Tips for beginners struggles with practice - Part 2

Beginner Struggles with Piano Practice (Part 2)

Avoidance 

We need to move on to the more tangled topic of avoidance, the fear and not practicing. Most people enjoy their piano lessons with their teacher most people leave their piano lessons with all the intentions to practice and improve. Then life happens and practice didn't happen, a week goes by. Then you go to the next lesson apologize to the teacher for not practicing as you feel like you're wasting their time and you should have done more so you put guilt into the fear and you continue to not practice and not improve. You get frustrated disappointed in yourself and guilty you end up stopping lessons, wondering why we even thought you could try. Oh, dear this isn't how it’s supposed to go. 

Do not fear the fear do not despair this is normal you're confronted with an obstacle that was very difficult and you didn't know how to proceed. Well I'm here to help you arm yourself with the weapons that you need to tackle the frustration and the motivation that you need when learning an instrument for the first time. If it was easy everyone would be able to play the piano and we wouldn't have concert pianists. 

It’s all in your head

There are a few reasons why you would avoid practice they all really tie into what is called the fear (please see my two other blog entries on the fear here for further advice). The fear is all the negative thoughts and thought trains, that swirl around your head and stop you from practicing. They're the same negative thoughts that reason with you to cheat on a diet, to not go to the gym, to not answer that difficult work email, to leave that math problem till last, the list goes on.

So, the main problem with beginners (and this is for adults and children) is your self-awareness of want your beginner level is and what it sounds like. For younger children they seemed to take to instruments like a duck to water but this is because they aren't afraid of experimenting and “sounding bad” or  making a mistake, usually they have very little self-awareness which is a good thing I wish I could have that back. But for everyone else we are acutely aware of the gap between our abilities and what we hear on the radio, what are teacher sounds like and plays like, what are peers sound like and play like, and what other students that we may interact with sound like can play like that are in our age group. Disregard all others they are their own person and not to be comparing yourself to anyone else but yourself. 

In order to learn an instrument you have to be comfortable “not sounding good - professional” for a while, it's all part of the process of learning you need to learn the feel and touch of the piano and how to control each note, it takes time, and patience. The more important point is nobody cares that you that you don't sound like a concert pianist, it really is only you holding yourself to very high expectations, and then when you fail to meet those extremely high expectations you start to beat yourself up about it. 

There is nothing wrong with holding yourself to high expectations and reaching for the stars, however you have to be aware that you will fail, that is how you progress and if you don't take into account that your expectations are extremely high you're not giving yourself any room to even try. You will fail at the first hurdle because of your extremely high expectations, you don't sound as good as you hoped you would. This leads straight to the train of thought I failed I'm terrible I'm not a good person etc. etc. etc.. No teacher wants this, no student wants this and as you progress it's hard enough to try and make Mozart sound beautifully melodic and light, without comparing your performance to a concert pianist level. 

You have to think along the lines of - do I sound better than yesterday, last week, last month last year or even this morning? 

You need to train your brain into being positive and encouraging during your practice. Everyone needs to improve and move forward, there is always so much more to learn! 

If you have high expectations it can stop, you from even approaching or sitting down at the piano to practice it can be difficult to overcome those feelings. Those feelings stem from perfectionism, which is an element of the fear, you're afraid to even try because it won't be perfect, when you do practice you aren’t happy about it you feel you haven’t improved. However, that is unhelpful thinking, if you don't try and make mistakes you don't learn. 

Don't be afraid of the piano and making noise, it can be quite daunting to sit down at the piano and practice when other people are in the house or neighbours are around and know that they can hear you. Honestly this is an obstacle you can get over with headphones until your courage improves and yourself esteem at your abilities. If however you have an acoustic piano it makes noise a lot of it, but to be honest after playing the acoustic piano for a week or two it just kind of goes into background noise for everybody nearby no one is intently listening to you and judging you. So do not worry.

I do feel however that for beginners it is really important to sit down at the piano and just make noise get used to how loud it is how far you can reach play games in the piano by picking a spelled words that contain abcdefg and sound each note out on the piano like dad cabbage cab etc. . encourage yourself to make music in the key of C no sharps or flats. you can make a soundscape music which is really just like atmosphere music that's played in films or in spas or in TV shows. Explore the piano or a digital piano and all the dynamics it can make loud soft it can mimic violins or trumpet it really is a wonderful instrument and should be enjoyed regardless of ability. 

I hope these tips have helped anyone who is a beginner and struggling with practice. Best of luck in your practicing, and feel free to reach out to me through my contact details on the site if you wish to learn more, ask any questions, or if you’re interested in studying music with me at Truly Musical, Arklow, Co. Wicklow.