2023.08.07 -- 6 hours
· Bach French Suite No.5 First Four pieces: Detailed Learn
· Lera Auerbach Trio First Movement Phrase 3: Rough Learn + Fluency Trick Round 1
· Lera Auerbach Trio First Movement Phrase 1: Fluency Trick Round 2
· Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 1st movement 2/3: Revised
I have been obsessed with 'The Queen's Gambit' for a few days. So obsessed so that, as a person who never understood any rules of any kind of board games, I even bought myself a chess set.
When it came I stared at the 64 squares and desperately realised how I just wasted my money again.
But it still doesn't diminish my love for the show.
Episode 5, before Beth beat Benny, they sat together on a bench, and Beth asked:
"Do you ever go over a game in your head? When you are alone, play all the way through?"
Benny, looking very confused, answered:
"Doesn't everybody?"
And I imagine someone asks me the same question:
"Do you ever go over a piece in your head?"
I suppose I will be looking very confused as well, and answer:
"Who on earth would want to do that?!"
Well.
That's why Beth Harmon is the best chess player in the world and I am only a mediocre pianist struggling to get better.
Emmmm...... Maybe that's not a fair way to put it.
To be honest I truly like my playing (sometimes, of course there are time I hate it but that doesn't count here), and from many aspects I don't consider myself a mediocre pianist, and that's why I keep going, keep practicing, and keep performing.
But I think I could get even better.
I know I could.
Mental practice is something that I have heard from many wonderful pianists, but reluctant to put it into action myself.
Reasons?
I am too lazy; my brain doesn't work without a piano in front of me; I don't get the accomplishment feeling without actually making the sound...
All the above ones are excuses.
Only when I realised that I just HAVE to do it despite of how reluctant I am, had I began to understand why I was so reluctant to do it.
It was because of fear.
When there is not a keyboard, when everything happens in your brain, you can hardly deceive yourself when you do not know what is the next note. And you feel helpless when you do not recall what should happen in your left hand. And you get super panicked when you find out there are actually so many weak points in your playing and memory.
It is not the laziness that I need to conquer (well occasionally maybe);
It is the mental fear that I need to persuade myself to confront.
And I have to face it.
Because it is out of the utmost importance now.
There were two sections in Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 1st movement, both having similar flowing underlying texture and beautiful melody in the top voice, and I somehow just manage to mess them up nearly every time I perform, no matter how many times I trained my fingers to play them.
If you happen to have the music, you could have a look.
They are Section F in B♭ minor and Section O in C minor.
As I am going to play it on this Thursday, I sincerely hope these two places won't let me down again.
And I know clearly that normally hoping doesn't help.
So I forced myself into mental practice today.
And then I understand what's wrong with these two places.
My fingers remember them, but my brain doesn't.
When I went over them in my head, they just couldn't proceed.
I have to constantly check the music again and again to assure that I am not making notes up.
No wonder that I skipped the whole section last time when I performed in the Battersea Activity Place.
Thank god my audience was so nice so wonderful and so understandable, didn't shovel me off the stage.
But I somehow felt ashamed.
That's the fundamental of my job, not giving my audience such a reason to shovel me off the stage, and I cannot rely on my audience's kindness.
I have to be stronger and better.
So here I am, late in the night, practicing Tchaikovsky in my head.
Want to know how important mental practice is?
Let's see what happens on this Thursday.
If I survive the two sections then it is proved to be super super super important;
If I don't survive...
Touching wood touching wood.
What a terrible horrible thought!
Of course I would survive!
If I don't....
Well, I will let you know and go buy myself a huge delicious pizza and think over what's wrong and what do I need to do next while eating it.
Sounds like a not too bad plan at all.
At least better than Beth Harmon drinking herself to unconsciousness.
Good night.
XinRu in London
who is again famish before midnight but determine to keep it that way in order to fit into her lovely new dress
Comments