Facing the Music - A Week 6 Reflection

As a child, music was always playing in my house. Music was on in the kitchen, on in the car, and playing at family gatherings. Music was all around me, so when I got the opportunity to learn how to play the piano, I was really passionate about it. I was motivated to learn and motivated to play music that I had grown up listening to. This experience with intrinsic motivation made it easy to get to the piano bench and learn scales, chords, and all the basic “how-tos.”

However, as time went on, I wasn’t learning the type of music that I liked. I was playing things that I didn’t think were up my alley, or maybe they were not challenging enough. This led me to skip days of practice and lose motivation over time. I lost interest in playing and learning the piano, and therefore lost motivation too. I would play just enough to get down the basics for my next piano lesson, and only really kick it into gear when I had a competition coming up, getting that little extrinsic motivational push. I wanted to avoid failure, not really caring about performance or mastery like I did when I first began.

At first, I really wanted to master the keys and do the best I could. But when I realized it maybe wasn’t what I signed up for, or that I was playing things I didn’t really like, that motivation to do well or even master a piece of music went totally out the window. My motivation at the onset was personal, feeling persistent and excited to get the opportunity to play and learn. However, as time went on and that competition was approaching, that's when my motivation became situational, triggered in the moment and fading quickly after.

Looking back, I wish I had taken it more seriously, as I still have a passion for music. However, I have lost any skill that I once may have had at the piano all these years later. I can learn from this as a future educator. I see the impact of not providing students with challenges or opportunities for growth, or not providing students with work they are passionate about, because I was once one of those students.

Gabriel P @ OTU