Young Beginners” “Going for a ride” on the Teacher’s Hands

L.I’s lesson on 9/7/19.  She began lessons when she was three and is now nine, going on ten.    Chopin Waltz in C# Minor

#1

In several ways, at several different places in the opening few measures she couldn’t get the rhythm correctly or the tempo. There were just too many issues, in very close order, to go over them separately and then link them together into one flow.

Joe: “I know that you are nine now, going on ten, but let’s do what we did when you were three: let’s have you ‘go for a ride’ on my hands.”

Phase One.

In this procedure L. would passively rest the palm of her then, very small hands, on top of my hand, as I played. The motions I made in my arms and hands were transmitted directly to her hands, and therefore her muscle memory. If she kept her hands alert and attentive, without any resistance to what I was doing,  even the subtlest motions on my part become conscious kinesthetically to the student. In particular, rhythms and physical coordination between the hands. And it is transmitted as a continuous, and whole experience, rather than in disjointed surges of details. This procedure is useful to the young pianist, who hasn’t had time to develop a critical, analytical style.

Usually I exaggerate certain features of my playing so that they make a clearer kinesthetic impression on the student. For instance, where L. had suddenly doubled the tempo in parts of measures one and two, I made a ritard-like motion in my hand as would a conductor (in leading a large group  of players) so as to ritard simultaneously in synch with the  others. The same for when she had been too slow in measure 3 and 4. I dramatized slowing my motions so the notes began on time.

In general, the steadiness of the tempo soaked into her hand and through her hands into her entire playing mechanism. The same with regard to the specifics of the more complicated rhythms.

Phase Two:

The second phase was like phase one, but she became more of a “teacher” trying to impress upon me, the student, physical dynamics of the  mechanical playing the piece. Her role, on top of my hands, went from   passive to active.   J: “Show me” the rhythm, make it very clear; press down on my hands to make me make the sounds.

Phase Three:

We switched positions. I “played” upon her hand as her hands made the sounds.

As a general habit in my teaching, I take a procedure like this, as well as many teaching procedures, and break them down into different shades, angles, stages, situations and perspectives. It is the attempt to form a gestalt out of a finite set of points of view, but the more points in the set (without overdoing it) the greater the likelihood that a whole is created that is greater than the sum of its parts. This keeps the student’s experience of  the procedure alive for longer. It does not decay in effectiveness or stale through time by overuse of just one approach.

Emotional Expression; Changing from Flats to Sharps

CP’s lesson 8/29/19 “Claire de Lune”

C: Everything I do, both in general, and specifically at the piano I when practice, is rational, organized and methodological. This includes the fact that once I start something I must complete it regardless of the months it takes me.   Moreover, I’ve never noticed any emotional expression in my playing, and I feel it is a lack on my part.

J: Your contention about emotional expression is belied by the natural beauty of your sound quality, and how unerringly you hit just the right feeling-tone of the piece you are playing.

(C seemed pleased that I thought so)

J: So if you believe that the last mentioned traits exist in your playing,  where  do think they come from; how do you get them?*

C: I don’t know. Partially because I don’t know when I’m getting them.

J: Exactly! You are not supposed to know, because they do not come from a part of you that is identifiable with words.  If so, would you be OK if we use words like irrational or non-conscious, to signify why you cannot tell  precisely where they come from within yourself. A bigger question: is it OK with you to have these two contrasting natures in yourself: one organized, under your control, and available to consciousness, the other, just as potent, but uncontrollable because inaccessible to your conscious or rational mind?

(She always knew about the organized one but had been very concerned that might not have the other. She was pleased to know she did have it, as well)

J: These two do not necessarily have to contradict each other or conflict with each other. Any conflict we sense comes from the rational side of our selves, when we try to define one in the terms of the other. In truth, each can amplify and encourage the other.

(She described an analogous situation in her life)

C: In my business life I frequently have to get to understand the
inner workings and organization of a large, international company.
The task seems daunting. There are too many interconnecting parts,
each pair seeming to interrelate in its own way and according to its
own customs. However, given enough time, I find that I begin to
grasp the whole and the parts.

J: My guess is that the foundational work you did was largely rational, but the insight that eventually came about how the company, despite its many parts, worked as an organic unity, came unexpectedly and was not directly
caused by its conscious antecedents in time. Again, we do not know from where this insight comes from, but it represents a direct intuition of the companies inner, organic unity.

