Today is November 1, which means 30 days of gratitude posts. On Sunday, I thought I’d be able to work in my gratitude posts to my novel writing, but it just didn’t feel natural today, so in addition to the 1705 words I wrote today, I’m writing here as well. These posts will probably be a bit shorter, so, you know, you’re welcome. 😛
I’ve been teaching two of my piano students since 2008. We are starting their fourth consecutive year of piano instruction. Sometimes I feel like I haven’t pushed them enough, and that they aren’t nearly where they should be for so many years of lessons.
One of those students today was selecting a second Christmas hymn to learn (she learned “Joy to the World” in three weeks), and as I was writing in her notebook to just play around with the right hand, she sight read it. She played, with few errors, the right hand of “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” She played it at a reasonable tempo. She fixed her own mistakes–she heard when she made mistakes!
When she got to the end, I was so proud of her. It’s not often I get to see a complete internalization of skills. I get my English students for 36 weeks. But this piano student has reached a point where all the skills I’ve nagged her about for three years have gelled. She didn’t need my help to figure out the song (though I did suggest some fingering changes to make it easier).
I wish I could see this kind of growth at my day job, but today I am grateful that I at least get to see it from piano lessons.
