Patience

Today in class, my colleagues and I were discussing teaching the violin/viola.  I showed a video of myself teaching a viola lesson that I gave about 3 weeks ago.  It was amazing to look back and see how much my student has grown since that lesson.  My student is a Theory professor at NIU.  He is extremely dedicated and patient.  For several months, we worked on creating a beautiful tone on just open strings.  No "music" was being made, but in my mind (and his, I hope) he was like a singer, learning the importance of taking a deep breath with his diaphragm before singing an aria.  We could begin "singing songs" right away, but there would be no breath support without learning how to draw a deep breath first.

For months we worked on tone, this "deep breath" before he sang his first tune.  Recently, he started piecing together notes and phrases, and making music for the first time! How exciting! And how PATIENT.
As I explained this particular student to my colleagues, I realized how incredibly lucky am to have such a student.  The conversation soon developed into several questions: How do we make a student realize that they need to be patient? How can we convince a parent of a beginning student that taking time for good tone and posture is vital (and NOT boring!)?

Then it hit me.

We need to be the patient ones. We need to be the dedicated ones. We need to give our all, try our best, love our hardest, and smile our brightest. We need to want to make something beautiful.
If we end up with dedicated, patient, understanding students, then good for us.  But I think we ought to focus on being the dedicated, patient, and understanding ones. Who knows, maybe we'll rub off on the people around us...especially our students.

Good tone and much love,
Blakeley Woessner