My student Danny hit a wall on the Shepard's Song. He just didn't like it and consequently he refused to practice. Weeks went by with my encouraging him to try it one more week. Finally, I felt inspired to challenge him to try an experiment. I promised him, out on a limb there, that if he would play this piece 50 times that he would learn to love it. The next week he had 4 tally marks on his page. We played it through three times during the lesson and added those tally masks to the total. Then, the following week he had a surprise for me.
He was so excited to play. He reached his goal and my promise was true. He loved it. I don't always push through with every song, but I felt the newly arranged version of this piece in "Piano Adventures Level One" was worth the work.
The more you practice the better you play. The better you play the more you enjoy making music. The more you enjoy making music the more you practice. The more you practice the better you play……..
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ReplyDeleteGreat effort with that student! It can be so hard to motivate them to play pieces enough to make progress - seems like you hit the nail on the head!
ReplyDeleteps. you might want to check your spam filter... the above comment looks very dodgy!!
Tim Topham.