SEP 5, 2012: Sometimes when you're learning a tough new piece of piano music, you can get lost in the negative feelings about your abilities---when in actuality you've made great strides. Every piece that's new to you has challenges that you've probably never encountered before. Or, if you've encountered them previously, you haven't seen this particular array of problems in this particular order.
Still, I think it's good to ask yourself after you practice on a section: how did it feel to you? Sometimes there's one small thing that's off---and it's still bothering you. It taints the entire section. You can go back and work on that detail, but even if you learn the detail, putting it into context with the section often doesn't go as well as planned.
If you've been using the method I described in the opening post of this blog, you may think that all you need to do is to keep adding bars of music until you get one section completed. Once it's completed, then it's on to the next. Well, sometimes it can be that way, if there are no significant challenges to you in the section you just learned. But more often than not, it seems, there will be something that didn't feel right. Maybe the timing needs work. Maybe the touch wasn't what you thought was supposed to be there. It could be dozens of other things.
One way to check about whether the work you did felt a certain way is to try it again the next day and see if the same feeling comes back. If it does, and the feeling tends toward the negative, now you've got a clue as to what to do next. At any rate, just putting the time in regardless of how it felt to you may not be a help in the long run. Knowing how the work on your practicing felt after you completed it is a good way to anticipate problems that often come up later on.
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