I realized yesterday that my son is able to learn and perform even with stress. Even with all the stress from the close call with the tornado the day before and learning how much pain he would be in after he has surgery he seemed more calm and focused than usual and played through his 9 pages of sheet music without a problem.
I was surprised that he could do so well because he hasn't practiced piano for months. The only practice he has been getting is the actual lesson and we had to cut the lesson down to about 20 minutes because of his back pain. He also missed lessons because of the pain. He still made progress. He was able to retain what he learned in prior lessons even when he had to miss lessons and it would sometimes be weeks before he would play the piano again.
It seems like his biggest problem is working around the pain. It is the stress from being in pain that distracts him and keeps him from learning as much as he could. If he can manage to get enough sleep (difficult with his back issues) and we let him stop when he needs to, he does not have a problem learning.
