Dear Friends,
A few months ago I set up a survey to start collecting responses from my viewers and readers. So far I have received more than 2,100 responses to the survey. If you haven’t taken it yet and you’d like to, here’s the link.​
It has been really interesting to read your stories and learn more about you, and I'm truly grateful for all that you have shared with me. One pattern I've noticed is that hundreds of you articulate a version of the same frustration: feeling discouraged about your ability at the piano, and referring to your progress in negative terms.
Some of the language many of you used was jarring to read. “I’ll never be good.” “I keep telling myself I can’t play.” “I should be better by now.” “I’m too old for this.” “What’s the point?”
My reaction to reading many hundreds of entries like that has been a mix of several emotions. First, I feel quite impressed that even pianists who don’t intend to make a career out of playing the piano hold themselves to such high standards and are so driven to excel and grow. That’s truly inspiring for me to see, and it even helps keep me motivated as I sit down at the piano every day to practice on my own.
But to be honest, another emotion I feel when I read these responses is one of sorrow. I feel sad that the music world is so perfection-oriented that that ethos has apparently trickled into every corner of the teaching profession, to the point that students of the piano are sitting at the instrument every day and berating themselves for not progressing faster, for not sounding better, and for not playing at a higher level.
And so in today’s email I really want to try to address some of these negative feelings so many of you have, and hopefully make a few suggestions that might help you start to take steps toward enjoying your time at the piano more.
Let me start by naming the problem as clearly as I can. I think that many of you are so focused on where you want to be that you’ve lost the ability to be accepting of and present to where you actually are. You have a picture in your mind of how you should sound, or how far along you should be after a certain number of years, and every time you sit down to practice, you measure the distance between that imagined picture and perceived reality, and you feel bad about it.
This is called having an "outcome orientation." You are keenly focused on the destination, and because you’re not there yet, much of what you do in practice feels like failure.
The alternative is what can be called a "process orientation." In his book The Musician’s Way, Gerald Klickstein describes it like this:
“With a process orientation, when you run into a technical problem in practice, you don’t sulk in frustration; instead, you proceed with gusto to unpack the impasse….You treat the slip-up as information for use in bettering your art, not as a test of your talent or personal worth.
"If musicians forsake detachment.... they may avoid practice out of shame or aggravation. They say, 'I'm untalented,' as opposed to 'What can I do to solve this?'"
That one shift, from “this mistake means I’m not good enough” to “this mistake is telling me something useful,” is the key. It is the difference between practicing with dread and practicing with engaged curiosity.
When you are process-oriented, a wrong note is just a wrong note. It’s data, telling you that maybe you need to adjust a fingering, or that you need to isolate and slow down a passage, or that you’ve been glossing over a transition that actually needs careful attention. None of that is a reflection of who you are as a person or whether you deserve to be sitting at the piano.
But when you are outcome-oriented, that same wrong note becomes evidence: evidence that you’re not talented enough, that you started too late, that you’ll never get there.
And that's when the negative self-talk takes over.
Now, here's the thing: I struggle with negative self-talk too. Every musician I know does. The inner critic doesn’t disappear when you get a doctorate, play a bunch of concerts, or land a university teaching gig. I have sat in my own practice room and thought unkind things about my playing that I would never say to one of my students.
But negative self-talk is not just a minor bummer; it's actively harmful to your progress. When you go to sit down at the piano, already telling yourself that you’re not good enough, you are not in an optimal state to do the kind of patient, curious, focused work that practicing requires.
There's a phrase I love that I think captures the ideal mindset for practicing: “Be a scientist, not a drill sergeant.”
A scientist observes. A scientist is curious. A scientist doesn’t take it personally when an experiment doesn’t go the way they expected; they just adjust and try again. A drill sergeant barks orders and punishes mistakes. Unfortunately, most of us have internalized the drill sergeant.
It is, however, possible to learn new, more constructive habits of mind and bring them to your practice sessions. It's not something that changes overnight, but you can definitely start working on it right away. Here are a few ideas:
First, simply acknowledge that negative self-talk is happening and that it is not helping you. This might sound obvious, but a lot of people think that it’s somehow motivational when we speak negatively to ourselves, so this first step is about actually acknowledging it and preparing to let go of it.
One thing that can help with this is to keep a small notepad next to your piano. When you catch yourself thinking something harsh toward yourself during your practicing, write it down. Don’t judge it or try to change it in the moment; just write it down. Over a week or two, you will start to see patterns. In working with my own students on this, I've noticed that each person usually has 7-10 recurring negative phrases or thoughts that keep coming up over and over.
Once you can see the patterns, you can start to interrogate some of those thoughts. For instance, if you catch yourself thinking “I should be further along by now,” you can ask: Further along compared to what? Compared to whom? Is there actually a timeline you’re supposed to be following, or did you just make one up? Or if the thought is “I’ll never be able to play this,” you might ask: Never? Really?? Or do I just not have it yet?
Then, start substituting something more useful. Not falsely positive, but believable. Instead of “I’ll never get this,” try: “This is hard for me right now, and I’m working on it.” Instead of “I should be better by now,” try “I’m further along than I was six months ago, even if it doesn’t always feel like it.”
Over time, the goal is to get better at catching the negative thought in real time and replacing it with something that is more helpful to you.
Some people find it helpful to give their inner critic a name. Mine is named Bob. When Bob starts telling me that a passage sounds terrible and I should just give up, it’s a little easier to say, “Thank you, Bob, I hear you, but I’m going to keep working on this.” It sounds silly, but it creates just enough distance between you and the thought that you can recognize it and move forward anyway.
As I wrap this up, I want to invite you to imagine yourself, sitting at the piano with a young piano student: an eight-year-old child. The child is struggling with a difficult passage. They play it wrong a few times. They look up at you, unsure. Would you lean in and hiss at them that they’re no good? Would you tell them they should be further along by now? Would you sigh and tell them to just give up?
Of course you wouldn’t. You would be patient. You would be kind. You would slow the passage down, explain it differently, and let them try again. You would encourage them.
That is how you need to learn to be with yourself in the practice room.
Focus on the process. Talk to yourself the way you would talk to a good friend, or a hopeful child. And write back and let me know how it goes. I love hearing from you, and I read every reply, even if I can't respond to everyone.
đź‘‹ Happy practicing,
Kate