–

In Claire de Lune there is a moment when the key signature changes
abruptly from five flats to four sharps. C. says this change causes
her great difficulty.

Here began a diagnosis.

1) I picked a passage in the flats section: in your imagination, rather than thinking about the key signature, just put, in your imagination, a flat sign in front of each and every note in the score. Note that this produces a somewhat different sequence of notes than what Debussy wrote.  C had little trouble doing this.

2A) Then we picked a passage in the sharps section. Now do the same thing again, only with sharps.  Put an imaginary sharp sign in front of every note you see in the passage and don’t think any longer about key signatures.  This too, though producing a passage that sounded different than the piece she was used to, offered her no difficulty.

2B) Play the same passage again as in #2A, but this time, in your imagination, put a flat sign rather than a sharp sign in front of every note. She had little little difficulty doing this.

Just so you know, all of these three things are much harder to do than play the score as written. So you have all the mental equipment necessary to  make a successful shift from flats to sharps.  Yet it is still giving you trouble.  We must explore further.

She said: the confusion occurs at the moment it changes key. It’s barely marked in the score. I’ve gotten so used to being in the flats for the last few pages,  I need just as long a period to get used to the sharps.

I said: this is very useful.  It’s time for me to ask a stupid question.  Do you start practicing the piece starting from the change of key, or do you usually start at the beginning of the piece?

She: the latter.  Remember, once I start something I have to see it through the end.

I think you have just diagnosed your problem as well as solved having found the solution to the problem.  Simply get in the habit of sometimes starting your practicing from the beginning of the sharp section until you are used to that part as you are to the opening section.

An aside.

She asked me how I handle this sort of situation. I said: it’s probably different for a professional musician, and different from one professional to the next.  Here is a part of my process  in handling keys and changes of key  that had remained unconscious to me for many years, but which after starting teaching others, became more accessible to my consciousness.

Here is a simple example.  I encounter a piece in G Major.  One sharp.  F  sharp.  I am sight reading the piece.  I come, in the score to an “F”.  It  genuinely does not look like an F.   It looks like something else: it looks like  an F-sharp.  There is nothing in the vicinity of the note on the page to cause   it to look any different.   But nothing you can say to me, will change the  impression that it looks different than an F natural.  There is little my mind can do to make it look again like an F and not an F#.  It is as if its printed in a  different color.   It produces a different emotional state in my mind.  It is  as if the # sign was printed just left of the note.

That indicates how a strongly I am affected from the start by hearing the  piece sound in the key of G major.  It is the obvious presence to my ear that we are in a tonal world known as “G Major”, and how that affects every note  in the piece, not just F#.

* With certain students I do teach things like being musical, understanding that inner thing-in-itself of the music.  I am surprisingly successful in doing this.  But when I have a student in front of me who does these  naturally, the worst thing I can do is make them aware of it in a way that includes how I think they are achieving it.

Ornaments, and the Seeming Length of Quarter Notes

A.B.’s lesson on 8/8/19
Prelude in Eb Minor, Book I.

#1

Interpreting the rhythmic notation in this Prelude and its reliance on half note beats rather than quarter note beats.

In this Prelude the difference between the shortest duration notes and
the longest duration notes spans an unusually wide variety of
intermediate rhythmic values. The shortest duration note is the 32nd
note as in measure 38. The longest a dotted whole note in measure 40.
This wider than usual range may have been one factor in Bach’s choice
of half note beats rather than quarter note beats.

Historically, with the passage of the centuries, a note like the whole
evolved from being a note of relatively shorter duration on a clock to
a note of a longer duration on the clock. Reflecting this change is
the difference between the older name for a whole note, that of
“semibreve”, or half of a brief note, to whole note, which is more at
suggesting the nature of a “whole which is the sum of the parts”.
During this historical process, at no time, did a whole note equal
anything more or less than the duration of two half notes (assuming a
constant tempo). The RATIO of durations between rhythmic note values
(quarter to half, half to whole, whole to half, etc.) has always been
fixed.

While this relative ratio never changed, the ‘absolute’ values of the
notes, on the clock, as the decades and centuries passed, underwent a
sort of slow continental drift, making the difference in absolute
values get further and further apart from each other, each note itself
becoming longer and longer. A note originally intended to portray a
subjectively short duration in consciousness, grew and grew in until in
our century it is usually meant to portray a much longer duration on
the clock. Other notes grew similarly, only they kept their fixed
ratio of duration when looked at from one to another.

