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Hey

This piece is what I have been working on for the last year. I'll probably never get it ready and this recording is full of wrong and missing notes and I even turned into a wrong passage at the end, but I'm not a pro, so who cares? Playing piano is fun! And this piece is even on the top of it!

Presto non tanto from Chopin's third Sonata

Hints and tricks are welcome!

Daniel,
Great job on a very difficult piece- would you consider submitting this for the Chopin Spring 2010 e-cital?
Chopin Spring 2010 e-cital

I guess I don't understand the attitude that because you are "not a pro," it doesn't matter that the recording is "full of wrong and missing notes" ... and even "a wrong passage at the end." Pro or amateur, should we not continue to work at being faithful to the text rather than dismissing our inaccuracies with "so who cares?"

What do you mean " This piece is even on the top of it."? On the top of what?

Regards,

Hi Daniel M,

You're off to a good start with this piece. May I suggest that you practice at a slower tempo. This will help you keep the rhythmic pulse of the piece, line up your left and right hands better, increase your accuracy, and let you pay more attention to the small details.

It is obvious that you love this piece and enjoy playing it. With some focus on the details, I believe you will master this piece to your full satisfaction. And please do consider submitting it to the Chopin Spring 2010 E-cital.

We do.

If you're looking for support, encouragement, admiration, or validation for what you've achieved, then you're asking us to care about you and what you've accomplished.

If you're not looking for any of those things, then why are you asking us to give up our time and attention to listen and respond?

You said hints or tricks are welcome, so here's one to chew on:

If you want to improve, then you need to start caring about what you do. If this piece is on the top of anything, then it's on the top of a world where attention is earned, not given.

Get to work. Enter the e-cital. Get involved. Keep posting. And be passionate about what you do. Care about what you do. Care about what others think.

Bruce and Kreisler- is it possible that you're taking the phrase "..so who cares" just a bit too seriously and literally?? Nuances of language can get lost in translation. I don't know if that's what happened here, but my goodness: why not give the benefit of the doubt?
Just my opinion.

Hey, Bruce.



I think, it's ok to show others how you have failed playing a work of someone else. Going into the wrong passage is a part of that failing: I am not yet able to play this piece and I am that distracted by caring about my fingers, that I don't even realize, that I have turned into a wrong passage.
I do not owe anyone anything, I don't get paid for playing flawlessy and there is no reputation for me to lose.
I am not a professional, so who cares, that I failed?



In my opinion it is independent of being a professional or not:
As long as you do not claim, that a creator wanted his work to be in a way he actually doesn't want it to be, and as long as you give him credit by mentioning, that you took ideas from his works, it is good to do anything with it you want to.
You may even completely destroy this piece as long as you don't claim wrong things about his intention and give him credit by mentioning the sources, that you worked with.

If you don't really destroy this piece and the author is clever, he might even thank you for spreading his name and for the free advertising, although you might not have matched his opinions completely, because a good audience will scent a great original composition behind it while listening to a possibly worse variation.

When we claim to play a piece in that way the author wants it to be, then, I agree, we should be faithful to the text.



It's on the top of the list of pieces that guarantee fun!



Kreisler, I am looking for support.

Of course, in many aspects you cannot see how I want my interpretation to be, while I am playing much faster than my fingers could follow in any way, but you can very well see, which phrases I am technically unable to manage. You couldn't see them if I played it in a way I can manage it.
So I don't think it's a contradiction playing much too fast while asking for hints.



Chardonnay, heidiv and Kreisler, thank you for sending me the link to the project!

I am thinking about participating (with a serious playing @BruceD ), but I don't know, if this piece is not too difficult for me, and apart from music there are lot of other things in that time I, that I will have to finish first.
Perhaps I'll join in after some exams in fall.

Daniel M.,

You have said: "I think, it's ok to show others how you have failed playing a work of someone else. Going into the wrong passage is a part of that failing: I am not yet able to play this piece and I am that distracted by caring about my fingers, that I don't even realize, that I have turned into a wrong passage.

