There are times when we sit down to practice or have a piano lesson and everything goes wrong and you feel like you are completely wasting your time. You are left with feelings of frustration and annoyance. No, I haven’t been spying on you, I just know that it happens to everyone. This is not an exaggeration, every person will have practicing sessions and piano lessons that just won’t work. So even though it is thoroughly frustrating, at least it is somewhat comforting to know that this happens to everyone.
I know this must happen to everyone because it has happened to every single one of my students. It is not caused by a lack of motivation, or practice and effort. It most certainly has nothing to do with talent either. I don’t know exactly what the cause is, maybe its just because we are all human beings and despite our best efforts, we all have off days, so musicians have off music days too.
From time to time with all of my piano students, there will be occasions where I notice that a student’s playing will not be where I expect it to be, or mistakes will happen where there were previously no mistakes. After ruling out other reasons such as not being warmed up properly, or they are struggling with some new piece of music or not practicing as much as they normally do, I realize that they are just having an off day – sometimes it is the only thing that makes sense.
I try and be understanding of my students when they are inexplicably having an off day. The main reason why, is that I remember vividly having off days, particularly when I was the piano student. I have the distinct memory of walking along my piano teacher’s driveway thinking “Well, that was a waste of time!”, with all the angst and attitude a teenager can produce. I remember so well sitting at my teachers piano making mistakes that I hadn’t made in ages and then having to listen to my teacher tell me what I was doing wrong. I found it initially frustrating because I was making mistakes that I hadn’t made in months and then I had to politely answer my teacher when she was explaining things about my mistakes that I already knew about! I got so frustrated that even though I was answering my teacher respectfully, inside my brain I was yelling that I knew what I was doing wrong but it was just my fingers that were not co-operating! At least now I can look back and be grateful that my teenage self wasn’t rude to my piano teacher.
It is so many years ago that I was the piano student taking the lessons and getting really frustrated having one of those off days, so many times. At least as a piano teacher I can and have the capacity to spot it with my piano students, when they are having one of those off days.
The advice I give to my students and now to you is that recognize it as just a bad day. It doesn’t mean that all your hard work has been wasted. Tomorrow, you will be able to play to your usual standard, just accept that today it is not working and no amount of frustration will change that. Acknowledge that it is an off day and that every one else has them too (and I do mean everyone). If at all possible, have a laugh at your mistakes, laugh at how horrible some of the mistakes actually sound. I know that for some, this might be hard, others may find it impossible, but if you can laugh then at least your off day was not a total waste.
Just remember, it is just an off day and tomorrow you will be back to playing the piano at your usual standard.