Victoria, that’s the norm for me…..

I know exactly what you mean Victoria, it’s the same here…
And most of the time there’s no evident reason for a good or bad day, for me there isn’t anyway. On a bad day, I try to continue where I went wrong and pick it up from there and if it really doesn’t work at all, I just quit the piece and try something else that I know I can play well enough to give me a good feeling about my practice for that day.

Additionally: what also works for me is to play a piece for other people, for instance a relative or friend who is around, just one or two persons will do, and experience how you play in front of this small audience…are you comfortable and at ease, just like you can be on a good day of practice? This also helps me to see if I made progress over a period of time when I do this every once in a while; ideally, playing for others ought to feel just as comfortable as playing just by yourself, so this way I can tell if that is the case and see (hear) if I’ve improved.

Best of luck Victoria!

“Anyone else experience this?”

CON. Stant. Ly.

Even the greatest musicians have good and bad days, but it’s all relative. The wonderful thing about accumulated knowledge and technical ability is that the bad days get less bad all the time. If your brain feels like it just is not absorbing anything, don’t give up. Keep plugging away at it, and you will find that the rough passages will be much better the next day.

I often feel like I’m uniquely inept, and this thread reassures me that my difficulties are perfectly normal and to be expected. Thanks to everyone who posted. 🙂

One thing I also do something is to have sort of automatic things in my back pocket that I can do if I’m having a truly crappy day. I’m at too low a level on the harp at the moment to worry overmuch about that instrument, but on the piano for instance, if I’m having a really off day, I will often have some things that I can work on that don’t require a lot of top-level awareness — relatively simple etudes, or just reinforcing a particularly sticky part using glacially slow practice. Those are things that I can do decently even on an off day, so the time doesn’t go entirely to waste.

It’s similar to how I think of handcrafts. I like to have a variety of active projects around, maybe a lace project where I need to pay mind to what I’m doing, and another brainless things like a sweater in all stockinette or a garter stitch blanket, where I can just switch off my brain if I don’t feel like thinking too deeply that day.

Bad days are always going to happen. As musicians we are trained to be constantly working toward bettering ourselves, and our music. I’m not sure I have ever been 100% happy with a performance/recording… this is just the way life is. BUT! This doesn’t mean that we can’t use our “bad” days for something good!!!
On the days that my hands just aren’t working (you know, you go through that tricky fast passage and your fingers are literally falling off of the strings) I take that as a sign and an opportunity to do some good-ol’ metronome work! As terrible as it sounds I find working with a metronome on “bad” days to be almost like therapy. By taking things at half tempo (and sometimes even slower than that) you give your hands the time to move properly even when they aren’t cooperating!