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I have one note, played by my pinky, that I cannot seem to un-practice out the mistake. I have tried playing that part over and over, and I seem to get it right, and then the next time, my finger just slams back into that key. I literally yelled at my pinky today, pointed at it angrily, and called it a "stupid pinky" and I'm not sure that was effective either.
How many times do I need to practice it right before it will get in my head? Just give me a starting number and I'll go from there. I realize it's going to depend on a lot of things, but just throw me something here so I have some hope. Is playing just those two bars enough or should I be practicing more/less of the chunk? There's a difficult fingering right immediately before the mistake (I have to hit three eighth notes on the same key, LRL hand) that seems to take all of my mental energy, which is why I seem to have none left for the mistake.
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Practice the pinky note all by itself until you can do it several times in a row correctly. Practice the note before the pinky note + the pinky note until you can do it several times in a row correctly. Practice the measure before + the pinky note until you can do it several times in a row correctly.
Go slow enough that you don't mess it up. If you mess it up when you try to speed up, then slow down again. There is no "how many times..." It takes as long as it takes.
Consider changing the fingering for the whole section.
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Hi Sara I talk to my fingers all the time, but they never seem to listen. My teacher has suggested the following, which seems to help me a lot. Start with the smallest fragment: Which in your case would be the one note immediate before the error and the error note. Practice until you get those two notes exactly right, then start with the two notes before the problem note plus the error note. Repeatedly practice until is correct time after time after time. Proceed this way until you have the entire phrase.
I’ll give you an example of something I’m working on where this has really helped: a three note chord Jumping to a five note chord. My fingers just didn’t want to find the notes in the five note chord. So she had me break it down into the top note of each chord, then the top two notes of each, then the bottom notes of each Until I worked my way up to complete chord to complete chord.
I don’t know about you, but I know what I consider to be slow practice is really not slow enough. So I would advise Forcing yourself to really really really practice slow. I know I can be an impatient child, but this takes patience. Hope This makes sense
Last edited by dogperson; 02/08/18 09:26 AM.
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Without seeing you play, and without seeing the music, the answer to your question will be a general answer, because there may be problems in your playing that are contributing to the problem, so this is a bit of a stab in the dark.
But in general, play starting with that 3 eighth notes, followed by the problem note with the 5th finger, and no more.
Play those extremely slowly...say "one thousand" for each note. (I have yet to see a student really play something super-slow when asked...most hardly slow down at all, and some actually play faster! Thats why saying one thousand will slow things down enough.)
Do this in a very relaxed manner (you have probably "practiced in" tension at that spot, in your hand and in your body, so consciously practice it out).
After playing the 3 1/8 notes, and you get to the note for the 5th finger, pause and then play it deliberately and with more force...as if to play it louder. That sends a very clear and strong memory signal to your brain regarding that note, and the body movements necessary to play it, and helps to over-write the mistake memory).
Verbally out loud say the name of that note as you play it.
The idea is to completely isolate the problem, and be very clear and focused about playing that spot correctly.
Do this 5X then stop, and leave the piano. Do not practice anything else at that time. Let your brain have one thing only to absorb.
Do this several times a day, without practicing anything else during that time.
Blues and Boogie-Woogie piano teacher.
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Dogperson and I cross-posted.
Blues and Boogie-Woogie piano teacher.
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OK these are great suggestions. I will try doing a much smaller chunk and I will try to do it more frequently through the day as Rocket88 has suggested. Finding time here and there to practice a small section is easier than big practice times.
This piece is really important because I will be playing it at a music festival.
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Just came back from my lesson. My teacher basically said exactly what you guys said, and also added that you can't get it right and just expect the next day for it to still be right. Which makes sense. It took me weeks to learn it wrong. Oh and on top of all that. One of the other notes in that phrase is supposed to be flat and I was playing that wrong too. So I have a lot of work to do in that bar!!
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It could be that your pinky is trying to tell you something. Not sure how the previous fingering is working but is there any possibility of changing that? Just a thought.
Yamaha U1A, Roland LX706
South Wales, UK
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I have one note, played by my pinky, that I cannot seem to un-practice out the mistake. I have tried playing that part over and over, and I seem to get it right, and then the next time, my finger just slams back into that key. I literally yelled at my pinky today, pointed at it angrily, and called it a "stupid pinky" and I'm not sure that was effective either............ Oh, if only the shaming technique worked.... +1 for the suggestions to work on the problem note and add the preceding notes one by one. The suggestion to change the fingering, if reasonable, is good, too. Repeatedly hitting the wrong note can be a message that the fingering isn't quite right.
