Sometimes you are confronted with puzzling situations. You do everything right, you have all your ducks in a row and yet, you don’t get the results you were expecting. No matter the amount of work, the dedication, the thought, the care, you can’t make headway. It’s like you’ve stepped in a pile of glue that hardens more and more as you try harder to escape it.
Oh, you think I am talking about practicing, don’t you? Oh, well, all right, ok, practicing it is. The customer is always right, right? In practice, actually, when you’re stuck in such a way, I give it a name. The name comes from what people told me throughout the years, the word they use the most to describe their predicament: a plateau. Yes, they’ve hit a plateau. They are trying to get to the speed they want or need, they are giving it an everyday best, they are sweating bullets and blood, and nothing moves the needle. They can’t break through the wall.
You have this piece to study, it’s a beautiful piece, when you hear it executed by others it sounds so natural, so flowing. You care about it because after all, Chopin penned it (It’s always from Chopin, if it’s gorgeously difficult, it’s from Chopin). You understand what is going on on the paper, you’ve got it all figured out, the fingering, the dynamics, the phrasing, the bass, the melody, the voicing, everything. But, for some odd reason, the tune keeps vexing you. One day you might have the dynamics but you lack the confidence, another day you’re all speed but it’s at the detriment of everything else. O Tempora! O mores! (Don’t ask me what it means, I don’t speak Latin).
In the second part, I’ll start proposing a few solutions that involves Science-Fiction.
