Why Confidence Makes You Play Slower
Pressure
Many people believe that confidence at the piano means virtuosity. The better you get at the piano, the bigger the pieces are and the faster and more energetically you play. However, the reality is that nervous players tend to rush and confident players tend to play with space and time.
For those that have ever performed before, you’ll know that as you stand in front of people who are waiting for you to play, your heart rate increases, your breathing might become more shallow, and your perception of time changes. Essentially, time feels slower than it actually is, and therefore it can create the feeling that you need to catch up, and you might end up rushing the piece by accident.
I’ve felt this feeling many times myself, where I’ve felt like I was chasing the next note rather than experiencing the current one. But what fascinates me is that as you experience the feeling of the music getting faster and faster due to nervousness, you no longer think about the music at all, but rather about the execution of the notes.
It may even be the case that you don’t notice the speed increase at all. Many performers rush performances without realising it. However, when I hear this happening, it tells me one thing, and that is that the player has switched into a mindset where they are now only thinking about pressing the right keys in the right order. This is what an audience will perceives as nervousness and a lack of confidence.
A teacher of mine once said to me, “Whatever you experience, the audience will, in some way, experience too.” This means that if you feel nervous, the audience are going to be more apprehensive for you. If you feel calm, the audience will also feel calm and be able to relax and enjoy the music (regardless of mistakes).
Presence
The reality is that confidence at the piano isn’t directly correlated with how well you play. There are many players who make many mistakes but play with confidence, and in those performances, the audience will still feel like the player has everything under control.
But how do you actually play with confidence?
Well, there are three things that you can do. Firstly, before any performance, there are two sentences that I say to myself which help me play better and stay calm.
- “Share the experience.”
- “Share the story.”
For me, these two sentences capture exactly what music is all about. An audience never cares about what notes you’re pressing, what rhythms you’re playing or what the dynamics say. They care about the experience that they’re having and the story you’re trying to tell them. They want a human experience. As a player, it’s our job to convert the notation, the theory and the technical aspects of the music into a human experience. This means that you can take a lot more time and linger on those moments in the music that create that experience.
Secondly, it’s important to stay present, be in the moment, and forget about everything that came before and everything that will come afterwards. For the nervous player who tends to rush, this tends to be because they’re thinking about getting to the end. But the experience doesn’t happen when the music is over. The experience happens as you press the keys and hear the quality of the music. This is why confidence allows you to take time and enjoy the experience more.
Lastly, it’s much easier to play with confidence if you build evidence of your ability. I think psychologically there is the feeling that if you can get to the end of the piece quickly, then there’s less time for something to go wrong. But if you have evidence that you can play the piano well, then there’s less of a need to feel like it’s a rush to the end. So, playing to people frequently or putting yourself in a situation where there is some small amount of pressure, like in a recording, can help start to build the evidence that you can do what you are capable of doing.
Perspective
Confidence isn’t bound by a particular level at the piano, it’s simply a perspective. It’s something that’s built by focusing on your mindset during those more stressful situations.
Particularly in the past year, I have often thought about what makes art different from AI art. What differentiates AI music from music, or an AI-generated video from a video that we’ve filmed ourselves? To me, the answer is imperfection. The human experience is an imperfect experience; it’s full of messiness and unpredictability. Which is why mistakes are not something to be feared, but are just a feature of the experience you are sharing.
Someone listening to you play is less interested in your execution than in the message you are sharing with them, and whether they can relate to it. So that should become the focus. Confidence allows you to be in the moment and enjoy sharing the music.
So next time you need to play for someone, tell yourself to “share the experience”, “share the story”, be in the moment, breathe deeply and slow the music down. Keeping these things in mind will help build the evidence that you need to become a truly confident player.
Matt