Case Study

The power of lateral thinking

Anita, music undergraduate, was playing a Mozart sonata with great understanding of the style and emotional content, but was having difficulty playing a passage of fast semi-quavers evenly up to speed, and did not know how to overcome the problem. To begin with, we tried breaking the task down into stages: each hand separately, followed by slow hands together practice and practising the phrase in different rhythms. Anita could play the exercises we created from the phrase, but playing it at full tempo in the context of the piece still eluded her. Each time she attempted the passage at full speed, she became anxious and tense. She clearly doubted her ability to play the passage fast.

I suggested she play with the idea of having a ‘mistake’ day – to allow her the option of making as many mistakes as she liked and giving herself freedom from the pressure of being perfect. Initially sceptical, she tried it a few times without conviction. And then with plenty of encouragement to just let go, play it up to speed and see what happened, she did! This time the semi-quavers were flawless. Every note was in place. And she was amazed at what she had achieved!