3 important questions for musicians
When we first begin to play the piano our choices are limited. We choose (or are assigned) a piano method book that takes us through a succession of pieces designed to teach us the fundamentals of how to be a pianist. Later, if we’re in lessons, we’re assigned repertoire, all chosen with the goal of introducing us to new music and helping us improve as players. In both stages of learning, the goals are defined clearly. It can feel limiting sometimes, but there’s some comfort in having achievable goals.
All of this changes when we’re accomplished enough dip into late intermediate and advanced repertoire. If we’re still in lessons, we may have performance or exam goals to guide us, but if we’re working on our own, it can be deadly easy to become lost in the sea of possibilities. We flounder from piece to piece. We wonder what we “should” be playing. We feel directionless, and when that happens it’s easy to be discouraged.
I went straight from a lifetime of lessons to working as a professional pianist. My repertoire choices were defined either by a teacher or by what I needed to know for an upcoming performance. It wasn’t until I stopped playing professionally that I had to find an internal structure for my practicing. I had to look beyond effort for effort’s sake. In my quest for direction in my own practice time, I’ve discovered three important questions that help me focus my work. I share them here because maybe you’ll find them helpful as well.
What am I doing?
Am I whiffing a technical passage? Playing something that bores me? Phrasing something a certain way because that’s what I’ve always done? Asking myself what I’m doing is my way of pulling myself out of distraction or habit and focuses me on what’s going on, right now, in the moment. It stops my mind from wandering. It allows me to entertain new ideas.
Why am I doing it?
Why am I playing this piece? Why am I messing up that section? Where (and why) has the dreaded word “should” crept into my practicing routine? As a passionate amateur pianist, if I’m not playing for the love of the music, why am I wasting my time? Asking myself why I’m doing something (and giving myself honest answers) allows me to solve performance challenges more quickly, and it directs me to music that I want to play so badly that I’m motivated to do the work to learn the difficult parts.
How do I measure success in this?
As a student and also as a working pianist, my sense of success was defined by the completed goals of a lesson, performance, or recording. Finding ways to measure success without these things has been an ongoing part of my post-professional relationship with the piano. What I’ve discovered is that I don’t have just one answer to how I measure success in learning a piece. Sometimes it’s a performance or a YouTube video. Others times it’s knowing the magic of playing a piece for no one other than Mr. No Dead Guys and Rudy-the Cat. When the rest of life is falling apart, success may simply be getting to the piano and combating all the negativity by playing something beautiful. The important thing is that I take the time to define success when I play, and give myself credit when I achieve it.
The piano journey ends only when we stop playing. As we knit the notes we learn into our fingers and our lives, we go more and more deeply into a relationship with the music and with ourselves. Knowing what we’re doing and why, as well as knowing how we measure success in our efforts guides us to a life of making music for the love of it.