Animisha ranjit A few small mislearned notes make basically zero difference in an amateur performance
If I would feel this way, I would never again practise.
I think my reply was a little too short and didn't go into enough nuance.
I personally don't care too much about a few mislearned notes. I focus far more on the "musical" aspect, which I think of as being separate in some sense from note accuracy. That said, 98% of the time, I read and learn the right notes from the page -- but if I get one inversion wrong here or there, or one note in a melody that sounds off, I don't fret too much personally. Nor do teachers, although they make sure to point it out and ask me to correct it. Am I saying that is the right way to do things? No. Well, kind of. Often, I find that amateur playing is at 20% when it comes to musicality and 97% when it comes to note accuracy. Improving the musical effect from 20% to 30% would do far more for the music and for personal development (and is harder!) than improving the note accuracy from 97% to 99%.
I had a friend who was in his second year of learning the violin tell me that a piece is not the same "piece" if it has any incorrect notes. That is the kind of trap a lot of amateurs fall into that I'm trying to warn against. Just make sure not to miss the forest for the trees, and note accuracy is a small part of what makes good playing.
Another thing that I wanted convey was that, for most amateurs, it makes more sense to learn more pieces, rather than aim for "perfection" in any sense for single pieces. Time is in a way limited, and I find that learning the piano makes this painfully obvious. There is so much repertoire to learn, and so little time to do it. Time spent obsessing over perfection is usually better spent learning new pieces. The thing is that once you gain experience, your note accuracy while learning new music from the sheets will be much higher at a baseline. I haven't done anything special to make sure the notes I learn from the page are correct, and don't even really double check the notes after I learn them, but they are usually right (maybe 1-2 mistakes per page or less, which my teachers point out anyway). Your accuracy scales up so much with experience that more experience with a wider variety of pieces will do so much more than trying to "perfect" certain pieces -- and it really doesn't matter much while you're performing anyway! The primary thing that people listen to is "musical feeling". I have seen students get away with metaphorical murder if their playing sounds compelling. Of course, if you are playing for an audition, competition, or major concert, you should make sure to be as perfect as possible, but in most ordinary situations, you will be the only one who will pay attention to wrong notes assuming they aren't too egregious. So, it makes more sense to focus on musicality and quantity of pieces imo.
(My teachers often expect me to learn all the notes correctly, but they are trying to push me to aim for a professional level so it's a little different. They will expect that of you if you are a conservatory student or similar.)
Now, I actually think using synthesia to double check your accuracy is a good idea. I have used synthesia quite a lot in the past -- and while I don't use it much anymore, I think it has its place. I would not learn from synthesia initially for a few reasons:
- If your sight reading is at all decent, it slows you down for anything except the simplest songs.
- It can act as a crutch, making you avoid reading which will slow you down in the long run. This is assuming you are planning to play seriously in the long run, I am totally fine with beginners in their first year learning from synthesia just to "jump start" things and for playing to be "fun".
- I have seen that they have a lot of wrong notes, almost always (so still be cautious about using them to double check accuracy!).
- They lack information about dynamics, articulation, note length, etc., and you need to develop your skill at translating this information when you sight read.
Personally, I usually use recordings to check my note accuracy, because my ear is now developed to the point where I can hear most wrong notes from a recording. But it took a few years and a lot of effort to get the point where I could do that.
