Summary: <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <a href="https://pixabay.com/en/neurons-brain-cells-brain-structure-440660/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Image source</a><br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> Disclaimer: I am not a neurologist or a brain expert. (My family can testify!) These are simply my observations about what I’ve read concerning the way our brain makes neural connections and how that applies to piano lessons for our children.Repetition is a very valuable part of learning. This is true for anything you learn and it is especially true for our piano kids learning to play the piano and learning new music. <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> Is once enough? <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> Many students think they are successful if they can make it through to the end of their piece….ONCE!When I was learning to play piano and working on a new piece, I would start at the beginning of the piece and play until I made a mistake. I wouldn’t study the mistake or try to figure out the problem, I would just start over, as if getting a running start would help me get over the hurdle the next time I came to it.By starting over every time I made a mistake, I was repeating the opening measures of the piece and learned to play them very well. If I ever made it to the end of the piece without any mistakes, do you think I went back and practiced it again? No way!!This resulted in my knowing the beginning of the piece very well and barely being able to play the end of the piece.Repetition is a good thing as long as you’re getting enough repetitions on all parts of the music, not just the beginning.<a href="http://www.pianoparentpodcast.com/008-2/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Learn more about how to approach a new piece of music here.</a><br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> Remember those old fashioned paper maps? <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> Other than frustrating the person trying to fold the map back into it’s original compact shape, old-fashioned paper maps were a great tool to use to get from one place to another before the modern convenience of GPS.My dad would pull out our old maps and plot out all the cities we were going to visit on our upcoming summer vacation. My husband goes the same thing except he uses Google maps and spreadsheets to track our destinations.<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br>
