The piano change

Last week Z and I had a talk about the amount of practice she had been doing in piano. She is working on three hard songs, theory, sight reading and finger practice which takes about an hour a day. I felt like it was too much and Z agreed.

At the end of last week's class her teacher told her that she needs to practice more which I figured was a good opening for me to say that actually I wanted Z to practice less.

We (diplomaically) argued about it for the next 30 minutes. She really wanted Z to keep practicing at least an hour. She feels that Z has the talent and the love and that now is the time to lay these foundational skills. I argued that I see no point in Z going so fast if you take competitions out the the equation, which I then did.

I was worried to take that away from her teacher because I knew that she had given Z that Bach piece for an upcoming Bach competition. Her teacher did admit that for her own self she wants to push Z, and she said "You can't blame me for that."

But finally her teacher agreed to let Z only practice 30 minutes a day... "for now."

That was last week. I wasn't sure how the teacher was going to respond this week which was why I was waiting to write about this. I was worried she might be upset and it would effect her attitude towards Z.

So today Z had a piano lesson and... it was great! Her teacher was loving. She asked her about her recently auditions. She practiced changing natural minor scales to harmonic minors. She listened to two of Z's songs and even gave her composing homework (which Z had asked for.)

I am really happy as piano is a big part of Z's life. I think the main change is taking "Z as a prodigy" out of the equation. If Z doesn't try to compete right now then she doesn't have to practice so much. Z did like the competition but it is a big time commitment.