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Piano help

I've been doing grade 6 piano for a while and whenever I practice at home my pieces go quite well but as soon as I'm infront of my teacher it all falls apart and I just cannot do it, I probably look a bit stupid too... anyone else have this problem? I'm going to start practecing more in sections so hopefully that will work. Any tips?

Reply 1

ims_m

Original post by mint_green01

I think this is a very universal experience!! I've been playing the horn for nearly 10 years now and in nearly every lesson I've had something that went much worse than it did in practice, so don't worry about it too much.

I think the most helpful thing is making sure you really have the notes under your fingers - make a note of any bars or phrases that you find hard or keep getting wrong and start off focussing on those, playing them slowly and with different rhythms etc, then start incorporating them back into the piece as a whole by adding on the phrases before and after until you get comfortable with them. You can also cut the piece into sections and play them in reverse order from the end of the piece to make sure you're giving as much attention to the end as the beginning, as well as getting them comfortable without relying on the previous section to get there.

Reply 2

mint_green01

Original post by ims_m

I think this is a very universal experience!! I've been playing the horn for nearly 10 years now and in nearly every lesson I've had something that went much worse than it did in practice, so don't worry about it too much.
I think the most helpful thing is making sure you really have the notes under your fingers - make a note of any bars or phrases that you find hard or keep getting wrong and start off focussing on those, playing them slowly and with different rhythms etc, then start incorporating them back into the piece as a whole by adding on the phrases before and after until you get comfortable with them. You can also cut the piece into sections and play them in reverse order from the end of the piece to make sure you're giving as much attention to the end as the beginning, as well as getting them comfortable without relying on the previous section to get there.