I have a piano student, a girl who surprises me. Just when I think she isn\u2019t that into it, she shows up having obviously worked on it enough to display significant sparks. There\u2019s a fire coming. But one gesture in particular doesn\u2019t 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\u2019t do it slow then achieving the goal of higher speed will always remain elusive. It doesn\u2019t help. In last week\u2019s lesson I realized it is reverse psychology time, \u201cwhen I was you age I couldn\u2019t play it slow no matter how many times people told me to. I guess it\u2019s an age thing and when you\u2019re eleven you just can\u2019t do it slow, it\u2019s too hard at your age.\u201d I hope right now she\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"