Diagnosing the Right Problem

Recently, I had a tooth break. It was a bit of a traumatic experience for me, but the aftermath taught me something: sometimes the problem is not what you think it is. Here's the story. For a few days, I had been thinking I should make a dentist appointment. Chewing hurt and my upper jaw was sore and really sensitive. Being someone who is generally pretty grossed out by anything related to teeth, I hesitate to raise a fuss about dental issues, especially if I can argue that it could just as easily be a sinus issue and will resolve in a few days. So, I had it in mind to call the dentist. Then I was eating and a tooth broke. Yikes. I called the dentist and got in later that day. They look at it and grind down the tooth a bit because it was sharp and cutting into my cheek. They said something about infection and gave me antibiotics and pain meds and sent me on my way with an appointment several days later to fix the tooth. About a week later, I had extreme pain in my jaw. I desperately find another dentist who can fit me into his schedule that day, and he says that I have to get the tooth pulled...it's really infected and can't really be saved, and it was what was causing the severe pain. The part that confused me was he was talking about the tooth NEXT TO the broken one. I had directed all my energy to the tooth that had broken and completely forgotten that it was the other tooth that had been hurting before. So I get the infected tooth pulled and an appointment to get the broken tooth filled. Now, a week after everything was taken care of, I feel so much better. I'm not in pain. I'm just getting used to the different way my mouth feels. Why am I telling you this? Because sometimes in lessons the challenge a student is facing is not the one you assume it is. Sometimes you have to look past the obvious problem to actual problem. For example, I have a student who has been super stressed trying each new song and is consistently (the last few lessons) coming back and playing the songs with the correct intervals but in the wrong spot on the piano. What's up with that? I originally assumed that it was a note reading issue. It turns out that she was never really secure in the names of the keys on the piano. So she knew what she was supposed to play, but couldn't find those notes on the keyboard. Now, we are focusing on solidifying that knowledge, which should make everything else so much easier....we are addressing the actual problem, not what looks like the problem.