Persist. Here’s why I think you should not give up.
I had a tough week at work. (Work for me is the practice room). Knowing I didn’t have much time over the summer to prepare for upcoming concerts, since I spent my time either packing and moving, or on vacation with family, I have been entirely focused on accomplishing tasks at the piano as quickly as possible. After all, I have been a concert pianist for 20 some years, so this should be natural by now, right? Well not this week. I found a piece of music which became my new nemesis: The Brahms Piano Trio #2, in particular the scherzo movement.
For the life of me, I could not comprehend how to physically play the scherzo movement up to its “presto” tempo. I tried all the amazing practice techniques I developed from great teachers and experience over the years (like slow practice, Nelita True’s “6 Magic Tempi”, small sections, displacement, etc etc etc) but nothing was working. I was (metaphorically) banging my head against the piano in sheer frustration. A week had gone by, but I still could not get this movement to performance tempo.
Maybe this time I will fail.
Then major doubts started creeping in, the thoughts common in imposter syndrome: Maybe I’m just not capable of playing this piece. Maybe I’m not as accomplished a pianist as I thought. Maybe this challenge is just too large. Maybe this time I will fail.
Day after day, consumed in these thoughts, I began to believe them. It was affecting everything I did, beyond the piano.
Then one morning, it just clicked. All the work I put into the piece, all the techniques I practiced, the drilling, the detailed fingering, it finally paid off. The piece just floated off my fingers like magic. “Presto” felt natural, and prior challenging moments seemed to just solve themselves. I was elated, as you can imagine. I no longer had to harbor the thoughts that I would not be able to play this piece, that it was beyond me, that I would FAIL my colleagues and audience in our performance next month.
Challenge is universal
I learned two very important things from this mentally exhausting period: 1. I need to trust myself and my abilities better. And 2. I need to stop letting challenges define me. This is the reason I have written this post. I may have written about a pianist’s problem, but challenge is universal. We all experience it, we’ve all been humbled by it, and it has defeated us at times. If I had a magic ball where I could have seen into the future that I indeed would accomplish this task, perhaps I might have accomplished it sooner? In the very least, my mindset would not have interfered with my sleep and other daily habits. I was so obsessed with the thought of failure, that I begin failing at other tasks.
Even failure itself should not be a deterrent. Failure can be a great motivator. Most of my “failures” in life have resulted in my willingness to push through and accomplish greater things, to find paths more suitable to my passions and abilities.
I end by saying that I wish that all of you experiencing challenge right now ACCEPT that challenge. Regardless of outcome, you WILL grow, even if it’s not as obvious as finally “playing a passage up to speed”.
