- First, I hate it when students begin our limited time together with the confession that they haven't practiced. I can tell in an instant whether or not they have and besides that is not the critical factor in learning music.
- Second, I never practiced as a child so why should I require or expect it of my students? I played all day, but that is not the same as practicing--it is better.
Welcome to this day to day sharing of insights into music. My thoughts and my playing reflect my lifelong drive to integrate primary reactions to sounds with a sense of playfulness open to lyricism as to intellectual game-playing - the level of musical response endangered if not already extinct due to the endemic compilations of sameness that make up our soundworld.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Practicing May Be Overrated
Yesterday I had the rare pleasure of receiving an email from a student I taught maybe 40 years ago. He confided that he has become a lutenist and that he practices. I take that to mean that he did not practice the piano when I knew him. At that time I was not confident enough as a teacher of children to do as I now do: I tell children not to practice and, if they do, to tell someone else. I do this for two reasons: