What type of lesson do you prefer? And which is of greater benefit to you?
On the one hand, your teacher can push forward into new work. The next piece. Or the next page of a long piece. Or a new scale. Or adding the left hand to a passage you’ve (so far) only done with right hand. Or… anything new!
On the other hand, your teacher can walk you through something you have found challenging. Not something new, but something you are struggling with. In effect, this is supervised practice. The teacher instructs you on how to work, so as to overcome your problems and master them. This wasn’t new work – it was how to work. And now the difficulty has disappeared!
Or has it? Maybe it resurfaces next week or the week after. The supervised practice from before should now be a method you turn to when this happens. Try to remember the different steps your teacher took you through, steps which resulted in success. Replicate those steps every time the problem reappears, or a new one pops up.
In reality, most lessons are a combination of teaching-new-things and supervised practice. Or is supervised practice also teaching-new-things – because, by this means, you learn how to practise?
The clue is in the word “learn”. When a (good) teacher is at work, the student learns. Either new material. Or a new technique. Perhaps a reminder of a technique taught previously, but not fully internalised.
Make sure that at the end of every lesson you feel you’ve learnt something. Whether it’s a new technique or a new passage of music, or something to do with posture or attitude. Performance skills, perhaps – or an insight into a composer’s intentions. It could be anything.
But, as you walk away from your teacher’s premises, or as you shut down your FaceTime or WhatsApp call to your teacher, ask yourself the vital question: What did I learn this week?
And then put the answer into practice!
Next week is COMPETITION WEEK!
Check out the competition piece, make sure you know your Category (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, please get in touch and ask!) The first thing we are doing in your lesson next week is Cycling Home. After that, your normal work resumes!
Good luck! There are prizes for the winners in each Category!