Listening

I have found as a teacher that my listening to the student, both to their playing and to them as an individual, is important. The learning process is not linear, and we often seem to be falling back just before we leap forward. Young children tend to be less aware of the sounds they are creating than older beginers. I hear often from adults, "I don't want to make that sound." But it is less about bad and good sounds than it is about controling the sounds. As begingers in anything we will be awkward before we can be graceful, but controling the awkward is actually the same thing as being graceful. So keep on trying to create sound, make noise, laugh, be joyful in your sound, and in the process learn to control that sound.