In the era of social media, where we’re constantly exposed to other people’s talents and skills, it’s easy to start comparing ourselves. This frequent comparison feeds our perfectionist self, setting unrealistic standards that we now feel the need to obtain. Whether you’re someone born to be a perfectionist, who sought the highest grades in school and spent hours on projects, or someone who feels the pressure to become one ever since starting to play the piano, let’s take a look at how perfectionism plays a part in every pianist’s life.
Approaching mistakes as a perfectionist
To start, we should point out that perfectionism isn’t inherently bad. Progress is powered by a desire to get better, and a healthy amount of perfectionism is what can drive us to see the mistakes and decide that we’re committing to fixing them. This only becomes a problem when we reach a point where all we can see are mistakes, and we feel like every performance or practice we do isn’t good enough.
The latter becomes even more persistent when we set ourselves unattainable goals. In that moment, we’re trying to push ourselves to achieve something we have yet to gain the right skills to achieve, and blame ourselves for making mistakes that we can’t possibly fix if we don’t first step back and work our way through what comes before our unrealistic goals. For example, how can we master a grade 8 piece if we have yet to make it through a grade 6 piece?
So let your inner perfectionist help you spot the mistakes and challenge you to do better, without letting it drive you to reach a level of perfect playing that is unattainable and only risks harming your enjoyment of the piano.
Performing as a perfectionist
The perfectionist will always seek to make absolutely no mistakes during a performance, but if you’ve spent enough time watching even the greatest pianists of all time perform, you’ll know that mistakes can happen regardless. That’s the reality of playing - sometimes, even if you’ve spent hours practicing a piece, you can still make a mistake on the day you perform.
But while your perfectionist self might be pushing you to start the performance again in the event of mistakes, as the saying goes, ‘the show must go on’. As you’ll notice from the professionals performing, any mistakes will just have to be forgotten in the moment, as you compose yourself and carry on playing. You might be cursing yourself for getting something wrong in that instance, but the reality is that more often than not, your audience won’t even have noticed! But they’re sure to notice it if you stop all of a sudden and start playing again from the start.
Accept the learning process as a perfectionist
While perfectionism can impact players of all skill levels, it can be a huge block to those who are only starting out. Learning the piano takes time, and you’re unlikely to play pieces without mistakes for a very long time when starting out. Any new piano player has to get comfortable with the reality that they don’t know how to play the piano and that they won’t achieve any high standards of playing for the time being.
The most important thing is not to let perfectionism stop you from playing altogether - with enough determination and practice, you will get to that day when you can perform a whole piece without making mistakes. You just have to welcome the ups and downs of your learning journey first to get there!
Work on your inner dialogue
Now that you know what actions you can take to challenge your perfectionist self, it’s time to look at how it affects you mentally. Because, ultimately, that’s what might stop your enjoyment of playing the piano. This takes time, but you need to learn to challenge that voice inside your head that tells you that what you’re playing isn’t good enough. If you’ve been playing a piece for only a few weeks and are still in the early stages of learning the piano, remind yourself that you need time to get good at this piece.
At the same time, instead of ‘attacking’ yourself whenever you make mistakes, look at them as simply parts of the process. Focus on what you can do to fix these mistakes instead of focusing on the fact that you made mistakes.
We hope that this blog has given you some ideas on how to tackle your perfectionist self, and how to stop it from negatively impacting your piano learning journey. Like most things in life, this takes time, but the results will be more enjoyable practice sessions and performances that will make this all worth it!
