I have an example i will never forget. As a student one of my tutors also taught english classes to the chinese exchange students. One day she got our class to come sit in with them and she basically just asked me to play a piece on the piano. I was out of practise and played the only piece i could remember at the time (no sheet music) which was rondo ala turka. I had many, many mistakes, it was fairly embarassing but i just laughed it off. Until one of the chinese girls asked if she could play something. She proceeds to go up, and play the EXACT SAME PIECE i just muffled my way through and she played it PERFECT. it was like a slap in the face.
Have you ever had a moment when you were forced or encouraged to play only for it to not go well?
š£ļøLet's Discuss ThisAbsolutely! It happened about 14 years ago now but i still remember it pretty well haha
Thatās shit. Yes Iāve definitely been āaskedā to play before, and I always chose the loudest, noisy piece I learnt to cover up my mistakes
Ā Until one of the chinese girls asked if she could play something.Ā
Oh, that was definitely on purpose. If it was a recital it would be different. But this was a casual volunteer to play thing and she heard how you played beforehand and then proceeds to ask to play? That is just mean...
Yes i agree. I feel as though she likely knew other pieces so she could have chosen something different and even if it was all she knew it was mean of her to show me up like that in front of two classes. I remember the moment she started playing i just hid behind my friends back haha i felt so embarrassed. Especially because i can play it well if I've been practising it
yeah, i'm really sorry you had to experience that. Definitely on your side here!
Well, I'm pretty certain that the reason she did that is because she is a bit insecure about her own playing. I am pretty sure about this, because I dealt with that insecurity and temptation to play someone else's performed piece when I was younger at recitals - it's an easy way to make yourself feel like the biggest fish.
Yep. Definitely a B move
Haha that girl would be on my shit list for the rest of time. Huge dick move.
Used to happen every time. My new rule is that I'll gladly provide background music for any activity from dinner to cocktail hour to card-playing to someone sitting on the front porch or doing the dishes. All eyes on me just isn't fun and doesn't work.
Playing the same piece like that was unsportsmanlike.
Unsportsmanlike is a perfect description of that. I think for people who cant play they are just fascinated by it, which i cant blame them for of course. But it sucks when you cant play something the way you know you can in those situations.
Background music is where itās at.
That sounds rough... I've got a similar experience as well. Two words: family gathering
Ah yes family gatherings. Thankfully for me my cousins and aunt and uncle always were playing music so i never got asked to. More then happy to leave it to them
I used to be asked to play by my family for special gatheringsā¦ but my mom would always say āoops!ā at any mistake (no matter how small or unnoticeable to the untrained ear). Totally shook my confidence playing in front of anyone I knew well
Not cool
Oh that sucks! I once played my grandads favourite piece for him, rustle of spring, and my nana at their 65th wedding anniversary party. Only a few of the family were in the room so it wasnt bad. Afterwards he said "i heard a few bum notes in there but it was still marvelous" so its nice having people appreciate that yeah you can muck up a note but that doesnt mean you didn't play the piece well. I hope you still play and dont let the bum notes get you down anymore
Playing for people always disapoints me. The reaction is either too ethusiastic after I played really bad, or underwelming when I think I played well. One time I played for some friends and the only tying anyone had to say after was: "Do you have fat fingers? Cuz sometimes you hit 2 notes with the same finger." And they tend to notice the small and insignificant mistakes my teacher wouldnt even comment on but not notice the really wrongs things I'm doing.
I'm in my forties and I'm older than the rest of my teacher's students by two or three decades. I am in huge fear that right before me there will be some sixteen year old prodigy playing Winter's Wind or something right before I muddle through my Chopin Waltz.
Recital tomorrow.
I actually kinda like the way my teacher does it. It's mostly kids and maybe one or two other adults. He basically has all of the beginner kids go first, then the mid level kids, and then the more advanced players last (definitely still in order of skill level within the groups). The guy going after me the last couple of times plays some very well played technically difficult pieces so I definitely appreciate it.
My teacher does it in order of skill, too, but eventually some sixteen year old on his way to conservatory is going to follow me and I'll feel like a loser.
Not piano, but I signed up for the state solo and ensemble competition to play a Strauss horn concerto in high school.
In the meantime between the competition and sign up I decided not to do it, and didnāt practice it or arrange an accompanist.
I told the judge I was not going to play. He said, āOh, well what piece were you going to play.ā I told him, and he said āOh, but Iād love to hear you play that!ā
So I did. I stood in front of about 40 of my peers, solo horn with no piano, hands shaking so badly that I could not produce a straight tone on an instrument that virtually never employs vibrato, missing notes the whole way through.
I donāt remember what anyone said to me after, I donāt remember what score I got, itās just a solid wall of shame in my memory.
It didnāt kill me but it definitely didnāt make me stronger.
Yup they dont make you stronger and you never forget them. I get it though, when people say something like that you feel compelled to do it. I like to remind myself that those memories are likely only ones we remember, and that those there that day likely dont remember it. Cause it wasnt embarrassing for them but it was for us, so we hold onto it while they might forget. At least it can be a funny/embarassing story to tell now
I played by ear since I was 5, and when I was around 11 my mom put me in lessons. I had 0 interest in learning to read music, so I would learn it once, memorize it and wouldn't look at the sheet. She put me into a recital and I was so nervous I was shaking and I ripped through 3 songs on super speed without looking up at the music. It sounded and felt terrible. I hated every second of it and then I got berated because I didn't read, " what was she paying for", and my teacher was angry. So I quit. I stopped for a long time but now I'm 36 and I can play anything I want just by listening to it. Don't force your kids, because something they enjoy can easily become something they hate.
