Woodshedding

SEP 6, 2012:  If you've ever had the urge to just take some time off of your regular practicing and concentrate on one or two key bars of difficult music, you're certainly not alone.  If you could only get those two difficult bars----then everything would be better, or so you believe.

But suppose the progress you make on those two bars are so small compared to the hours put in that it seems it may take years to master them.  Then, maybe it's time to look for alternate solutions.  Trying different fingers may work.  Also, trying different speeds, subtle shifts in tempo, may help.  But a lot of times you may need to get in there and leave out a few notes--or recompose the bars altogether.

The difficult part is getting it to blend in with the rest of it so that only those really familiar with the work will notice that anything's different.  As you know, it's possible to play the same piano piece with the same notes and dynamic marking and yet make it sound altogether different.  How about reversing the process---so that you change or leave out a note here and there, and yet it sounds similar to other performances.

I don't want to go into detail about how to do this.  Obviously, someone with more composing skills will have less effort in doing this essential process.  But however you do it, it would help if it sounded natural, and even those extremely familiar with the music may not notice it unless they're listening closely.

You might use that alternate passage until you master it as written.  But if it takes hours and hours and you're making minimum progress on it, that may mean it's time to revise the passage to fit your technique.