I want to share a success that one of my students had in the last couple of weeks at one of his lessons, after he completely crashed emotionally. I'm going to share with you what happened, and what he figured out which made me so proud of him.

He was getting ready to audition for a huge opportunity at his school, and he had to learn 12 major scales and get all the fingering down. Which is not something that he really enjoys doing. In fact I could say he hates working on fingering and usually, week after week comes back with the wrong fingering.

He had a couple of days to get ready. We did this online because I was still recovering from COVID. After we worked on the C Major through E Major scales, he completely, emotionally crashed. He was crying and just could not proceed further. I asked him, "what do you want to do? You know, you don't need to do this. It is okay if you feel like this is too big of a thing to audition for. You know, you're still a wonderful pianist, and a wonderful person. I love you, and this is okay. What would you like to do?"

He just could not respond. So I said, "I'll tell you what. I'm really hungry and really thirsty. I forgot to bring water down into the studio for myself. So I'm going to go up and get myself some water and something to eat. I'm just going to give you some time to get yourself together. When I come back down hopefully you'll be able to tell me what you would like to do next."

I did that. And when I came back down, he said, "I know what to do." He figured out a learning strategy that he needed. What he did was he paused at every octave before going on to the next octave, and that helped him to regroup, to see the fingering he needed for that next octave. And I was so proud of him for making that discovery for himself. That is so important for self-confidence and self-esteem when students are able to figure out their own strategies, because then they just feel so amazing and they know how to problem solve. And they don't necessarily need me all the time. And that's okay. And, as an added bonus, his audition was successful and he was accepted into the ensemble.

To recap: When you have a student who emotionally shuts down, maybe because of anxiety, or sensory overload, leave the student alone for a few minutes to give them space to get themselves together. When you come back they will be much more open and relaxed and ready to proceed, and, in a lot of cases they will have figured out what they need to do.

If this resonates with you, or if you've had something like this happen in your studio with one of your students, I would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment. Thanks you!