piano teaching problem - Wordsmith.org

Wordsmith.org

misodoctakleidist : The piano student who just hates to practice. How
many millions of misodoctakleidists have suffered from their key
aversions? How many, hard-pedaled by parents into learning the piano,
have felt that sitting down to practice octaves and �tudes is like pulling a
chair up to a meal of cold dominoes and graph paper? Practice makes
perfect, and makes misodoctakleidists, too.

and makes misodoctakleidists, too

Well, I'm glad I've finally got a title for all that non-effort I put into piano practice when I was a kid.

[story]I always wanted to be able to play the piano, the same as a lady named Heather who played piano in our church. My parents sent me to lessons before school twice a week (at age 6) with a Catholic Nun who was 90 years old if she was a day. Her marriage to Jesus/the Church was obviously not a very happy one, and she didn't exactly inspire joy in me - or any of her other students for that matter. She held a steel ruler over my hands, and if they slipped into a "lazy" position, she would hit my knuckles with the ruler. Ouch!

Practising was a different matter... we didn't have a piano at home, so I had to practice in the church hall. My older brother (2 yrs older) would take me over to the hall while it was still daylight and leave me there, so that when my practice time was up it would be dark, and in a big spooky church hall, it wasn't a pleasant experience. Let alone walking home past the next door neighbours greyhounds (who had already eaten one of our cats).

Quite the saga, but I wish I'd managed to continue... the lack of desire to practice made my parents decide that it wasn't worth the money. [/story]

Thanks indulging me while I story told.

A meal of cold dominoes & graph paper, eh?

I love it. Although warm dominoes might not be bad if covered with a freshly knit blanket of gravy... [cross-threading

to Dunc]

A meal of ... warm dominoes might not be bad if covered with a freshly knit blanket of gravy

Sound like british cuisine to me!
[Is british cuisine an oxymoron? -- he asked innocently.

]

I know the Brits take a lot of ribbing about their food, but I don't get it. There's a pub here in Richmond that serves food the Brits like: steak and kidney pie, roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, shepherd's pie made with ground lamb, and so on. I think that every dish I've ever tried there has been most excellent--lots of flavor! Gosh, I could go for Yorkshire pudding several times a week and I'm not much of a pastry lover. And the best trifle I've ever had was the trifle out of that pub. Oh, and the mixed grill! Wow! Terrific.

So, I want to go on record saying that I have greatly enjoyed every single British dish that came out of the pub here in Richmond, Virginia, USA.

Brits regards,
WordWolfer

>serves food the Brits like: steak and kidney pie, roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, shepherd's pie made with ground lamb, and so on

Glad you like the food WW. Of course the Brits will mainly be round the corner eating the national dish - chicken tikka masala in the curry house (I won't carry on for fear of reprisals but we've been here before