🔁 Relearning a piece you learned wrong
Almost every long-time player has one, a piece learned years ago with a wrong fingering, a rushed passage, or a bit of tension baked so deep that the mistakes come back every time, no matter how long it has been. Fixing it can be harder than learning something new, because the hands already believe they know it. Some rebuild the trouble spots from scratch, some relearn the whole thing slowly, some decide the old version is good enough and move on.
💬 How do you fix a piece your hands learned wrong?
- What is the piece you keep having to un-teach yourself, and what went in crooked the first time?
- When you go back to correct an old habit, what actually works, slow rebuilding, new fingerings, a full reset?
- Is it ever worth it, or do some old mistakes just live in a piece forever?
Unlearning is some of the slowest, least glamorous work we do, and it is where a lot of us quietly get stuck. Let's compare how we dig old habits back out.
3 replies
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I was trying to learn Classical Guitar on my own for a couple of years. So I didn’t understand the correct placement of fingers in a song. I went on my merry way learning Captian O’Kane by Turlough O’Carolan / arr. Jean Banwarth by the ‘hit and miss’ system. I could play it, maybe not the best, but play it I did. Then….. I found out what the fingering nominations where. Now, I am going to back track and learn a couple of bars at a time so I can play it correctly and more than likely easier. Now the goal is to play a song correctly even if it's slow going. :)
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Great topic Martin. Having played for over 50 years this probably applies to a lot of pieces I've 'learned' in the past! Mostly I go back to slow deliberate practice, but often when I start to speed up the old fingerings take over. It certainly takes a lot of concentration! I'd welcome any ideas on how to make this process more effective!
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Sometimes when I've "learned" a piece I discover weeks or months or even years later that I've learned mistakes. So I try to go back to the score periodically to make sure I haven't "hallucinated" any of the notes.