 It's time to continue our journey along the 8 Steps to Improving Your Musicianship with number 7: You will improve with repeated practise. One of the most common responses I'm given when I ask my students each week how their practise has been is, "I don't feel like I've made any improvement." A little further in to the lesson when I ask the same student to play the piece or section they've been working on, I can see a stark difference in progression from the week before. So how come there's such a discrepancy in what the student notices and what I notice? The main reason is that I'm measuring your progress week-by-week, and it's much easier to see that progress in a longer time window. If you're measuring your own progress minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour or even day-by-day, it can be very difficult to make the sort of obvious measurable progress that you're hoping for. How great would it be if learning was that fast!
Now, I've been using the word 'measure' a whole lot, because measuring is a key factor when it comes to progress. Did you measure your height on a wall to chart your growth when you were younger? Imagine if you measured yourself every day - you'd be hard pressed to be able to see any difference at all! If you're measuring yourself every six months or every year, you'll see a big chunk of height difference. Think about how you might 'measure' yourself on the piano. You could record video of yourself playing each month, you could look back on the previous songs and materials you've learned to see how much you've learned, you could even go back to the pieces you were learning in your very first lessons and take not of how easy you find them now! I love seeing how much each of you are progress ing with your musicianship, so I hope that you're able to share in that delight. Things I've been watching/listening to this week:
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