What is practicing? Some students who have been playing for years still do not know what it means. Some of my students have really funny ideas about practicing.
Today in a lesson, I asked a student how much he had practiced. He gave his amount (which was lower than it should have been). I asked the reason, and he said, “It didn’t work.” It is like pulling teeth to get descriptions out of this student, so I prodded him further. “What do you mean it didn’t work? What didn’t work?” He said, “The scales. They didn’t work.” “You mean, you couldn’t play them right the first time, so you just gave up?” “Yeah.” “That’s why you practice! Practice when you can’t play something, and then by the end you can play it. Practicing does not just mean playing through things you already know how to play!”
It sure can be handy to know how to practice.
Speaking of handy, that word has another meaning here. Handy=Cell Phone, and today I got my first German cell phone! I mean, Handy!
Katrina took Rachel and me to the store. We got really cheap phones – they can’t do much of anything besides call and text, but that’s all we need. I’m doing pay-as-you-go, so if I don’t use the phone at all, it doesn’t matter. I mostly wanted to have it for emergencies and meeting up with people.
Random fact: The emergency number here is not 911. We have two numbers: 112 for fire and ambulance and 110 for police.
My new handy on the German flag colored Handy Sock
Rachel and I were pretty excited about the cases we got, too. They look like little German flag socks!
Maybe I should use my phone to call up my students and see how their practicing is going….
