Talking to Yourself

 

When my students play at the lesson, I can't hear their inner thoughts, of course. But after decades of experience teaching and observing students, I have a pretty good idea of what's going on in their minds, at least in general terms. When a student is struggling to play fluently -- having a lot of stops and starts, hesitations, "correction" of wrong notes (which, as you've heard me say many times, doesn't actually correct them), and so on -- I suspect that they are doing a lot of talking to themselves. And when I ask them if that is what is happening, they almost always say yes. But sometimes they are barely aware they are doing it because it is such a strong habit.

In essence, they are trying to talk their way through the music, giving verbal instructions to themselves such as "now I need to move down a fourth, now I need to play this G chord in the left hand, now such and such happens...." This approach doesn't work at all. Even in simple music there is too much going on to be able to verbalize it all, but certainly in more complex music it would be impossible to narrate everything. It is also far too slow. But perhaps most important, if you have a lot of chatter going on in your mind, you can't actually be listening to your playing, and without that, you won't ever play your best. It seems to me it would also take most of the fun out of it.

Talking to yourself -- attempting to narrate what is happening -- is a way of trying to exert control. It is a response, in my opinion, to the "anxiety" of potential wrong notes. There is a fear of just letting go and letting the music flow. 

Students may think that they just need to do this in the beginning, but after a while they will stop. But as you can guess, it's more likely to become a habit that you can't just overcome by will power.

When you are a total beginner, there is a lot of information to absorb. There is some terminology to learn and concepts to understand. However, the best approach maximizes the actual playing, including training the ear and the phyical mechanisms (arms, hands, fingers). Concepts are important but should be kept to the areas that the student can use right at the present time, not just in the future. 

When learning to sight-read as a beginner, the approach should be learning to read by interval, not note-names (see my post on this subject) and the goal is to develop a direct connection between what the eyes see and what the hands feel. Too much "frontal lobe processing" (analysis) in the brain gets in the way of that direct connection. The sure way to wreck good sight-reading is to try to name every note you are playing. It's actually not possible but some students try to do just that.

When learning rhythm, the approach should be on learning to actually hear the relationships of the sounds in time (see my posts on this topic) rather than trying to just do "the math" with systems such as "counting."

Your goal while playing should be to have a quiet mind. Many disciplines such as meditation, yoga, tai chi and others, stress needing to quiet the mind of its constant chatter. I believe this is true for playing an instrument as well. The mind has a role to play, however. You might think of it as the pilot on a flight; the plane is flying on auto-pilot for the most part, but the human pilot is there to oversee everything and watch for any potential problems. In playing the piano, you may need to remember the way the first section of the piece ends versus the last section which is very similar. If you are an auto-pilot alone, you might accidentally go to the wrong one and end up in a loop. But a subtle mental note to yourself reminds you of which ending you are on, so there won't be a problem.

The chatter will inevitably pop back up. You may be thinking about the notes you need to play or you may find yourself thinking about what you'll have for dinner tonight. But each time you realize you are talking to yourself, try to just return to listening to the music. After all, if you were playing for others, you would hope that your audience would be listening, rather than talking to themselves. Try to make sure you are doing that yourself as well.