1,000 Days of Piano - Day 202: Methodical

Today is the first day back from Winter Break, and I’m feeling methodical. I warmed up by practicing my “Monday” pieces from Books 1 and 2, and now I’m working on my Monday pieces from Book 3.
In my studies, I read something that I found interesting. Piano teachers don’t teach new skills in lessons. Piano teachers teach their students how to practice. This surprised me, because I thought (silly me!) that I was teaching new skills during lessons. My recent teaching experiences have led me to see the value of teaching students how to practice.
Few things are more frustrating to the teacher and the student as practicing stumbles. Students, in their zeal to play well, stumble through a piece at tempo with many mistakes. They do this repeatedly in practice so that they bring a truly dreadful performance to the lesson. These students have the ability to become skilled and proficient at their instruments. They simply haven’t learned how to practice.

For now, I intend to be a piano practice teacher, and focus on teaching my students how to practice. That is the best gift I can give to them right now.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 183: Small Efforts

On the wall of a classroom where I sometime teach is a quote, “Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out.” After doing a little digging, I found that the quote is by Robert Collier, an American author. Collier wrote the book, The Secret of the Ages, which I will have to read after Nurtured by Love. I’m beginning to realize that extraordinary accomplishments are often the result of ordinary humdrum actions. I wonder if my dull little efforts day after day will amount to anything. Maybe they will, and maybe they won’t. Either way, they will still feel like dull little efforts that are only glorified by the send of joy I take in doing them.

Note: The sonata is nowhere near performance ready. I’m just so pleased that I got to the end of the section.