Today I was teaching piano to a 6 year old student who’d only had 3 previous lessons in his life. He climbed up onto the piano stool and began to play the little tune I had given him to work on the previous week. Suddenly, right in the middle of the song, he stopped. “Miss Fern, Miss Fern, I have to ask you a question!” I suggested he wait until the song was over. “Oh NO! I cannot wait! If I wait, I will forget to ask you!” At that, he grabbed his lesson book and flipped almost to the back to the page introducing sharps. “You just have to tell me what this thing is! I have been puzzling and puzzling about this in my mind all week long, and I just need to know!” I then attempted to explain what a sharp is to this 6 year old who only had 3 piano lessons under his belt. After completing a very simple explanation of what a sharp is, he looked at me and said, “Well, I figure a sharp is when you play a note and it suddenly sounds sharp to the ear! You know, a little bit off!”
He made me smile! Quite the thinker and quite “sharp” himself! 🙂