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How to reduce playing mistakes?

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jcfelice88keys

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Re: How to reduce playing mistakes?

PostTue Nov 21, 2017 1:58 pm

andrewhj wrote:<..>
6 Practice a passage in the evening and then return to it in the morning: often our brain will sort out difficulties in our sleep.


Hello Andrew,

The act of practice before going to sleep (and then awakening to find the problem is solved, or at least addressed) is one of those little-known gems I have passed along to my students. It works!

Thank you for mentioning this often overlooked piece of helpful and useful advice!

Cheers,

Joe
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profeluisegarcia

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Re: How to reduce playing mistakes?

PostTue Nov 21, 2017 10:16 pm

Hello all¡
There a psychological concept relevant in this interesting topic: Overlearning.
Why we never forget how to ride the bicycle? Simple: because we have to learn this ability per-fec-tly, no by halves. So, if we practice to the point we get to play the section or the piece perfectly, there will be no mistakes- as profesional pianists usually do-.

Luis
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1961TC4ME

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Re: How to reduce playing mistakes?

PostWed Nov 22, 2017 8:56 am

I too have used the practice a certain part method I'm having difficulty with in the evening and returning to it the following day and yes, it definitely works! I've even found an extra day or so away and no playing at all and then returning can make a huge difference. This has been a great thread, I've picked up a lot of very helpful information.

Marc
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RagnBone

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Re: How to reduce playing mistakes?

PostTue Apr 24, 2018 7:11 am

A thought I've often had but never corroborated - in regards to the professional concert musicians who make their living from the skill in their hands - is it possible that "making mistakes" is a more subjective problem than we think? For example, they play a piece that seems absolutely flawless to us lesser accomplished, but to them perhaps they feel they still make mistakes as well? Of course there are blatantly obvious stuff ups and audible slips that we all make, maybe some less obvious ones as well only heard to the performer. Still I know I've played a piece on the piano or organ from time to time for family or friends and they are amazed at how well I played it, yet I know for a fact I've never played a single piece through in my life absolutely perfectly.

Then again I've never had the pleasure of being able to ask a concert pianist/organist their opinion on this, I could be completely mistaken :mrgreen:
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UndaMaris

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Re: How to reduce playing mistakes?

PostSun Apr 29, 2018 8:11 am

I would agreed with a previous post that one of the best ways to eliminate mistakes is to use the audio recorder in Hauptwerk. Better still, commit to making a recording of a piece and submitting it to the Concert Hall website. I have found that recording a piece to a standard you feel is high enough for Concert Hall requires a huge amount of patience and focussed practice. Each time you make a mistake it is an indication that there is a weakness in your ability to play the piece. Practise all the weak areas and then try to record it again. I might need to make 20 attempts before managing to record a piece to a standard I feel is acceptable.
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adri

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Re: How to reduce playing mistakes?

PostMon May 07, 2018 10:56 pm

Let's say you have four organs in your house:

1. the first one has keyboards so light in touch you can almost blow them down (the kind of touch you get in really cheap keyboards)
2. the second one has a heavier touch, similar to an organ with electric action
3. the third one has a real acoustic piano like touch
4. the fourth one has a tracker like touch

You get my point: you will make more mistakes on one organ than on the other; you will play faster on one than the other.

We cannot overlook the actual touch response of the keyboards we have, and there is quite a difference among the ones we Hauptwerkians play on.

I have a MIDI-converted Rodgers organ and I can't say I truly like the touch, so I'm thinking to replace them with much better and more responsive keyboards.
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TheOrganDoc

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Re: How to reduce playing mistakes?

PostTue May 08, 2018 7:38 pm

I had a professional organist friend, that told me that just prior to playing a wrong note, he knew it was going to happen, but it was not possible to prevent his finger from playing it ! "It is Human to err," what happens after, is the difference between the beginner, and the Pro ! :?
Mel..............TheOrganDoc...............
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TheOrganDoc

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Re: How to reduce playing mistakes?

PostTue May 08, 2018 7:56 pm

And > 5, is a Keyboard that has been adjusted so that the firing point is way to high. This is all to common, and I have found many contact rails that had warped, causing this problem ! (My repair was to form steel braces, and firmly secure each of them under the center of the contact rails ! :roll:

adri wrote:Let's say you have four organs in your house:

1. the first one has keyboards so light in touch you can almost blow them down (the kind of touch you get in really cheap keyboards)
2. the second one has a heavier touch, similar to an organ with electric action
3. the third one has a real acoustic piano like touch
4. the fourth one has a tracker like touch

You get my point: you will make more mistakes on one organ than on the other; you will play faster on one than the other.

We cannot overlook the actual touch response of the keyboards we have, and there is quite a difference among the ones we Hauptwerkians play on.

I have a MIDI-converted Rodgers organ and I can't say I truly like the touch, so I'm thinking to replace them with much better and more responsive keyboards.
Mel..............TheOrganDoc...............
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UndaMaris

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Re: How to reduce playing mistakes?

PostWed May 09, 2018 4:05 pm

I have observed in my own playing that it is indeed the case that one knows if one is about to make a mistake. This can be refined into: when your playing is at a high level and you can actually play all the bits of a piece correctly, but not all at the same time, there is another mechanism at work.

My hypothesis is that at this level, the origin of mistakes is at the conscious, not the subconscious, level, because I have noticed that if I memorise a piece and play it on "autopilot", as it were, I can get through without mistakes, but as soon as I concentrate either on the printed notes, or try to visualise them if playing from memory, my conscious mind starts to remember different versions or, rather, mistakesI have learnt. It also undermines my confidence by reminding me to be careful at such and such a point.

I have sometimes reflected that there may be a connection here with the point that the German writer Herinrich von Kleist seemed to be making in his famous essay "On the Marionette Theatre" in which he says that grace of movement disappears when movement becomes self-conscious.

The answer answer may be, therefore, either play on "autopilot", or improve your level of focus and concentration to the point where the movement between subconscious and conscious awareness is prevented.

The first solution is useless, however, because then playing is just about behaving like a machine. Surely we need conscious focus to ensure a human "interpretation" of the music. The second requires a huge amount of self-control and self-discipline. At a high level of performance I wonder whether this ability (or skill, call it what you will) is what marks out the really outstanding performer. I believe we can all achieve it, but in the end we always come back to Bach's maxim that anyone can do what he did if they work as hard as he did.
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