In the face of a 3-year-old visiting my new neighbors across the hall I see an expression I now recognize instantly: while waiting for the elevator she has heard a piano. Her mother introduces me as the person who plays that piano. The eyes light up with an expression of hunger. "Invite me in!"
I have seen this before. In fact, one of my most successful students was a child who lived in that very apartment from birth until graduating from high school. Was part of her success that she heard that piano playing every day? (Not that I practice constantly, I don't; neither did she. "I don't have time," she once told me.)
But her deeply insightful musicianship was fed by a clear experience of dedication--not tedium, not mindless repetition, but pure dedication. I refuse to be bored, to be lured into repeating what I did yesterday or last week. (I do sometimes repeat myself in conversation, but those are senior moments, which I do not have when playing the piano.)
That kid's sight-reading of a Mozart Adagio would have me in tears. As a teenager I had no patience for adagio, much less the ability to focus my conscious attention on anything that lacked surface movement.
