Nearly every mistake so far this year (only 3 weeks, but lots of work) has been due to carelessness. Frustrating.
I have a kid who is, by nature, way, way speedy. It's almost painful for him to slow himself down...
I think we could switch kids and not know the difference.
Tonight he was practicing a new scale on the piano. Naturally, he attacks it with the same top speed he uses for scales he already knows -- with the expected noisy results.
"Okay, son... if you just slow it down -- even a teeny, tiny bit -- you'll play it through without mistakes and you'll be done with that scale for tonight."
"OK."
!ZOOM! (Cacophony of errors; cats dancing on the piano, etc...)
"Son... IF YOU WILL JUST SLOW IT DOWN..."
!ZOOM! (Cacophony redux ...)
"SON!!! SLOW DOWN! ..." !ZOOM! (Ditto...)
Ad nauseum.And either he relents, slows down & nails it... or he gets just enough practice through the above iterations... and nails it anyhow (accompanied by a very smug "Neener-neener!" on his face).
Every once in awhile,
when he's not really paying attention, he
accidentally slows down and is done with a given section on the 1st or 2nd attempt. When I try to point out what just occurred -- and how it might be in his best interest to duplicate this approach -- he looks at me like I'm a talking dog or something. Drives me up the flipping wall.
To his much-deserved credit, he's really improved his patience when it comes to tearing apart a new song section by section, measure by measure. Without exaggeration, it nearly brings a tear to my eye watching him methodically work through difficult passages with determination I previously thought to be impossible.
So maybe there's hope for the Speedy Gonzales gene, too.