A thirty-second note would not have even shown up on the chart at the
time when whole notes were ‘semi brief’, the thirty seconds lay beyond
the horizon, out of radar range, existing only mathematically in the
realm of possibility, perhaps coming to tangible existence sometime in
the future.

In addition to the whole note being called ‘semi’ (in the sense of shorter than) a ‘brief’ note, the following notes all had names that reflected the
fact that a various times each one in turn had a name suggesting
shortness.

Whole note semibreve semi brief, shorter than a short note; half note minim the least or most minimal duration; eighth note quaver a quiver, single flutter of a bird’s wing; sixteenth note semi quaver less than the briefest flutter – almost undetectably short; thirty-second note demi-semi-quarter shorter than the shortest of the shortest

The original name for a quarter note, which was ‘crotchet’, had more
to do with its visual appearance than its subjective duration (possibly a “hooked” note – the hook I’m assuming being the stem).

Of course, all of this is varied by the ‘tempo’. No note, at any
historical time, had a fixed duration. A fast tempo would render, for
example, a sixteenth note, into a note of very short duration, while a
slow tempo will take the same sixteenth notes, and stretch its
duration.

One might imagine a line of notes from long to sixty-fourths, and
over the centuries the “Ancient of Days” acknowledges, or anoints,
first one than the next, with the epithet “you are the shortest of
notes in duration”.

#2

With such a wide range of durational values to choose from, it is
sometimes difficult to maintain a single, even tempo through out the
piece, especially when rhythm switches back and forth from relatively
longer notes (whole notes and longer) to relatively short notes
(sixteenth notes and shorter).

Let us assume that as the pianist you are counting out loud while you
are playing this prelude, and your particular goal is to use the voice
to steady the tempo. One way in particular of defining this goal is
to say that no quarter note, anywhere in the piece, is longer or (in
particular) shorter than any other quarter note in the piece.

Many people encounter difficulties counting out loud and coordinating
the notes with the spoken counts. There is however one sure fire
principle to help things along. Be suspicious if you notice that your
voice momentarily fades out while playing. This is almost always a
sign that there is uncertainty about the rhythm at that moment. It
usually occurs when shifting to longer notes from shorter notes or vice
versa.

You need only to be aware enough of the sound of your voice to hear
that it is fading out or disappearing altogether. You can reliably
assume that these are the moments when your tempo has sped up or
slowed down.

When the rhythm in the prelude switches from sixteenth notes or
thirty-second notes abruptly to quarter notes or half notes, an almost
‘existential’ crisis may develop in the player’s mind. The quarter or
half notes seem to be unusually long, almost “too” long. They seem
naked and alone and want to cover up their full duration by a bit of
shortening. “No, these notes couldn’t possibly be meant to last as long as this”. The result, without usually being conscious of its happening, are that the longer notes speed up. In fact, the longer the pianist holds out the note, the faster an inward tension builds up urging the note to end so that the next note may start.*

It is like, in special relativity theory, the player’s local clock,
when traveling faster relative to another observer, goes through a
relativistic shift compared to the slower observer. To this observer
the notes seem to grow shorter and shorter, while to the pianist’s
observations are that no apparent change in duration has occurred.

What can the pianist do to ameliorate this situation? After all, it would be awkward to have a metronome loudly ticking on the piano when
performing the work.

There are several things that can be done by the pianist on a
subjective level to keep the tempo even. They share the common idea
of the longer notes being subdivided mentally into a string of shorter
notes.

When playing quarter notes, for example, sixteenth notes can be felt
to be pulsing inside the quarters. The outside observer may not hear
these separate sixteenths, but they are quite vivid to the performer,
so much so that the pianist can ‘hear’ the sixteenths as vividly as the
quarters.

Here is one particular technique that I use at lessons. As soon as
you the pianist’s voice is about to loose its certainty in
enunciating the counting syllables, have the pianist try eliding,
that is, prolonging the sound of one syllable into the beginning of
the next.

An example. If, in a particular measure, the voice falters or fades
out, at just the time when the pianist is supposed to say the counts
“three and four and”, do as follows.

Change the word “three” into a series of three separate elongated
sounds (thhhhhh, rrrrrrr, and eeeeeee), Moreover, have each of the
each sound gradually morph into the next
(“thhhHHHH->rrrrRRR->eeeeEEE). And, if we prolong the “eeeeee” sound
right up to the boundary with the word “and”, then the entire third
beat becomes (voice-wise):

thhhhh->rrrrrr->eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee->aaaaaaa->nnnnnnn->dd.

