The Glass is Mostly Full

A few days ago I had a student play through the first bars of an etude we had just started.

She had prepared it pizzicato-only for the lesson, so her left hand was now familiar with the notes but adding the bow had felt like too much too soon on her own.

So we started by playing just the first two bars, and each note of the etude received 4 bow strokes.

During these extra bow strokes the trick is to listen for beautiful sound quality and to think about the next note coming up so that it doesn’t feel like a surprise.

Once that felt comfortable we went down to 2 bows per note, effectively doubling the speed of the changing notes but still keeping the pace slow enough to listen for quality of sound and plan for the next note. After a few reps of that we finally tried the first two bars as printed, one note per bow. 

She played the notes beautifully and seamlessly, only missing the very last note. 

“Ugh, that was bad,” she said. 

I think this scenario sums up one of the great difficulties of being an adult learner.

Here was my student, and in 8-10 minutes of lesson time she had gone from not having even tried the etude with the bow to essentially nailing the first two bars with one little slip at the end. The notes of the first 2 bars covered all 4 strings and so playing with a great sound included multiple string crossings as well as changing weight and speed with each new string.

I had been so totally impressed with her effort, but if I hadn’t been there to point it out, my student would have considered that effort a failure. 

I saw myself in my student’s reaction, and it served as a reminder to me that we often see our own efforts as unremarkable when another person might see a very different picture altogether. 

I’m going to try to bring a consciously positive approach and attitude to my practice for the next few days just to see if I notice a big difference.

I’d love for you to try it, as well. If you do, let me know the results!