminder so when you get to it you will do it the right way.

I'd be tempted to agree with Green... it's going to be different for most of us but for me here is what I am aiming for when I look at pieces, Alfred books and outside..

1. Learn RH (Melody)
2. Learn LH (chords, accompliment)
3. Learn to put them both together
4. Learn the pedals and dynamics of the song
5. Practice and learn the "touch" of how to play it

Once I'm happy I can play it to a certain degree then I move on. As my journey continues I can see that I am going to be spending more of 4/5 on various pieces and I can't wait.

I'm just over 1/2 through learning Forest Gump (Feather) following the above, should have it down pretty soon and hopefully "touched" by Xmas when I go home..

Hi al_spinner,

You might want to check out _The Perfect Wrong Note_ by William Westney. There's plenty in that book to put to rest the "Don't make a mistake" myth of piano practice.

Both "the perfect wrong note" and "Improve your piano playing" give great tips. I don't have the author of the second book at the moment - maybe John Mellon?

A key point in perfect... Is that focusing too hard on not making any mistakes can increase tension. The trick is to identify and solve the problems causing the mistakes as early on as is possible.

Playing the piano has a rhythm to it. I like to compare it to walking. If something in the road (piece) trips me, I learn to recover and keep going. I feel the same challenges with a piano. I try to keep a steady rhythm where I feel secure. I don't stop and fret over a wrong note.

There is a excellent book, "improvising, How to Master the Art" by Gerre Hancock. He has two practice tips that apply here.

1. Never stop, keep playing.
2. Remember salvation from hitting a wrong note is only a half step away.

In jazz wrong notes are call improvisation.

Serge

Practice and playing/performance are two different things. As a consequence, mistakes should be dealt with in different ways, too.

In practice one should strive not to practice mistakes, i.e. to learn a piece as accurately as possible (taking care of rhythm, notes, accidentals, key signatures etc.) Mistakes should be analysed and corrected immediately.

In playing, mistakes will occur, too. As others have already pointed out, one should not bother too much and let the nagging inner voice take reign, but keep playing instead.

Another vote for: _The Perfect Wrong Note_ by William Westney - awesome book!

I understand the principle of not practicing things wrong, but I think the way it comes across is really detrimental for some of us (like me!) - I'm already a tense, stressed out, perfectionistic mess - I hesitate too much because I worry that I'll make a mistake and I want to "get it right". To me, the idea of "you MUST get it right or you'll ruin the piece forever!" is REALLY counterproductive.

I do see the value in trying to get it right from the start (to not confuse your muscle memory) - but for me personally, too much focus on getting everything perfect all the time... is just not helpful.

saerra, I can understand your comment, really!

But, there are many piano students who are more scientific or mathematical in nature (consider them the accountants, the engineers, the launchers of things NASA, the builders of airplanes, the jigsaw, crossword, suduko (spelling?).

While being so very cautious is someone's best game, it would be someone else's frustration.

Another thing counterproductive that you mentioned is, to me, the elusive field of "perfectionism". I could scream, but I don't when all the interruptions of a perfectionist keeps a musician from making progress. THey just have to agonize about every step they take.

Somewhere is the risk taker who plays, assesses what he observed, knows how to fix it, and does. Then he goes on the the next occurance of a mistake. It's like he has a fly swatter, swings when needed and says "Got it!"

Getting it right from the start can happen without the anxiety - it's just allowing your self to move more slowly through the formative getting acquainted part of the music, the observation of the difficulty factor.

Getting it right from the start is also allowing yourself to make make mistakes without dramatizing their existance. Noticing them is enough. On the next pass, you give your attention to the problem area and work it out more carefully in your mind and fingers.

On to productivity with a little bit of adjustment to what you allow yourself to think when you are practicing.

And done forget to praise the good, smooth moves you do - maybe even with a grin. SOme of my younger elementary students burst out in self applause when they know they have played a song well, and boy do they get enthusiastic when they think they did a super job on it.

William Westney's "The Perfect Wrong Note" is subtitled "Learning to Trust Your Musical Self".
He also proposes you will set your own musicality free from reading and following his writing.

"The Perfect Wrong Note" is $17.95 from:
www.halleonard.com
It is listed as an essential book for piano teachers in the advertising. It is more directed to classical study, performers, teachers, and students working on higher levels of music.

It probably is not meant for someone in early study of piano where there is still much learning of basic skills and notational reading foundations being developed.

There is a "mindset" to piano study that "serious" students reach, then they are ready for the next steps which are usually about intellectual understanding and details of using the self - mind - body to enhance your piano performance. The contents of lessons and books such as this "mindset" require would add to confusion, I think. When you are ready for this level, everything written will make sense to you and be helpful, or it will be near understanding.

That's why so many books have primary, preparatory, early elementary, elementary, late elementary, early intermediate, intermediate, late entermediate, advancing, professional labels on the books.

This run though of levels always reminds me of Julio Gallo saying "No wine before it's time!"

Did you find some things to enjoy or inspire you in his book?

I haven't read it yet.

