Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about the difference between performing and practicing. These are two entirely different experiences and all too often students will confuse which one they’re doing! You want to know whether you are performing or practicing. There is a drastic difference! They are polar opposites in regards to approaches. So what is the fundamental difference between performing and practicing?
If you’re practicing, don’t you want to play through your music?
Well, sure you do. But when you’re practicing you want to fix any mistakes. So if you’re playing through a piece and something goes wrong or it just feels insecure, that’s a signal to stop, take out the score, figure out what’s wrong and spend time securing the music in your head and your hands. So the lesson for practicing is, whenever there’s a problem, you must stop and take the time to fix it. It’s vitally important to do that. You don’t want to gloss over mistakes.
With performing it’s exactly the opposite!
It doesn’t matter how devastating a mistake you make during a performance, the show must go on! You have to just keep moving forward. Nobody wants to hear you practice during a performance. You might think that you want to show the audience that you know you made a mistake. So you want to go back and correct it to show them you can play it accurately. They don’t want to hear it! Believe me. They’d rather you let mistakes go by the wayside. They’re already anticipating the next part of the piece. They don’t want to hear a repeat of what they just heard. Losing the continuity of the performance is actually the worst thing you can do. Keep moving forward no matter what. That’s the lesson. Do not stop. Do not correct mistakes in performance. Why is it so difficult to continue a performance after a mistake?
In your practice, you must always stop when you have a problem and correct it. So how do you alleviate that tendency in your performance?
You must practice performing!
You can practice performing in a number of ways. In the earliest stages before you’re comfortable playing for anyone, you can just sit down at the piano and say, “Okay, this is a practice performance and I’m not going to stop no matter what.” You just want to see what level you’re at and if you can get through the piece without stopping. No matter what happens, go through it without stopping, and you’ll learn a lot from the experience. First of all, you’re going to know where to zero in on your practice. It will be very obvious the parts that need work. It’s better to discover that in your practice than when you’re in an actual performance. Secondly, you’ll get in the habit of moving forward no matter what, even if things do inevitably go wrong, which they do for everyone at some point or another no matter what level you’re on. Later, you can practice performing by setting up a device and recording yourself. Then go through your performance and even if the beginning is a disaster, just keep going. This gives you an opportunity to try out recovering when you don’t have an audience in front of you. Then you can always record a second time to have the gratification of doing a better performance.
You can also play for friends or family.
Playing for friends or family is a great way to practice performing. And even though they’re going to be a forgiving audience, don’t start over! Even if you start off and something messes up right away, just keep going. Use them as guinea pigs and explain to them what you’re doing. They’ll forgive your mistakes! Explain that you are going to play through the entire performance for better or worse, and then stick to it. Don’t miss the opportunity to utilize them as a resource to practice your performing. Eventually, you can play for other groups of people. If you’re at a party and there’s a piano there, you can ask if anyone wants to hear the music you’ve been working on. And a lot of times people will be more than happy to hear you play! Once again, even though they might be a supportive, wonderful crowd, keep going so you get comfortable playing from the beginning to the end of a piece without stopping. So eventually when you’re playing a public performance, you will feel more comfortable. You’ll know you can get through it for better or for worse and have a performance, not just somebody watching you practice.
Generally in your piano practice you stop when there’s something that is not accurate or something that doesn’t feel comfortable. You check the score and you work things out using innumerable practice techniques until you can pass that point with assurance. But in performance, you keep going no matter what. And that is the answer. They require completely different approaches! Make sure you’re clear as to which one you’re doing in your practice so you don’t fall into the trap of doing something that’s kind of in between performing and practicing, sort of a performance, sort of practicing. When you do that, you’re actually not developing good performance habits or practice habits. So you want to eliminate that ambiguity entirely. Thanks so much for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
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4 thoughts on “Performing VS Practicing”
Hi Robert –
I use what I call the “3-bean game” (using beans, buttons, M&M’s, markers, etc.) to help focus on practicing for performance. It can be played at 2 levels, and level 2 can be quite a challenge!
To begin, place 3 markers on the left side of the music rack.
Level 1 – the “recital” level (play successfully 3 times):
Play through piece. If you did not have any major mistakes, or you had minor mistakes but kept going, move 1 marker to the right side . If you had a major mistake or stopped, do not move a marker. Keep playing through the piece until all 3 markers are on the right side.
Level 2 – the “conservatory” level (play successfully 3 times in a row consecutively) :
Play through piece. If you did not have any major mistakes, or you had minor mistakes but kept going – move 1 marker to the right side . If you had a major mistake or stopped, move ALL the markers on the right back to the left side and start over (a bit brutal ….!) .
Continue until all 3 markers are on the right side – i.e. having played the piece successfully 3 times consecutively. Not for the faint of heart … !
My wife used to play, “The Penny Game” with her young students years ago just like the, “3-bean game”!
LOVE IT! I think “3-penny” is a much better name for it – plus pennies don’t get your fingers sticky like M&M’s – 🙂
– I now remember why I didn’t use pennies – I’m a terrible klutz, and with the kind of luck I have, a penny would likely get dropped and fall between the keys … I remember running that scenario through my head (I’m always running “worst-case klutz scenarios”) and envisioning the coin falling between the keys and jamming them so that the lesson could not continue. Therefore I used something a little “safer” — plus they got to eat the M&M’s / jelly beans at the end – just a tiny bit of added incentive for focusing – 😉