Why You Don’t Trust Your Playing Yet
1. Control
There is a subtle but important difference between being able to play something and trusting that you can play it. Many pianists can technically “get through” a piece, especially if they have played it and practiced it for a while. They can probably even play it quite well on a good day. But underneath that ability, there’s often an uncomfortable feeling that you are on the edge of making a mistake the entire time.
That hesitation is usually a lack of trust in your playing rather than a lack of ability. The ability to trust your playing doesn’t come from playing something correctly once or twice. It comes from predictability and believing that the odds are in your favour. It comes from sitting down at the piano and knowing that your hands will respond the way you expect them to in the situations you expect them to perform. Essentially, it comes from evidence.
The problem is that many players build familiarity, but not reliability. An example of this is playing a piece from the beginning over and over again. The opening will likely become comfortable. But when you jump in to start at a random bar in the middle, it suddenly feels less comfortable, and many players actually struggle starting in the middle of a piece from a random place for this exact reason. That uncertainty is exactly where your trust issues come from (you came for the music, but got a therapy session instead!).
Trust is not built by occasional success. It is built by repeated, controlled success… particularly in stressful situations. If your playing feels fragile, it is usually not because you are unable to play. It is because your control has not yet been tested in enough different ways to build evidence of success.
2. Evidence
If you think about any area of your life where you feel confident, it’s probably because you have experienced that situation enough times to know what will happen. You probably have a wealth of proof that backs up your confidence.
The same applies at the piano. If you only ever practice from the beginning, your brain only has evidence that you can start the piece well. It doesn’t have evidence that you can recover from a mistake in the middle of a piece (in fact, it might have opposing evidence), or maintain focus when slightly distracted.
That’s why many players feel confident alone but uncertain when recording or playing for someone else. This is because the situation changes, and you need to begin to build enough evidence in that context too. Which means more successful performing equals more confidence when performing.
This is why trust is built by introducing small, controlled stress. It probably wouldn’t be a great experience if you perform for the first time playing a piece that is right on the edge of your ability, because adding the stress of a new context will likely push you over the edge. That means you have a negative experience and become even less confident.
So what can you do? Well, here are some things you can do in practice to help you gain that trust:
Start from random bars.
Play a section after deliberately stopping mid-phrase.
Record yourself and listen back. (Recording does add a little stress.)
Practice difficult parts with very intentional movement.
Practice continuing through mistakes when deliberately playing through a piece (not when isolating passages).
Interestingly, repetition alone doesn’t necessarily build trust. You can repeat a piece 50 times and still feel uncertain if you are only reinforcing one way of playing it. Trust improves when you deliberately strengthen weak points. Many players might think that trust comes from not making any mistakes. In reality, trust comes from knowing what to do when you make one and knowing that you will at least be able to do something.
If you know you can keep going after messing up by jumping ahead, jumping back, or making it up, then you know you have nothing to worry about.
3. Owning It
Another reason that you don’t trust your playing yet is that your standards might have slowly moved. You might be noticing more in the music, and what once felt impressive now feels kind of basic. That shift can create the illusion that you are not ready or stable in your playing. This is why it’s important to separate playing and practice. When pieces are in the “ready to perform” state, the difficulty of the piece is far less important, because you should know it in your fingers starting from any bar, regardless of what challenges that piece includes.
But confidence doesn’t just come from complete mastery (I often make many mistakes when playing). It comes from being okay with mistakes as well. In fact, I think many musicians are waiting to feel confident. They think trust will just happen once everything feels easy and effortless, but confidence is really just a product of repeated exposure to the situation in which you don’t feel confident.
The more you perform and realise that you can get yourself out of a tricky situation, the less nervous you become and the more you are able to perform at a high level.
Matt
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