One of my new students is insatiably curious. He catches on instantly and is able to extend(?) his knowledge and transfer(?) – infer(?) – extrapolate(?) the new bits of information (there’s an educational term for this – it escapes me).

He came to his 2nd lesson asking about the pianos with 2 keyboards. This is a 7-year-old whose goal it is to play the French Horn (how many 7-year-olds who are not sons or daughters of musicians even know what a French Horn is?), so I wasn’t completely surprised by the question. I showed him a picture of a very fancy harpsichord – something similar to this – and he wanted to know who owned it. (Me: I think it’s probably in a museum somewhere. J: Who owned it before it was in the museum?)

I was happy for my Pianotekneek Notebox.  While his intelligence surpasses that of a typical 7-year-old boy, his attention span and need to physically move around is pretty consistent with that of his age-mates. We interspersed time at the piano with learning concepts on the colourful Notebox with all its manipulatives. I get nothing for saying this, but it’s interesting that I’ve used this for both my brightest students and for the ones who need the most help. Also interesting that they’ve all been boys.

End of the lesson. J: Do you think I deserve to play a game on my mom’s iPad?

Me: thinking – oh dear – is he being bribed? – or is this a promise? – what family territory am I being pulled into? – I glance at his mom – she’s holding up her arms in a “where did THAT come from?” gesture: I think that’s a question best answered by a mom or a dad.

Dodged that bullet.

And I would say that I definitely overused parentheses (or are they brackets? Probably depends on where you live) in this post.

More information about the Harpsichord pictured.