How Do You Know When Music Is Too Hard? Part 1

CEFR Level B2-C1

At a piano lesson recently, my teacher followed the typical pattern by asking me to start with a scale. I groaned out loud and stopped just shy of banging my head on the keys. She looked at me incredulously and asked, “Did you seriously just say ‘ugh!’?”

I’ve been with this teacher for at least seven years. I took voice lessons from her for the first six. Singing is one of the hardest things I do; I would much prefer to hide under a table. That’s a story for another day. The point is, my teacher has seen me in all the moods but never once have I vocally groaned. 

In preparation for this piano lesson, I had been working on a challenging piece. I knew the reason I groaned was because I felt like I hadn’t made progress. Unfortunately, as a child it was deeply ingrained in me that you never contradict a person in authority, that it was bad to even have a desire different from that of an authority figure. I know better as an adult and try to speak up for myself, but under stress, old habits take over. 

I know from experience that my teacher welcomes my honest feedback, but instead of telling her that I was struggling with the piece, I went sideways and talked about the frustrating week I had had with a grad school project. It was true and probably affected how much music I learned, but the entire time I was talking, I couldn’t figure out how to get my mouth to say what my brain was thinking: “Daisies: Waltz”* feels too hard and I’m frustrated.

I eventually talked myself into being able to focus, played the opening scales well, and the lesson proceeded as it should. I even managed to play “Daisies” reasonably accurately, if excruciatingly slowly - as in the quarter note equalled 40 BPM when the dotted half note is marked at 54.

That night, I Googled numerous variations on “how to know if a piece is too hard for you.” I found a few music teachers advising on how to pick a piece of music at your student’s level. There were some good tips there, but I couldn’t find anything that answered my question in my situation. 

Ultimately, I decided to focus on other pieces while slowly working on Daisies. I also came up with some tips for knowing when a piece of music is too hard for you, or at least, when you might want to put it aside for a bit.