Feedback request technique

Hi,

It's been a while since I was here and made some progression.
I have been asked by a friend of mine to play at a fund raising diner and the nerves already start to develop. Although I'm scared to play in public I know that that is what I want to do. It is a great chance for me and want to make the most out of it. It might result in more possibilities to play at such events which might lead to something beautiful.

The unsecurity comes from not knowing if I play correctly. I never took any piano lessons. Well, I tried it once and I know it is not for me. I can't focus on theory and I learn by playing new songs with new challenges in them. I also learn by composing pieces myself with challenges in it for me. That works for me.

I might have developed some bad habits by doing it like this and I would appreciate any feedback about my technique. So if some of the teachers would like to take the time and judge what I'm doing here. Below three links of the, for me, hardest pieces to play at this moment in time.

Comptine d'été n°3 - Yann Tiersen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIvzNRuUdXU
1st part Maple Leaf Rag - Scott Joplin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLAd_FLXk5g
La valse d'Amélie - Yann Tiersen (Top view): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIMM2styn8I

Thank you very much in advance for your time and feedback.

p.s. My right hand was broken on three places, which results in a slight reach problem for my right indexfinger and loss of wrist flexibility (wrist can't move entirely to the right and not entirely up)

I'm not a teacher but here are some useful tips: The key to controlling nervousness is mental play. Have you heard about mental play? Also another good habit is not stopping at mistakes. If you make a mistake, whatever you do, DON'T STOP, try to play another note, if not possible just play the melody and if that's not possible at least maintain the rhythm.

I'm not familiair with mental play, I will Google it

To get used to play in front of others I'm asking friends to Come over and listen. That made me aware about not stopping, mostly they didn't even notice THE error! THE swearing after a mistake was dealt with Quickly too . Starting with songs you are sure about also helps! Getting Rid of insecurity is key imo, hence this request, I know I can improve on that part:). Thank you for your constructive reply!

[edit] looked it up. As described here is totally recognizable. I drive about 2hours a day for work, listening to songs i can or are practising, i play along in My head with My hands. How glenn gould in this post i linked describes it is How i would describe it. When playing i don't Use THE sheet, i First Need to understand it, then I can play it. I hope I make Ant sense [/edit]

Pitch wrote:I'm not familiair with mental play, I will Google it

To get used to play in front of others I'm asking friends to Come over and listen. That made me aware about not stopping, mostly they didn't even notice THE error! THE swearing after a mistake was dealt with Quickly too . Starting with songs you are sure about also helps! Getting Rid of insecurity is key imo, hence this request, I know I can improve on that part:). Thank you for your constructive reply!

[edit] looked it up. As described here is totally recognizable. I drive about 2hours a day for work, listening to songs i can or are practising, i play along in My head with My hands. How glenn gould in this post i linked describes it is How i would describe it. When playing i don't Use THE sheet, i First Need to understand it, then I can play it. I hope I make Ant sense [/edit]

You make sense, it's just strange grammarwise. Anyways, it's really good that you mental play. I find mental play pretty hard but it's all a matter of not practicing it enough. The author of the Fundamentals of Piano Practice (he wrote plenty about mental play) wrote that the more you mental play the better you become at it, that's because you are adding new associations and the memory is associative. I feel I've improved on it lately, too bad I've been sick the last few days and weren't able to practice.

When I practice I play alot better than infront of others, when practicing i'm not bothered if I do a mistake. But if I play infront of someone, I dont want any mistakes. But mistakes is a part of live playing ( and the ability to just continue playing is what makes it no mistake ), be it too much pedaling, or acidentially hitting a wrong key.

If I hit a wrong key when playing infront of others, I usually screw up, because my mind begins thinking about that wrong key. I found an effective way to deal with it, allow yourself to do mistakes. When you allow, your mind wont care, and the focus will still be on the piece, and not the wrong key that nobody will care about ( except all the cool kids at youtube ). And even better, when you allow yourself, you're less likely to make mistakes.

EDIT: Your playing isnt bad either. And ordinary people dont pay too much attention at the technical aspect, so they'll gladly ignores any mistakes too.

It's challenge for me, also in normal life, to allow mistakes. I am learning that good is good enough. It makes sense to think like that when playing too . I'm already experiencing THE benefits at work. Spelling and grammar is related to THE stupid spellingcheck on My iPod

VictorCS wrote:EDIT: Your playing isnt bad either. And ordinary people dont pay too much attention at the technical aspect, so they'll gladly ignores any mistakes too.

This.
Unless you will play for lots of experienced musicians (that know the song well) they won't notice the mistake/s if you try to hide them but if you suddenly stop playing because of a mistake, everyone will notice.

My sincere thank you to all. I've really learned/realized something here.

I think the reaction I got lately said it all, after the beautifull song comptine d'une autre été; l'apres midi, with several rhythmic errors on the fast part.
"I hope it takes a long time, but please play this like that at my funeral"

I was 'flabbergasted' and was stumbling over my words before saying a 'red cheeked' 'thank you'.

Had more of those reactions and I must admit they are quite addicting...Especially on my own compositions. If they react with emotions related to what I tried to transfer is an awesome, rewarding experience. Especially because I created it for myself at first....