DS started learning the violin this year. He is on his 5th year learning another instrument as well as music theory with another instructor. He could not get around to practicing his violin pieces for the whole week because of too many things happening (including prep for adjudication for his 1st instrument and a school test plus sport tryouts). He walked into his violin class and nailed the 3 new pieces that were assigned as homework having never opened his violin case for a week. The pieces are not advanced and he can easily sight read them. The instructor held DS up as an example to the other child struggling with the same pieces. He told that other child that being exceptionally smart (the struggling kid is a chess prodigy) does not mean that violin will come naturally. He said that kids who slog at violin like my DS will be more successful than kids who think that because they are smart they never have to practice (hint: he thinks that my DS is not very smart like the chess prodigy in the room! He went all dramatic and said that "the instrument will always win against super smart kids who are complacent"). We are leaving this teacher in March to move to a reputed teacher, so, I simply commented that no one can look inside other people's brains to figure out how smart they are. But, my DS had a giggle about the teacher thinking that he was not very smart and had slogged all week on the simple pieces.