Music Video Lesson: Don't Find Your Mistakes, Find the Corrections

Hi, and welcome to livingpianos.com, I'm Robert Estrin. And today the subject is, "Don't find your mistakes, find the correction." Now, this may seem counterintuitive or even pointless, like, "Don't have to find your mistake to find the correction?" Well, indeed, you need to find where the problem is. But beyond that, you don't want us to hunt for, "What did I do wrong?" I know a lot of students that they want to find the mistake. And what I really hate is when they not only want to find the mistake, they want to replay it to see what it was. It's like, no, don't do that. Because you want to cement the correction right from the get go.

Now, this might seem like an arbitrary distinction, but think about this, for example, when you play a concert, you obviously want to play a good performance. You want to have secure memory, but there's a big difference between going out there and thinking the whole time, "Oh, I hope I don't miss. I hope I remember everything. Am I going to remember the third movement?" If you start thinking that way, it's a downward spiral, because whatever you think about, tends to manifest itself.

You hear about visualization, having this concept in your head and seeing things the way you want them to be in some future event. Visualization could be extremely valuable in a concert situation in this way. So imagine yourself on stage with an audience there, with a nice piano, and things going well, just the way you want them to. And you're much more likely for that to happen, than, if in preparation for your concert, you're thinking, "Oh my God, what if I mess up? What's going to happen."

You start imagining that in the back of your mind, and it keeps percolating there. And then you get out on stage, and what the heck is going to happen? It's going to refresh your memory about all this horrible stuff that you were thinking about, it's going to seep in this toxicity. Well, it's the same thing with finding your mistakes. You don't want to concentrate in your mistakes. You want to concentrate in the correction. And that is what is going to cement your performance for you.

So as tempting as it is to say, "What did I do wrong there?" Find out, "What do I need to do right there?" It's an important distinction that will help the productivity or practice tremendously. And it's a lesson for life as well. Remember, you believe what you tell yourself. This is an important fact. So take this to heart, in everything you do and everything you think, because it has a profound effect upon what happens to you in life, and in your music.

Thanks so much for joining me. Again, I'm Robert Estrin. If you liked the videos, if you haven't subscribed already, you're welcome to, and you got to ring the bell. I have even more content on Patreon for you. Thanks so much for joining me here. Livingpianos.com, your online piano resource.

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