Yesterday one of my teenage students wanted to work on a piece on which she was "stuck." (I wondered whether at her age I would have volunteered an admission that I needed help in quite that way.)

Since she has worked on balancing the cantabile melody with the repeated chordal accompaniment, thinking about the technique is no longer necessary or interesting. I suggested she imagine words to go with each phrase and play so that I could hear her inflections. To our mutual enjoyment, she did so right off.

That her result did not match anything I might have imagined did not matter. Most likely she will change her mind about it over and over again. Whatever happens, the music is now where she wants it to be, in motion.