Borrowed from another Music Teacher

While you are waiting for lessons to begin in a few days, you may think you have nothing to do on your songs except play them the same way.  A musician named Jennifer Eklund (many of you have played her music) likened the practice of music to baking a cake.  Read this post and see what I mean.

ME: So, let’s bake a cake together.  What do we want when we’re done?
STUDENT: We want a pretty cake that is cooked and frosted.
ME: I couldn’t agree more!  So let’s think of our piano song like baking a cake.  What do we need to bake a cake?
STUDENT: Sugar, flour, eggs, oil, that kind of stuff

ME: That sounds good.  So when we start learning a song we give you the ingredients, right?  Your sheet music gives you the melody (R.H.), the chords (L.H.), rhythm, fingering, stuff like that.  So then what do you do with the cake ingredients?
STUDENT: You put it in a bowl…
ME: That’s right! We put all the ingredients together and then we have to stir it for a while until it’s smooth.  But then is the cake done?
STUDENT: No silly, you have to cook it!
ME: EXACTLY!  It still needs a good amount of time in the oven, right?  Because who wants mushy cake?
At this point it was starting to dawn on her how I was correlating the two things together – thank goodness!
STUDENT: So my song is in the oven right now?
ME: Well not quite, I think all the ingredients are in the bowl and we’ve stirred them up a bit.  We’re probably just about ready to put them in the pan and pop it in the oven!  So we need more time right?
I let the conversation/cake analogy fizzle at this point and we moved on to a piece she knew how to play pretty well.  After she played I asked:
ME: So how’s this cake doing?
STUDENT: It’s almost there I think.  We checked it with the toothpick but I think we can bake that cake a little longer so it’s just right!
ME: Yes – I agree – we can bake that cake a little longer!

By taking  the focus off of words like “practice more,” and relating the process to something fun like baking a cake I  think we can enjoy playing more.    We have to realize that “I want it now” isn’t always an option – patience and persistence get the job done!

What are your thoughts on this?