That sucks that you had that experience. Playing at competitions when i was younger i was always sooo nervous as well, it got easier the older i got as i was playing from age 7 up. But im super glad you play now and that you get to play it how you want. Its cool you can learn by ear! Thats a really awesome skill. I definitely cannot do that haha its disappointing they couldnt see how impressive that skill is, you can do so much with it.
Oh my gosh it's nerve wracking! They also made me learn cannon in D for my aunts wedding, and then scrapped it and I played "my heart Will go on" š¤£ soaked in sweat, hands shaking and I messed up one part it still haunts me haha. Thank you! It is cool! I just never understood why I was being forced to read when I could just listen and learn it exactly the same. Do you still play publicly?
Also that girl is a dick for replaying your song!!! Shit move man.
Yup. Dad asked me to play a piano that was in a hotel. To be fair I had been playing that piano almost every morning with no issues. But this time there was an angry security guard that made me stop. I had like 8 family members there. I felt like shit.
Hotels can be unnecessarily harsh about this. All that's needed is a sign saying you may play if you know how. Always a buzzkill.
Well in my defense I had been playing every morning (with front desk permission)
Also I was staying at the hotel.
Yeah maybe he was power-tripping. Unfortunate when you think of how many hours it probably sits there just waiting for someone to liven up the room.
Wow sounds like that dude either had a bad day or just hated piano? Hard to say. Sucks that happened
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1mo
I always remembered the pieces that i played each year for my exams and competitions and then the next year id learn new ones and forget the old ones. I dont currently have any pieces i can play fully cause im very out of practise. But bringing up this story again just makes me want to grab out the sheet music and relearn rondo, its such a fun piece!
This is one of my biggest complaints from my college days. What good does it do for you in the long run? There was almost no emphasis on sight reading, improvisation, learning to play by ear, or joining pop/rock/jazz combosāall of which are the most important (and fun!) skills that I learned to focus on LONG after I left the traditional piano curriculum.
Ironically, Iāve returned to a focus on more āold schoolā learning, but only as a supplement to those other skills. And lots of small classics instead of those huge sonatas, etc., which take up whole school terms to prepareāonly to be left behind the next day.
What an asshole
that's a bitch move, sorry not sorry
Well... yes. I had injured my right wrist while practicing a week before an audition (my hands got cold but I kept on playing one of Chopin's nocturnes, the piece for the audition) and my teacher told me to just push through it, keep practicing and play as I could. Obviously, it only got worse to the point I didn't have strength to press a key and I didn't play in the audition. She said that if I couldn't play at all I should tell her so she could make some changes in the program but when I told her I couldn't play, in the middle of the hall because it was a break or end of classes, she still insisted and then told me my career as a pianist was over. The hall was full of people walking around or just standing and I saw some of them looking away as I walked out of there. There was this janitor that just looked at me with wide eyes.
It took longer to make a full recovery but once I did I was playing better than before and both my wrists were stronger.
I wouldn't worry about it too much. Everyone else would have been impressed with that piece, from memory, even with mistakes. I once had to play the start of fur Elise for my class and got a round of applause. Rondo alla turca is far more difficult.
It was a dick move from her but hey, I guess you were both kids so what can you expect. I suspect she'll cringe at that day in the future too, knowing she attempted to embarrass someone so blatantly like that. Everyone else knew too.
Yup that is fair enough and thankfully it doesnt actually bother me now, i just still remember it well. Also we were uni students, so like 19-20 age, still young, dumb and arrogant at that age though haha
She wanted your attention for sure. But perhaps you two would have been great friends if you put away your pride and had the courage to asked for piano lessons from her. It's the pathway to improve.
More often itās ādid go well.ā Lately been good, but for years it was iffy
Wow, so rude of her! My parents used to play my videos of me playing piano in family gatherings, and if anyone compliments me, theyāll say I sucks.
As almost everyone has said, that's a total d*ck move on her part. Who does that? Someone with no manners.
nxt timejust play minuet in G Major from A.M Bach Notebook... if you dont have it memorized you can quickly DL it for free online... and sight read off the phone.
Yeah, kind of! I had finished 8th grade (piano) and my teacher convinced me to audition for a piano teacher job at a Yamaha school. I didn't really think I could do it and wasn't sure I really wanted to but she really encouraged me.
Anyway, while I could play pretty well, I must have been a bit lazy about wanting to practice and chose a shorter song as part of my audition (the person commented on it being surprisingly short). And then there was a bit where you had to sing, I didn't really love singing in front of people (hence why being a piano teacher probably wasn't for me) and I especially didn't like singing high, so I sung the melody an octave lower where it felt more comfortable. But of course, when you're teaching music, you should be singing what's on the sheet music, because you're trying to teach music š . Needless to say, I didn't get the job.
Yup. I played a piece for a friend of mine and totally botched it - I'm even surprised i played it the whole way through.Ā
I don't regret it one bit though, it was a valuable learning experience and it taught me just how much prep is needed b4 playing a piece live.
That was so rude of her!!