Recently, in my own lessons and with my students, I’ve been focussing on how well we all know our music. All too often we have passages in our reportoire that we know (mostly) and other parts where we think ‘I’ll get to that later’ or ‘I should be able to get through this bit’.
All too often we’re in a big rush to get our pieces sounding mediocre or quite good. However, it’s really good to be able to know your repertoire with confidence. The acid test would be to ask yourself the following question. “Can I sit down in strange surroundings and play this piece in front of people?”
More often than not, my honest answer to that is no. Nearly all the time, my not so honest answer to that is yes.
There are several things to look out for when you’re playing through your repertoire. One of which is hesitation. Like a moment where your brain goes “emmmm” then you play on from there. A physical tell tale sign is where you wave your hand over the notes you think you should play. Almost like casting a magic spell with your hands.
When you find a section like this, don’t just say that you’ll get round to that part. Take action and work on that section until you know it inside out and it feels easy to play. No hesitation and no wishful thinking through spell casting.
Strip it back, play it slowly, hands separate, then piece it all back together.
It seems counterintuitive but taking your time with sections of your music will let you learn your music faster. Experiment with it and you’ll find the sowly slowly approach will give you fasty fasty progress. The more you do it, the more confidence you’ll have in this approach.
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