Doing this serves a double purpose. It makes the pianist more, rather
than less, aware of the sound of their voice when counting out loud.
Secondly, if a count is parceled out among a series of short duration, this system of counting and eliding allows the pianist to keep better track of when exactly each shorter note is supposed to begin and end.

#3.

What about ornaments. Should we add them in right from the start?

Every rhythm, whether or not that an ornament, can be reflected through a prism that will separate it into smaller component rhythms. each
component rhythm sheds light on the printed rhythm both musically and
in terms of physical ease of execution.

Let us take a banal example: four quarter notes.

Using these abbreviations:

w = whole note
.h = dotted half note
h = half note
q = quarter note

And by tying together certain of the quarter notes to others, we find
these rhythms ‘inside’ the four quarter note rhythm.

w
q .h
,h q
h h
h q q
q q h

and by subdividing certain of the quarter notes we find these rhythms
as well ‘inside’ the four quarter note rhythm.

e = eighth note

e e e e e e e e
h e e e e
e e e e h
etc.

Each has its own sense of pulse and emphasis. The ideal rendition of
the original rhythm (q q q q) would reflect the special properties of
each and every one of the sub rhythms.**

#2 Ornaments in particular:

A.

The first thing to do is leave out the ornament entirely, Simply hold
out the single note out that the ornament is applied to. Hold it for
its full written value. This accustomed the body to the exact duration in which the various notes of the ornament will unwind through time plus any remaining duration of the main note. Adding in the notes of the ornament later, feels to the body like filling in a pre-made compartment of time.

B.

The next step is to actually play the ornament without any rhythm to
it at all, or in effect, with every note of the ornament held for the
same duration as every other. And, at the same time, elongating that
common duration, so that the ornament will sound like a slow melody.

Expanding the ornament into a lyrical melody is related to what we
said above about rhythms containing rhythms, plus its reverse: that
smaller rhythms join or fuse together into larger rhythms (in our
case, until the ornament turns into one held note whose duration is
the sum of all the shorter notes plus the written note). Or to misquote a favorite satirical poem in biology and bacteriology books: big fleas have little fleas, and little fleas or littler flees, and so on to infinity.

C.

As we proceed on towards playing the complete ornament, begin by
combining groups of notes in the ornament together into just one held note. Then stage by stage add in more of the details of the ornament. Each stage
nestles inside or embedded into the previous stage.

* Sometimes this anxiety increases exponentially with time rather than
linearly.

** It is like the color of a star. It may be emitting light at many
different frequencies (or colors) but the predominant effect of all of
them together is a single color.

Details on Solving Technical Issues in the Chopin Etudes. Part Three.

Op 10: #5, #7, #8, #9, #12.   Op 25: #1

“Chopin: Etude: Op 10 / 5 in G Flat Major

• Op 10 / 5 : general, for the right hand

As I get older the black keys on the piano seem to get narrower and
narrower increasing the probability that I will be off center when
playing one. This could be a delusion on my part, or a result of
having undergone a major weight loss program. Since it is on my mind
today, I’ve experimented with steps to compensate for this effect
(real or imaginary).

I am looking at the spaces in between the adjacent fingers of my right
hand. When the hand is in a closed position these spaces disappear,
but as the finger tips move apart relative to each other a wedged
shape space develops between the fingers. The space is widest between
the tips of the adjacent fingers, and progressively narrows down until
the fingers join the rest of the hand. The bottom of this empty wedge
is located just prior to the bumps of the third knuckles on the upper
surface of the hand.

Now I take the index finger of my left hand, place it in between the
tips of two adjacent fingers in the right hand, and draw the left hand
finger along the narrowing space between the right hand fingers, until
the left hand finger is blocked and can go no further.

I keep the left index finger at this point. If I pull it any further
in the same direction I will, in effect, be pulling the entire right
hand away from the fall board. I proceed to do just this. The hand
and the fingers move towards the body. If one of the two adjacent
fingers happens to be lying on the surface of a black key, I can use
the pull into the body as a way also of depressing the black key.

As I pull horizontally along the longitude of the black key I also
apply a slight vector downwards. The further the finger tip slides
along the black key the more the black key secondarily is urged
downwards into the key dip. As the second finger nears the lip of the
black key, the black key has settled downwards into the altitude of
the neighboring white key (which is still at the top of its key dip).