I do not owe anyone anything, I don't get paid for playing flawlessy and there is no reputation for me to lose.

I am not a professional, so who cares, that I failed?"

You also said you have spent the last year on this piece, yes?

Daniel, You should care. Why does the word failure keep appearing in your posting? You are using it as though failing means nothing. If what you are doing to study and learn this piece is not working for you by producing success in your playing what will you have to do to change things around for yourself?

I don't understand "bragging" about failing. I also don't understand why you would recognize that there are problems in your playing and you have not stopped to fix them. Every time you play the piano you are patterning your brain to repeat the same that you just entered into it. Like a computer, your output equals your input.

I think you are being hasty and undisciplined. I also think you could turn this around by stopping work on this piece and working on other pieces that are new to you - pieces that you have the possibility of learning carefully and accurately. You need more experience in making music and getting good results. To have spent so much time and to not be able to play it very well and to be proud of your time and effort does not seem productive to me. Are you interested in accomplishment?

To be honest, I haven't listened to your piece. What you have said about yourself and your "failure" has really turned me off to wanting to know or hear more. Although I am usually very interested in helping others from my piano teaching perspective, I don't see the possibility of that because of how you are presenting yourself and your music here. You seem to be mocking all of us in jest. That's my opinion which may be more severe than those of your contemporaries because of the generation difference between you and me.

Has your attitude and approach to this music during the past year been helpful to you? Or, has it been part of the problem? And, are you completely satisfied to date with the set of experiences you have had and the outcome?

Daniel, if your goal is to have fun and enjoy playing the piano for its own sake, then good for you! No need to focus on "getting it right" for others approval.

However, if you do want to "get it right" you might want to take some of the suggestions offered here.

OK, I think you're really misunderstanding Daniel here, and it's probably the language thing, though I wish my German was half as good as Daniel's English. It's the word failure. I believe Daniel is just saying that he has failed to play the piece perfectly - which we could all say about all of our performances, couldn't we?

I don't think this is a language issue. I mean, the OP is brushing off his mistakes with the excuse of not caring because he is not a professional. Understandingly, we all make mistakes, but it is our duty as fellow pianists to instill in him the virtue that regardless of ones position, from an elementary piano student to a world-renowned concert pianist, that one must do one's best to strive for perfection and mastery of a piece.

Why strive for perfection?

I certainly do my best, and I work hard, but I'm striving for a musical result, not perfection.

I realise that people are trying to encourage a serious attitude in the OP. I'm all for a serious attitude. But I still think there's a possibility you've misunderstood him to some extent. I took his "who cares" to be somewhat self-deprecating, and not literal. But of course I could be wrong. After all, I'm not perfect

I am relating to this posting of Daniel M. from Germany in the way that I understand him to have stated his situation. There, of course, if the possibility of misunderstanding, and if so, I hope Daniel will respond to clear this up between us.

(There is currently also a Daniel M in Washington State who is a new adult student and has begun reading and posting here, so it is easy to confuse the name. The attitudes between the two Daniels are entirely different from reading their postings today. One, ready to begin, is very interested in communication with his teacher and in making progress. The other, in Germany, has spent a year on a piece and seems satisfied that he can play it, although there are "problems" with it, or he would not be using the word "failing".)

If I were the teacher of either man, I would have in myself an expectation that I would do my very best to instill helpful information, techniques, exercises, skills to prepare them for the music they ultimately wish to take on. I would feel obligated to correct their mistakes, demonstrate patience, helping them to find progress and success in their lessons. The pace would be theirs to take as far as how much preparation they could do between lessons. But, I would expect to be heard in suggestions and assignments given and that should I fail to be heard by them, and their future musicianship was ready to be sacrificed because of immaturity or being headstrong, I would detach myself from further lessons. I don't want their money if I cannot deliver what they are looking for. I have a commitment to doing my best teaching job at all times. That is all I have to offer and it is usually good enough to effect changes, progress, cooperation and success with the person I am working with.

