What if mistakes could help rather than hinder? Discover William Westney's distinctive approach to practising, physical learning and musical freedom.
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When something goes wrong at the piano, our instinct is often to correct it immediately, try harder and exert more control. Or perhaps we play much more slowly to avoid taking any risk. But what if the mistake itself contains exactly the information we need?
In Trusting Your Musical Self, William Westney invites us to reconsider the way we learn, practise and respond to mistakes. Building on ideas from his acclaimed book The Perfect Wrong Note and his more recent work on Making Friends with the Notes, he explores a kind of physical learning that is completely natural to us, but which pianists can easily override through excessive conscious control.
Rather than treating the body like a computer that needs to execute the correct instructions, the session explores what can happen when we allow it to learn in its own way, just as dancers and athletes do.
The afternoon combines How Can a Wrong Note Be Perfect?, a presentation on mistakes and physical learning, with live work on unresolved musical “problem spots” that have resisted more conventional practising methods.
You’ll be able to watch these ideas applied step by step in real playing, see what changes as pianists loosen their grip on the desired result, and consider how similar patterns may be showing up in your own practice.
In the first part of the session, you’ll discover a different way of thinking about mistakes, including:
In the practical part of the session, selected pianists will bring unresolved “problem spots” — passages that have not yet responded to their usual practising methods.
Working with William, they will explore what happens when they loosen their grip on the desired result, reduce unnecessary control and allow the body to find its own way through the problem.
If you already know The Perfect Wrong Note, this is an opportunity to see its philosophy brought to life in practice. If you don’t, the presentation and live sessions will introduce the ideas and show how they can work in real musical situations.
The question at the heart of the experiment is simple:
What might happen if we stop trying to control everything?
This event will be particularly relevant if you:
Teachers will also find much to explore in William's approach to mistakes, physical learning and problem-solving.
You do not need to be one of the participating pianists to benefit. Observing the process unfold is an important part of the session, helping you recognise similar patterns and possibilities in your own playing.
The workshop will help you:
William will begin with How Can a Wrong Note Be Perfect?, presenting ideas around mistakes, accuracy and the body's natural learning processes.
He will then work live with selected pianists in focused sessions of approximately 20 minutes each, applying the ideas to real problem spots and allowing the audience to observe how the process develops.
There will be a short interval before the final pianist sessions, followed by a brief closing section drawing together the discoveries from the afternoon.
The selected pianists will not be presenting polished performances for conventional masterclass coaching.
Instead, they will bring something unresolved: a stubborn passage, technical problem or other aspect of their playing that has not responded particularly well to their usual practising methods.
The emphasis is on exploring the process itself: what changes when habitual control and correction give way to curiosity, experimentation and greater trust in the body's own learning process.
The session will be recorded and all ticket holders will receive access to the recording shortly afterwards.
To book this event on its own for £40, or £24 for Online Academy subscribers, click the Buy button below. Subscribers should sign in first to receive the discounted price.
Online Academy subscribers can book all four events for £90 with the Member Event Pass.
Not currently a subscriber? The Birthday Experience includes all four events, unlimited replays and three months of non-renewing Online Academy membership for £135.