I thus use this semi horizontal motion towards the body and away from
the fall board, to sound the black key. I think of this motion as
being along the hypotenuse of a long skinny right triangle, whose
shortest side is the distance the black key travels vertically
downwards to reach the bottom of the key dip.

By tracing the length of the black key before sounding the note, it is
like landing an airplane along a runway. I use the full distance of
the runway (the black key) to insure I am centered left and right.

It is then just a matter of internalizing this motion into my imagination. Subjectively I still feel that I am travelling along the longitude of the black key, but objectively my finger does not appear to change location along the key’s longitude.

“Chopin Etude in C Major, Opus 10, Number 7.  Oscillating thirds and
sixths.

• Op 10 / 7

Take a pair of right hand sixteenth notes that begin on an eighth note
beat, such as at the beginning of measure 1. We have e4-g4 and then
e4-c5. Combine those notes together into a single chord. The c5
repeats in both sixteenths, so we end up with a three note chord
e4-g4-c5. I use the thumb and second finger of the right hand to play
the e4, the third finger for g4 and the pinkie for c5.

The next step is to play that triad twice in a row, at an extreme
speed, the second just a ricochet off the first. As soon as the first one sounds,  almost before the fingers have had a chance to fully
release the keys, slap the fingers down a second time to repeat the
chord. We are aiming for a difference in time between the beginning
of the two triads that approaches zero.

I go into a loop and repeat the two identical triads over and over. As I do, I gradually try to be aware that there is a third (e4-g4) in the first iteration of the triad and a sixth (e4-c5) in the second.  There is no more than a hint at this awareness, so that the two iterations of the triad can be part of a single action rather than two separate actions.

Once I’ve repeated and repeated this triad twice, without thinking I
segue into the actual written order of the pitches. In each beat, the
third is barely more than a very rapid grace note to the sixth.

“Chopin Etude in F Major: Opus 10 number 8

• general

hold the right arm and hand several inches above the keyboard,
hovering over the part of the keyboard which contains the notes to be
applied. Apply a sharp, sudden torque of the wrist starting at the
pinkie side of the right hand and going to the thumb side. The total
rotation is no more than a matter of just a few degrees, but this
small quantitative measurement should be in inverse proportion to the
suddenness and force of the twisting action. Let that torque like
motion result in the articular of four notes in a row (such as a6 g6
f6 c6 in measure one).

Now we need to get the wrist and hand back into their starting
position before the action in order to use the same motion for the
next four notes in the next octave range. Something about the
suddenness of the counterclockwise jerk of the hand towards the thumb,
is so strong, that when it is arrested after just a few degrees
rotation, it ricochets back in the other direction, thus setting up
the hand for the next octave. By doing things this way the hand is
ready for the next octave without any delay in finishing one octave
and beginning the next.

The reverse procedure is used for ascending arpeggios.

“Chopin Etude in F Minor, op 10 / 9

• op 10 / 9: the beginning and in general

Play the pinkie note in the left hand, f2. Next, rotate the hand sideways
with only the pinkie staying in contact with its key. When in this
position, fully curl the entire length of the fourth finger. Do this
with great force and rapidity. The plane in which the curling occurs,
is horizontal. Act as if you are trying reach the fourth finger as
far as possible towards the next note to be played, c3. The pinkie
remains on f2 as you do this. Then, play the c3 with the fourth
finger. Once in contact with the c3 key, immediately restore the
fourth finger to its normal posture and spatial orientation.

A similar procedure can be used on the behalf of the fifth finger,
when the sixth note of the current left hand group of six notes is
about to go to the pinkie on the first note of the next group of six
notes. When you play the sixth note, c3, with the fourth finger, turn
the hand sideways, pinkie side down. Flex the pinkie rightwards (sic)
so as to make a slapping sound or concussive sound against the hollow
of the palm. Slap it over like a mouse trap closing. Now translate
the plane of the hand back to normal and have the pinkie go leftwards
instead of rightwards.

“Chopin Etude in C Minor, Opus 10, number 12 (“the Revolutionary”)

• Op 10 / 12 : measure 9, 13, et. al.

Take the right hand and surround and cradle the left wrist. When I
come over the thumb, which is playing c3, in order to play d3 with the
fourth finger, at first sight it may seem that the overall motion
should go entirely to the right – over the thumb. A closer analysis
shows that there is also a compensatory motion to the left. This
force is easiest to create using the right hand to prevent the left
wrist from rotating rightwards. It is only through the principle of
balancing two oppositely directed forces that we attain the stability
in the hand needed to effect the complex motion of putting the fourth
finger over the first finger. One force plays off the other force
with the result that neither vector by itself throws the hand offside
and cause it to loose equilibrium.

