In my Adult Piano Pedagogy class, we have been asked to journal our performance prep process. So I thought I’d post it here, as it’s pretty good blog fodder.
I’ve known for about a week that next Tuesday, I’ll be playing a piece in class, knowledge which hasn’t really sunk in, I don’t think, since it hasn’t pushed me to spend more time on the first movement of the Beethoven Sonata I’m preparing.
On the other hand, this could be a good thing, as in the past, the idea that I’ll be performing would have nagged at me, perhaps to no benefit. Performances have always entailed some sort of competition, even if only with myself, to play as perfectly as possible. At some point during the Rome summer program, I began to see the process of performing as a continuous job, much like other jobs I’ve had. That is, I work at it, and sometimes, I have to give a presentation. The presentation makes me anxious and excited, but at some point I just let it go and allow the “show” to come out however it will at the given time.
So I find that my practice sessions so far have not been significantly different. I’ve gone through the technically challenging parts and have played through the piece to get a better sense of overall direction. The only change I have made so far has been a conscious decision, this morning, to pay close attention to the sound and feel of sections that I am simply not convinced by. These sections tend to occur in transitional areas where one section or idea ends and another begins. Here, the challenge for me is to satisfyingly conclude a “scene” with an appropriate segue to the next. This segue, however, is frequently a momentary silence. The quality of the breath between these sections can be a challenge to pull off, as it requires a pulling back of physical energy that must be reintroduced appropriately, accounting for the mood and character of the next scene. The technical choreography involved is complicated. How do you momentarily silence momentum without stopping it?
This problem actually changed my practice plan. I had only meant to play through the movement with extra attention to unconvincing (in sound and feel) passages—to note them without going back—making a mental list of things to work on. Instead, what I heard demanded attention right away so I went back and corrected them. The whole process took me an hour, for a movement that lasts about 5 minutes.
My concluding observation is that an impending performance makes me more sensitive to details I might normally play through, thinking I’ll do it another time. With less that a week to prepare, though, the time to make corrections is now. I don’t spend more time practicing, but I become more alert, causing me to be clearer about my immediate goals.
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