I don't have a quest for perfection as I don't believe it exists except in a neurotic way. I would prefer to call it a pursuit of excellance.

If there are teachers teaching who profess differently you are all welcome to make your choices. But, I couldn't live with myself if I was not able to provide what is needed in the teaching situation. Whether the student wants to hear that or not is his choice. The reason why I would suggest they transfer elsewhere would be because neither the teacher nor the student will be successful in an adversarial situation. Winning happens when both are going in the same direction together.

Those who are so casual in teaching seem to be saying that what happens at lessons doesn't matter all that much. The adult student is in the lesson slot but there are no responsibilites or outcomes as to anything specific being accomplished. There seems to be a complete openness to what occurs in lessons with no accounting of either person to the other at any time.

Have I gone too far in saying that? This is what I'm understanding from reading this topic. I would hope that is not being said.

I agree.

It is obvious that he does care enough to get as far as he has (which is admirable) and has persevered for a year. It can't be very encouraging to get this sort of response, when the request was for more ideas (implying a desire and willingness to improve), not for patronizing lectures about attitude. Those should get saved for the people who really deserve them, not someone who has clearly already done a lot of work.

I agree too.

But as for what Betty said:I'm afraid I don't follow you. Who are these "who are so casual in teaching" who have said anything like this?

I already found myself sharing the concerns raised by Chardonnay and currawong, but this statement by wr sums up precisely how I feel. I'm genuinely dismayed and dispirited by much of what I've read in this thread.

Steven

My response wasn't a patronizing lecture about attitude, it was a serious suggestion. It's obvious he's done a lot of work, and it's obvious he's successfully learned a very difficult piece of literature.

At this level of playing, general tips and tricks are no longer helpful. Perfecting highly advanced literature like this means working out specific details, addressing the performer's unique technical issues, and training the ear to guide the work.

Sometimes I think people believe very accomplished players play well because they have a wealth of tips, tricks, hints, and practice techniques at their disposal. I don't think people realize that, quite often, the difference between a very accomplished player and a sloppy amateur is nothing more than the attitude with which they attack their practicing.

Someone asked a few weeks ago about practice routines of concert pianists. I replied that I didn't think the routines were all that different, but that the degree of patience, tenacity, and intensity was.

The original poster of this thread needs to make that jump.

So I'll restate what I said before, but in a way that leaves no room for misinterpretation as a patronizing lecture:

Dear Daniel M,

Based on what you've said so far, and based on my experience with hundreds of students over the years, the single thing that will help you the most is to stop thinking of yourself as an amateur and start thinking of yourself as an ARTIST.

And finally, if you were my student, I'd give you one simple assignment:

Go get a dictionary and look up "non tanto." The answer to a lot of your problems relies on you understanding those two words that Chopin writes at the very beginning. (In fact, this is the exact same assignment given to us by John Perry at the Aspen Music Festival one year.) Think about why Chopin wrote those two words. Why didn't he just write "Presto?" And what exactly is the difference between "Presto non tanto" and "Allegro?"

WHAT AN AWESOME THREAD!!!!!!!

I think that seeking "hints and tricks"—in the words of a non-native speaker of English—can be read simply as a prosaic request for general suggestions. To that extent, the suggestion to work harder is one of the "hints and tricks" that can be recommended.

Presumptions that imply we know more about other people than they know themselves are bound to seem condescending, and I don't believe that playing for "fun" implies lack of artistry in approach or attitude. The difference between an accomplished player and a "sloppy amateur" might be as much in the eye of the beholder and the ear of the critic as anywhere else; when a musician endeavors to play with skillfulness yet has no wish to become or to emulate a pro, the OP's rhetorical question "Who cares?" makes sense to me—provided one can accept that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Steven