I have a piano student, a girl who surprises me. Just when I think she isn’t that into it, she shows up having obviously worked on it enough to display significant sparks. There’s a fire coming. But one gesture in particular doesn’t come off right. Close, but no cigar. The problem is practising at high speed. In essence she is practicing the mistake over and over. Over some weeks I repeated the advantage behind doing it slow, I even say if she doesn’t do it slow then achieving the goal of higher speed will always remain elusive. It doesn’t help. In last week’s lesson I realized it is reverse psychology time, “when I was you age I couldn’t play it slow no matter how many times people told me to. I guess it’s an age thing and when you’re eleven you just can’t do it slow, it’s too hard at your age.” I hope right now she’s working on it slow and perfect, savouring the moment next week when she shows me what a moron I am and proves how wrong I was.