Piece too difficult

[MattH]

There are so many valid points throughout this thread. As a new player, I'm am enjoying myself so much right now that I have to pause every once in awhile and make sure I'm taking care of the business in my life.
I'm playing simple pieces from the study guides I'm using, working on my technique. I have tried a few more difficult pieces, not being able to resist looking ahead to see what's to come. Several times I've had to back off to where I should be concentrating. Everything I've tried has been relatively simple, and when I return to something after a week or so, I've found I can play it better than before whether it was something that I felt I had done pretty well or something that was too much for me. I suppose that's one good thing about being a beginner - there's much room for improvement.
I'll definitely be considering the good thoughts presented here. I hope I'll naturally recognize that the music is too hard when I'm frustrated and not enjoying myself. But I suppose as one improves and the music gets more challenging, it may not be so clear. I am planning on finding a teacher, but first I have some personal things (daughter's wedding, for one) to get through. I certainly don't want to get to a point where a bad choice makes me want to put down the guitar.

[eschelar]

OK, so my opinion doesn't count for much because I'll be the first to tell you that I can't play guitar very much.

But my learning of the guitar is influenced by my learning of many other things, including photography, videography, electronics, an extra 3 languages over my native English.

It depends on what your purpose is. If you are learning guitar to be a performer, please listen to what your teacher tells you.

If you are learning for yourself, the only limits are your persistence and your patience.

I have learned only a couple of songs and barely 30 seconds of RDLA (and about 7 minutes of the Koyunbaba suite) after years of meddling with the guitar on and off (more off than on unfortunately). But I don't care if it takes me a long time. I'll just keep playing because I enjoy it. And if I only make 5 seconds of progress in a week, so be it. Usually I make even less than that.

I have found that as I keep persisting, learning becomes easier. When I started, what I thought was hard to figure out over the space of a month, I can now breeze through in 10 seconds with my eyes closed. Most parts without even thinking.

I've got my whole life to enjoy the guitar. I'm not in competition with anyone and I know there are countless people who play better than me. But at the end of every day, I now have 7 minutes of musical bliss... and that's what matters to me.

[Eva Bonin]

Hiya,

new to this forum and pretty new to the guitar (about 5 months).

It was interesting to read the posts here. My "process" for learning a piece is a bit different from what some have described, probably because I'm a beginner and still finding my way around the fretboard!

Basically, I start by going through the piece very slowly, making sure I get all the notes right and make some notes in the score so I'll find the less obvious ones. Then I go through it a few times to understand the shape of it. Then I divide it up into bite sized pieces and work on those individually, moving back and forth to make sure the transitions are right. This gets me to a place where I can play the whole piece with reasonable confidence and usually by heart. Once I'm there, the work starts on making it into music!

So I'm not playing pieces I can necessarily sight read, I have to figure out the notes on the board. Some of the previous comments suggest that this might mean the pieces are too hard. But, even though it takes me longer to figure them out, at the moment I'm looking at about one short piece per 2 weeks that I can then play to a standard my teacher is happy with. My latest piece is Brouwer's etude #6 which is a grade 5 piece. I don't think I'm grade 5 standard overall and this piece is a lot of work, but I'm confident I'll get it playing nicely within a week.

I think I sort of agree with those who work on pieces for a while even if they don't come easy - I think a piece I could sight read wouldn't be enough of a challenge for me at this stage (but this may be due to my limitations vis a vis the fretboard!).

Anyway, great forum, all the best,

Eva

[George Crocket]

Hiya Eva.

Welcome to the Delcamp classical guitar forum. It looks like you are making good progress for only 5 months learning.

If you have not already done so, please have a look at our welcome page for more information about the forum and its rules, then please introduce yourself here for a proper welcome.

[rever]

By certain standards, almost every piece I take on could be considered beyond me. However, the odd thing is that pieces that I cannot play at half speed by the third attempt, I am a good sight reader and a bad performer, are pieces that I get memorized and locked in sooner. Pieces that I can pretty much cruise through never get get memorized. Last week I had the Hummingbird memorized in a half hour, but on the other side Leisener's Nel Mezzo parts of Bach 996 are something else. The last movemnt of the Nel Mezzo is marked feroce, my playing of it would be marked largo molto hezitato, but then again, the music kind of holds up in slow motion. Will I ever get to any kind of a performance standard like the Chaconne or the Britten Nocturnal or Seville or the Usher's Waltz or the Hummingbird? Probably not, but it has taken me to a new place with my guitar, and today I am 61 years old. Finding new ground at my age is a good thing, let the musical journey begin.

[dory]

I love the Sor studies arranged by Segovia. They are all extremely beautiful IMO and although they aren't for beginners they are playable on an intermediate level. One thing i did wrong the first time i studied guitar ( I am on round two in middle age after round one in my youth) is I went too fast (my teacher at the time encouraged me to) and played really difficult pieces badly. I have become a strong proponent of not trying to "progress" too fast by playing pieces you have no chance of sounding good on before you are ready. In education we talk about the "zone of proximal development"-- i.e. Working on something that is initially difficult but can be mastered with work. Of course this may not feel helpful because you can ask me "what is difficult?" "what do you mean by master?" in my case i know that "mastering" a piece still doesn't mean i am ready to give a concert or even post on youtube. I have been practicing a Pavane by Luis Milan that John Williams plays on youtube. I have worked hard and progressed a lot but if you recorded me and put me next to John Williams you would know who was who in less than five seconds. This is a judgment call.

My feeling is if something sounds not too great for a month its ok as long as you are progressing. If you are working on it hard for two months and it has not progressed very much you are trying pieces at too high a level.

I also like the Aguado studies many of which can be played on a low intermediate level. They are not as pretty as the Sor studies but are easier.

Dory

P.S. Talking of Sor studies there is a really sweet youtube video of Juluan Bream sitting in a garden with a big hat on and remembering his youth by playing the Sor study #5-- my favorite. It is an example of how a relatively simple piece played beautifully can be truly wonderful.