Yamaha C3X In summer, the song sings itself. --William Carlos Williams
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What Malkin and Dogperson said is very effect. "Backward practising" - where you start with your problem note; then work backward always to that problem note. Give it your utmost attention. Also, instead of having say a session of an hour, visit this problem note and the notes that come before many times during the day for five minutes with full attention. In between "let go", trust that it's happening, don't worry about it -- later revisit, with full attention. The body-mind connection is wondrously designed if we allow it to do its job.
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Not applicable because you need to have this ready soon, but what works for me is to put the piece aside for a few months. Come back to it and work on the problem bars first. Re-activating the correct parts of the memory is easier than learning from scratch, and letting the errors fade makes them easier to replace.
-- J.S. Knabe Grand # 10927 Yamaha CP33 Kawai FS690
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Not applicable because you need to have this ready soon, but what works for me is to put the piece aside for a few months. Come back to it and work on the problem bars first. Re-activating the correct parts of the memory is easier than learning from scratch, and letting the errors fade makes them easier to replace.
Hmm - John. Maybe not applicable because she needs it soon?!
Yamaha U1A, Roland LX706
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Normally I'd slow the piece down to over 50% and stop just before the mistake. Play it right a few times and connect the section before & after. Bring the tempo back up gradually. Anytime you get a mistake slow it down again.
Some of the time if the fingering of a few notes gets a bit awkward, I'd change the fingering to something easier to get from 1 sequence to another.
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Just came back from my lesson. My teacher basically said exactly what you guys said, and also added that you can't get it right and just expect the next day for it to still be right. Which makes sense. It took me weeks to learn it wrong. This is a good point to discuss. One of the biggest challenges that pianists face is to develop the ability to notice problem sections in the music before they get solidified by practicing them in. And not only notice those problems as they manifest, but also have the where-with-all to stop everything, isolate them from the music, and fix them before they become habits. Took me a long time to recognize the need for to do that. Hope all goes well sara elizabeth with your performance.
Blues and Boogie-Woogie piano teacher.
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I had a problem like this once. I got myself one of those rigid wooden rulers, and a plate full of chocolate chip cookies. Every time I made the mistake, I rapped my knuckles with the ruler; when I played it right, I let myself eat a cookie. After a while, my knuckles were all red and raw, and all the cookies were still on the plate. I got so disgusted, I just gave up and ate all the cookies. Then I was feeling really good, which changed my outlook and musical judgment, which led me to the conclusion that my way of playing it was every bit as good as the original, and no one would know the difference. Problem solved!
On the day of reckoning, however, everyone noticed the difference.
Ok, ok, I'm kidding.
I do find it almost impossible to unlearn a mistake that I have practiced repeatedly. For me, it may not be time well spent. In that case, I just decide to consider it a lesson learned and relearned - namely: avoid practicing mistakes.
Ed
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Hi Ed I do agree that unlearning a mistake is much more difficult than learning it correctly the first time, but if I did not persevere in working through the correction, I would have little music that I could play .... No matter how carefully I try to learn it accurately the first time, there’s always some nagging note, or some finger that won’t behave, that makes me scream ‘ why didn’t I see that before now? ‘
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Hahaha Ed. It's annoying because I knew the mistake was starting to get learned in, and I tried to stop it. I have that note circled on the page, then squared, now it say's "don't move finger" under it, and in the bar before it says "look ahead". Alas I still managed to play it wrong enough times to get it in there. And the A flat, well I didn't even know it was wrong. My teacher just noticed that one today. In any case, I've already started implementing your suggestions. So far I've made a little progress. The real test will be time.
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Good advice here, e.g. about looking carefully at the transition from the previous note. I'll add, though, that rather than just playing it over and over slowly, it can be helpful to try to analyze what motions are leading to the mistake. There's a specific physical habit involved, and often if you can identify this and change it, you can re-direct the brain and body into the right path.
My teacher is great at this because he's had special training in analysis of motion. It's hard to do it by yourself, because often the mistake will only happen at speed and it's hard to observe carefully while you're busy playing. Here are some likely suspects that often come up in my world of errors: not landing solidly on the note before; having the hand too far in or out in relation to the fallboard on the previous note (this is especially likely to cause errors in which you play a black key instead of a white or vice versa); incorrect shaping of the phrase (which would leave the hand too far up or down on the previous note); awkward fingering choices.
Good luck with it!
1989 Baldwin R
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Practice correctly and eat the cookies.
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Also stop trying to play through the piece at tempo until you fix the tricky bit. If you can play the rest of it, go ahead, but skip the place where you mess up. It is important to stop doing the old wrong automatic thing.
Learner
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