Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Reversing notes and patterns

There's been a lot of talk about practise methods lately amongst different threads here in PW. I have a problem I'd like some opinion on. Very often, and I meant very often, I find I will reverse patterns in a piece. Things i know really well, or thought i did! It is very frustrating. On a string of 16 th's in Mozart or Bach or Beethoven instead of say ray, me, ray, I'll play ray, doh, ray. Or I'll turn a chord upside down, like instead of e with g it will be e with c. This still goes on after weeks of practising it out. I'll just do it in a different section! Am I going mad ! are the neurons crossing in my brain or what........ Maybe I never was diagnosed as dyslexic! Or maybe I just need a break!

Palmpirate, I actually am in that situation. These things were not out there when I was young, but when I studied learning disabilities in teacher training,I recognized things in myself. I had a hard time as a child with p q b d, and was forever confused whether to write on the red line or the blue line on the primer paper they give us. I have to turn maps upside down if traveling north to south and get disoriented in unfamiliar buildings. I could not follow the instructor in Tai Chi and wished I could face the same direction he was facing.

Originally I learned to play the piano as a child, and oriented by ear and by touch. Getting back to piano, looking at the keys was disorienting because of their symmetry. I gradually built up an association with their feel and sound. Higher and lower as sound don't confuse me, but left and right do.

I was just never aware of it. You compensate by using other senses, like looking away and listening or feeling, for example. I would not mix up Re Mi Re and turn it into Re Do Re if I'm familiar with the music because then sound takes over.

Hi keystring, Thanks for the reply.It is funny how a student doctor gets every sickness he learns about or a teacher, every learning disability discussed! If its there I more than compensate in real life and don't worry about it. It is just in my piano playing I'm frustrated with what I find myself doing. I agree that sound is no problem, but maybe its the mirror imaging I do like the pbqd thing for reading Just that I do it with notes on a stave. Perseverance usually pays off but it sure is hard work!

I have some questions that may help understand what the issue is:

Does this happen in pieces you've memorized too, or just with reading?

Does this happen when you play under tempo and totally focused, or only when you are playing up to tempo?

Are you "spacing out"/tired and relying upon muscle memory?

For me it's this.
In my defense though, usually I'm not spaced out or even tired, just focusing on something else. I already know that this means that I need to slow down in order to attend to all the relevant variables.

The most likely places for these errors to occur are in pieces with bits that are similar but not exactly the same.

This happens to me too, and then I have to either buckle down or decide not to practice at that moment. It happened today as I was playing through some Beethoven that I had worked on and then stopped playing for a while and decided to pick it back up. I guess I knew it better than I thought since my brain felt it could think about a person that had upset me. However, I had to forcibly put that person out of my mind otherwise my practice would be useless.

hard questions to answer. i dont think its with memorized pieces. 'just' reading? well its with pieces i know well and scan over the score.

not with under tempo. that's a for sure. but yes to when its up to tempo and i am focused - usually on a different 'point of alert' and then the 'other' falls apart. More practice needed

i think now. after reading responses and reflecting on it myself. it most likely is relying on muscle memory. that's when the wires get crossed I am pushing too hard and expecting too much!