Preventing Discouragement

One of the challenges of being a piano teacher is helping students overcome discouragement. Learning to play the piano (or any instrument) is a lot of skills combined into what appears to be one skill. Unfortunately, none of us can get each individual skill quickly and easily. When it takes more work then we feel like it should, it's easy to get discouraged. I often hear students say things like "I'm bad at this." They mean piano, when really it's just one skill that they need to keep working on. It's my job to point out all the things they can already do well. All the things that they found hard in the past. And to help them find the right strategy to overcome the challenge they currently face to be able to master this next skill. The last thing I want for a student to convince him/herself that they are bad at piano when they just have not mastered a smaller skill. Sometimes, it helps to work on a different piece for a week and work on the skill separately. Sometimes it's a matter of parking on that skill for a whole lesson and finding a way to at least make progress on it. Sometimes the student just needs to vent. Sometimes they just need to hear that they are making progress even if they can't see or hear it right then.