You don’t say

Posted on by

I had a conversation with one of my students the other day*. She said that she had seen so much progress this week. WOW! Yay! What teacher doesn’t want to hear that?

I asked what had changed to make that happen and she shared that she had practiced every day that week. And now she could actually see progress. And she was (justifiably) very proud! All I could think was, “You don’t say.” After all – those are the words every teacher longs to hear!

All this progress because the week before I had simply suggested that a small and manageable amount of practice every day was much more conducive to success than one-off marathon sessions the day before we met.

When I say small, I mean small. There is no amount of time that is too small. Only have 5 minutes. I have a plan for that! Some days only get 2 minutes – I know how you could spend them to move forward! Spend a week only plopping onto the bench and then leaping up to do other things – no problem!

Because we all only make progress when we get consistent. It’s not about trying to get 3 hours of practice every day – but rather to have some time at the harp nearly every day. Really, we want to build our practice of practicing. To make it something we do every day – like brushing our teeth.  To build the consistency it helps to have a plan.

That plan starts by being sure that your harp is easy to access when you need it. This can be challenging because we also have to protect the harp (from pets, small children, windows, vents, etc. Within those constraints, try to keep your harp where you see it! So many people have a drastic change when they move their harp from the spare room (that no one goes into ever) to their living room (or office, or other room they go in all the time). Simply seeing it will radically alter your practice time.

And the best thing is, that once you start practicing a little but consistently, you will begin to see progress.  And that progress will feel amazing! And then you might find that your small consistent practice grows and becomes a longer consistent practice. Because you love playing the harp – so you might as well do it – every day you get to!

One of you asked if my students don’t get upset when I share something they’ve said. FYI, whenever I say “one of my students” I’m actually referencing something they have (nearly all) said. This is never a single student, but rather a concatenation of all of my students and their comments over time. I’m not singling anyone out or putting anyone on report!