#themangoturtle

Reading your post, I can feel your desperation and pain. I know that no amount of words can alter your situation... as much as I wish it would. My experience from yours is very different -- but if you remember, several months back, I had a similarly devastating experience with piano. Looking back, it wasn't just that one day, although that day was the worst. In the weeks and months before, my piano lessons were sometimes... off. But on that day, after that experience, I cried for hours. I loathed myself. I hated my mind and habits which led me to that humiliating failure. I was so fucking humiliated and confused with myself that I even quit formal piano lessons. Like you, piano was part of my identity. When others quit, I persisted. Even when I failed (countless other times too), I clung on. And in the few times I succeeded, it meant everything. But that experience was beyond everything I had endured. I couldn't face my teacher after that. I was a coward.

A lot of things built up to that moment of humiliation. But there were two things that stood at the root of everything. First, I had a habit of negligence and self-reassurance when it came to practice. I planned to practice several hours each day. But there was always something that came up --- and I never lasted more than a few days of vigorous practice. To make it easier for myself to sleep at night, I would tell myself "tomorrow, I'll practice twice as much". I'd reassure myself that at some point, when I got serious enough before the deadline, I would reach a critical breakthrough and everything would fall into place. That never happens. Second, when it came to the critical moment, be it a competition or recital, my confidence plummeted to nonexistence. In the key moments when I was onstage, performing, my mind would slip into delirious worry for a split second -- fuck, I hope I don't forget any notes -- and that, inevitably, would result in me actually screwing up. 

You feel overwhelmed with the idea of failing because time is moving faster than your progress. You feel like escaping from the failure you feel is imminent. But a piece of yourself is hanging on by a thread, trying to practice when the feeling of hopelessness consumes your mind. I feel like that itself is inhibiting your ability to progress too.

Personally, when it comes to music, I work best, and most efficiently when I have a goal I'm striving to achieve, rather than worrying about a fate I have to avoid. The only piece of advice I can give (though I'm really not qualified to give advice), is that you should re-evaluate what your goal is.

You walked into this with the ambition of passing the exam and proving something to yourself. You have under two months left with 3 pieces to master.

You know what you believe about yourself. If you sincerely believe that it is impossible to achieve that, then revise your goal. 

For example, make it your goal to spend two weeks per piece. Focus all of your efforts on that single piece for those two weeks. Then move onto the next. Devise your own way of attacking things. Screw the exam. Screw everything. If you don't believe you can pass, fine. But find something you believe and desperately want to attain, and break it up into things that you can tackle daily. Find something you know you can do, and believe in it. You have to start somewhere.

If you're feeling overwhelmed and hopeless, focus on a revised goal that seems more attainable. Forget about the exam. When the day comes, you play your fucking best. Only learned 4 our of the 6 pieces? Well perform those 4 pieces and make them as fucking beautiful as you can muster. You're playing for yourself.

Remember that.

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