Mistakes can arise from different causes. In a concert situation, under stress, excessive control of what has already been automated can lead to a breakdown. Sweaty hands in hot weather and nervousness can cause slipping on the keys and hitting wrong notes. This can provoke a chain of inaccuracies and unclean playing. Fear of a difficult passage and of the climax of a piece can also lead to the fact that the text starts to fall apart even before reaching the technically difficult section, despite it having always been secure. A sudden external sound in the hall can disturb concentration. Emotional expression of music often leads to a speeding up of tempo, which complicates the performance process and makes it risky.
Even in our native language, we sometimes forget a word or mispronounce something. And we use it every day, constantly. When learning a foreign language, we spend years making mistakes and often struggle to find certain words in our minds. Music is such a language as well — only the letters are replaced by notes.
My teacher once told me that “music takes revenge on itself,” meaning that you begin to do something incorrectly even before the mistake actually happens, although each time it may be caused by a different reason.
Therefore, when people ask: “After how many lessons will I be able to play perfectly, without making mistakes?” — I find this question somewhat surprising. It is worth thinking: when will a person stop making mistakes, and would they not then become a robot? And does a robot not have the right to make mistakes? Then why do machines break down, and why does AI also have the tendency to make errors?
In the world of modern technology, perfect audio recordings of artists, perceived not only as reference standards but also as an expectation to play with the same precision, create a distorted perception of live performance.
In reality, most studio recordings are the result of multiple takes and post-production editing: tempos are adjusted, noise is removed, and wrong notes are corrected, with individual fragments sometimes taken from different performances to create a technically “perfect” result that is practically unattainable in live concert conditions.
In this logic, even the smallest deviation from this “sterile” sound begins to be perceived as a mistake rather than a natural part of live performance.
Live music is not a perfect copy of another performer. It is a creative process in which a human being remains a creator.