Piano Video Lesson: Why You Must Not Overthink Your Piano Playing

Hi, I'm Robert Estrin. You're watching LivingPianos.com. Today we're going to talk about why you must not overthink your piano playing. Now, that seems like a strange thing for me to say with thousands of articles and videos about piano playing and technique and how to practice and memorization and how to digest a score and harmony.

Isn't that all about thinking? It is. And there is a time and a place for analysis.

And there's a time for intuitive playing.

And you must, of course, have a balance between the two in performance. So what am I talking about overthinking? Well, when you're performing, you have to have the presence of mind to make sure you're sitting in the right place, your hands are in the right place, you're listening, you're trying to achieve the balance and the sound.

But if you make the mistake of really thinking about what you're doing, it can drive you crazy and you might completely lose all abilities of playing at all.

Think about this. When you're playing a piece of music, there are thousands of notes, different rhythms, articulations, phrasings, dynamics. There's so much going on. And you think about the simplest thing can sometimes be challenging and the complexity of what you're doing. And if you stop just for a moment to think, what am I doing here? And you look at your hands and you go, do I know what the next note is? You might just freak yourself out because you're doing things almost on automatic pilot to some extent, although hopefully not so. Hopefully you've learned the music to the extent that you can think it through even away from the piano, pure thought of the instrument.

And you've referenced the score, you've studied the score, you've played slowly, you've done all these things so you have security. But if you start thinking about what you're doing while you're doing it, I'll give you an example of something that can really completely foul you up. You're playing the piece here in the moment, it's great, it's beautiful. And suddenly a thought occurs to you thinking, oh, that next section, how does that go when I get to it? You take yourself out of the moment overthinking going, am I going to remember where that goes? And if you're not right where you are, then you get completely fouled up because inevitably when you get to that part, you've thought it through and you're not sure if you thought it through right or not and you might second guess it wrong. And these are the kind of mind games that can completely destroy you in a musical performance. So remember the time for analysis is in your practice, but when you're performing, don't overthink it. Stay in the moment, listen to what you're achieving, try to go with the sound of the music and keep your head on your shoulders, think about where you are and let it flow naturally like you've done hundreds of times in your practice.

Sometimes it's the greatest challenge because when all these eyes are looking at you in a performance or even if it's just a friend you're playing for or your teacher, you start thinking more about it in a way that you aren't used to in your practice.

So another thing you can do is practice performing and pretend people are watching you, pretend you're playing for your teacher or your friends and see if you can keep your wits about you and try to psych yourself out and see if you can still hold it together because inevitably when you play for people it just feels different. Your whole psychology changes. So don't let it overtake you. Stay in the moment in your playing and you will be rewarded with fine performances. Thanks again for joining me. Just another tip for you here at LivingPianos.com. Your online piano resource.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/why-you-must-not-overthink-your-piano-playing/

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