Sarah Gee ER Ch 5

This chapter describes the typical music lesson to a T. The feeling of guilt that you can't do it the way your teacher wants. The feeling of wanting to quit. The feeling of inadequacy. All of it was very familiar to me. We, as students, need affirmation as well as a critique of what we are doing. Something that I found particularly interesting was that she said that there is an important aspect to rebellion that we need on order to retain the ability to connect to the music that we perform. If we are focused on the teachers reaction rather than the music itself than we miss the improvements that we have made. Teachers likewise can miss the point sometimes too being so focused on the recital next week that they aren't seeing the effort that is being put in to really feel the music and to make progress. We always find ourselves putting guilt on ourselves for not succeeding right away. We tell ourselves that we have a learning problem or a teaching problem when really we just need sometime doing a variety of things with movement, energy and an active mind. Guilt inhibits all of that it keeps you from effectively using your time, going for quantity not quality. 
Key Concepts: 
Feeling guilty doesn't help anyone.
Rebellion can have good results.
Connecting to the music makes it meaningful and memorable.
Key Words:
Guilt
Rebellion
Connecting 
Inadequacy
Fuzziness
Connections: This went through the exact feelings that I had when taking piano lessons last year, for the first time. I was feeling really really stupid for trying. I was practicing for hours and hours everyday and I still didn't meet the expectations that my teacher had. It wasn't that I didn't want to learn and not because I wouldn't put the effort in. I think what went wrong was that I wasn't making connections to the music fully. I had distanced myself from the piano for years telling everyone, including myself, "I can't play the piano" and last year when I struggled I just put that up as evidence of my ineptitude rather than seeing it as the first step of a long process. I think that I do that a lot unintentionally and I should stop myself from doing so in the future.