Betty

I keep telling myself "Go slow and you will go fast". Since we rely on muscle memory it is important to repeat the right movements, otherwise the muscles will remember the wrong ones (or remember nothing at all). To do this I always practice at a very slow tempo. Then it is only :rolleyes: a matter of repeating it at a manageable tempo and everythig will speed up as muscle memory takes care of the rest.

During this process there are always parts that cause "problems". As soon as I have identified them (there are many) I isolate each part and practice it separately until it feels more natural. This is the way I play the guitar as well, and guitar and piano teachers have pointed out to me the importance of going slow enough.

How picky one wants to be is a personal choice. However - expecting perfection or something close to it will probably at some point take away the joy. I never force myself to practice. If I'm not sure I sit down and fool around with the keys for a couple of minutes. If I'm in the mood I get caught in it, if I'm not I find something else to do.

Until I can play well at my preferred tempo I constantly fight the urge to go too fast and sometimes I give in . But based on my experience it is true - go slow and you will learn faster.

Not sure this is a good response to the OP, but I felt like sharing my experience.

spin
I dont know what books and on-line references you have seen but a common theme that I see from time to time is the idea that a single mistaken note is to be avoided at all cost because - and I have to fill in here because the reason is never very clearly stated - because somehow that note gets imprinted into your brain circuitry and it will be a big effort to undo it.

If that is the line of reasoning behind this 'perfect every time' fetish I have to say that it does not correspond with my experience at all. In the initial stages of learning a piece I try to hit the right notes but I don't become overly concerned if I hit a few klunkers. The errors help me find out where my trouble spots are because usually those errors happen repeatedly. Most often they can be corrected by a change of fingering or getting an errant finger out of the way in time or something like that.

After several weeks of repeat practicing and drilling the errors gradually become corrected. My hands have learned to feel the passages correctly.

It is only in the late stages of playing a piece where my focus is on playing from beginning to end and getting the melodic and harmonic lines singing and expressive that I aim for no errors. At that point the momentum of the musical expression seems to sweep everything along with itself and the notes take care of themselves - based upon weeks of correct practicing.

I dont think the brain operates on this 'perfect every time fallacy'. WHen my daughter was learning to walk she certainly spent months taking mis-steps and falling and wobbling but that did not get imprinted. She DID learn to walk and I wonder of all the errors helped her brain sort out the algorithms it needed to walk correctly and effortlessly.

Not to mention the level of anxiety that such a high bar would place one you would seem to kill any enjoyment of what you are doing, and also stifle any creative or expressive elements that would come along later.

Well I have read it, and I wouldn't really say it's directed to those working "on higher levels of music", or that it's not meant for someone in early study of piano. William Westney says who it's for in his preface:

Whether you are a student (of any instrument including the voice, at any developmental point from beginner to advanced), a teacher, a parent, a professional musician, or an ex- or would-be musician of any age...

He addresses the situations of child beginners, adult beginners, all the way to professional performers. Not everyone will agree with him, especially if your ideas of how things should be done are fairly fixed, but I think especially for adult beginners what he says can be transforming. I can understand how saerra found it helpful.

Thanks Schubertian, you said what I was thinking much more elegantly re: anxiety caused by thinking you can not make a mistake.

And the example about your daughter (great example!) is the type of thing that Westney describes in his book. (He also talks about babies learning to feed themselves, and how at first - they are just as likely to get the food on their nose as in their mouth - but the body's feedback system corrects for it, and eventually their aim improves!)

Alot of what I got from the book was - piano has a physical component, like a sport, and our bodies have to do physical learning. Rather than beating ourselves up when we make mistakes, or thinking we shouldn't have made them ("I practiced that all week, how could I mess it up now?!") - we should relax and trust that our bodies our doing what they need to to sort out the physical information.

And that *sometimes* we may even need mistakes to learn what we're doing.

Maybe not for everyone, but I found it useful.

Nicely put Akvarn and welcome to the forum. I think there is a little cross talk going on here i.e it is the making not the mistake that's the problem. If you don't fix that (its cause) the mistake will either repeat or surface elsewhere.

Thanks.

I'll make sure it's on my read list.

I was listing from a page of advertising in Oct/Nov 2008 American Music Magazine and the wording led me to believe that it is not a beginner read....

So, I'll have to set myself straight before I feel comfortable recommending it again.

Thank you currawong, and saerra.

Betty

Hm. saerra says she's tense/a perfectionist about making wrong notes, so, with the word "but" I can't quite tell if Betty means that folks with scientific, etc, natures are also perfectionists, or if she thinks they're different, and don't sweat the wrong notes.

So I'll check in as someone who is 5 out of the 8 things Betty mentions, and, in performance, I don't sweat the wrong notes The point for me, as several other folks above say, is to play right thru the "wrong notes", such as they are. I do, indeed, try to practice to the point I am extremely familiar with the sound/shape of my piece, but fortunately, the kind of music I play not only doesn't require note perfect, it's considered to be good form to play a piece differently each time through. It's one of the (many) reasons that I don't prefer classical - temperamentally I am much more improvisational.

So I'm on the side of "practice to do as well as you can on your type of music, but make music, not 'every note the right note'."

Cathy