• Op 10 / 12, measure 70, 71, et al

The arm is used consciously only to carry the hand carry the left hand
from the c2 to ef4 (in measure 70), or the b1 to the d2 (in measure
71). On the way from the lowest note to the highest note, the arm
ignores any motion designed to carry the hand from note to the next.

In making such an overall motion with the arm, the most important
thing is to have no foreknowledge, no adumbration in the hands and
fingers, of the notes that will later be inserted. For, in figurations like this, the required motions in between the lowest and highest notes are too subtle, too many, and need to be too exact, to rely on any conscious control over them. Intention can never duplicate the organic cohesiveness of the required of the melding and harmony of these component motions, one of which is the passing over the thumb of the fifth, fourth or third finger to continue flow of pitches upwards through the next octave.

That it is why we dictate to the hand only the scope of the motion by
defining its lowest and highest points, knowing that whatever else the
playing mechanism (including the individual fingers, the wrist, the
forearm, etc.) needs to proportionally contribute to the indivisible
series of motions required will happen automatically if not coerced.
We must let go of all intent, all trying, all tending to specific
details. There is no component, unnatural motion, that need to occur.

• Op 10 / 12 : measure 73 and 74.

Just play the first note of every two sixteenth note dyad. You can
even use solely the thumb to articulate this chromatic scale.

“Chopin Etude in A Flat Major, Opus 25 Number 1

General principle

Keep the hands soft and closed. Throughout each sextuplet, use the
arm alone to transport each finger to next note. Avoid any motion in
the fingers which would attempt to make a connection between notes.
Such motions by the fingers (or the wrists, etc.), if intentional, can
only lead to stiffness and inexactitude. Go through one sextuplet in
this manner, rather slowly, and immediately afterwards at full speed,
trusting that the playing mechanism will unconsciously add whatever
nuances and helping motions are required to supplement the simple
left-right motion of the arm.

This principle can be taken to another level of detail by applying it
to the notes of a simultaneous chord. Close the hand, turn the chord
into a slow arpeggio of individual notes, again with no motion in the
fingers to make connections between the notes, but only the ‘pick up
and deposit’ of hands by the arms of the required finger onto the next
note. Without any opening, or closing, of the spaces between the
fingers in response to the changing distances between the adjacent
notes of the chord.

When Practicing is Emotionally Painful

S.B.’s lesson on 6/25/19

S.B. is sensitive to good music, his soul clearly derives sustenance from it.  Part of him loves being at the piano.  The fly in the ointment is his sight reading.

Because of his love for music he periodically subjects himself to prolonged periods of discouragement by trying to learn pieces. The discouragement stems mostly from the difficulties he experiences in sight reading.

He could possibly become better at sight reading if he did more of it.  But without a proximate aesthetic reward to be gained from the playing of the piece, there is little incentive to practice sight reading.

Reading pieces that are simple enough for him to sight reading produces apathy on his part. The music has little to offer his rather refined artistic sensitivities.

Analysis:

Difficulty in sight reading leads to prolonged practicing time before
the musical qualities of a piece begin to emerge in the player’s consciousness, which can then be savored by our aesthetic sensitivity. The longer this delay, the more bogged down the pianist gets in the tangled web of a forest–with no apparent way out. Just more and more forest, without
end.

Eventually, the displeasure of making gradual, fitful, disconnected small gains in learning the piece, that cumulatively don’t seem to be leading anywhere, outweighs any pleasure, even anticipated pleasure, that the learned piece would bring him. Thus a lot of work is continuously required without the goal of enjoying the piece seeming to get any closer. This is compounded by the growing feeling that he is incapable of learning the piece. Eventually one is forced to the conclusion: “this piece, musical as it is (when I first heard it in performance), may not be worth the effort I have to put into learning it.” With great patience, discipline and fortitude, one  might hold out against this discouragement, even for a long time, but time always wins in the end … the discouragement does not go away.

A tall order:

As a first step in dealing with these issues, I suggested that during the coming week’s practicing, he should take notice of the moments of
pleasure that may occur, even if they are in the minority. To identify to himself that THIS is the state he wants to experience at the piano; the one that makes it all worthwhile. Then to stay with that a moment before going on, to stave off heavy and seemingly ineluctable drift of displeasure that is waiting to take over.