I've been battling my way through memory work on the Liszt I'm preparing, waiting for my brain to unscramble, absorb, and retain all the notation I'm wanting to play. I'm used to the confused feeling by now, and I've developed enough patience to counter (most of the time, anyway) that annoying little voice belittling the amount of time it takes for my brain cells to unscramble what other pianists would immediately comprehend.
It takes backbone to survive being dyslexic, like when I get stumped by a measure full of notes in the middle of trying to work with a student and have to ask for assistance to make sure I've correctly decoded what I'm seeing. I used to only teach the standard repertoire I've played, so that I would already know the keyboard patterns and could do sort of a "reverse reading" and therefore be confident when helping students with technical and interpretational issues. But lately I've been branching out in my teaching literature as well as my performance repertoire, and so I am tackling pieces I've always wanted to play but didn't have enough patience (or confidence because of the feeling stupid factor) for the amount of time I need to figure all the notes out. And so I don't know the keyboard patterns...
... that's when it's time for some chocolate.
I see the same struggle, frustration, and often exasperation in students who have issues with reading music. They are very highly intelligent and accustomed to quick comprehension and achievement. Their struggle with music concepts is unfamiliar, and they will often pretend to understand when the glaze in their eyes reflects otherwise, or they will decide it's not worth the trouble, or they will quit because they don't see any progress. That's when I dive in with them and take up the battle of reading the notes or understanding theory concepts, teach them forbearance with their (seemingly) slow progress, and help them build backbone to protect their self-image.
And chocolate always helps, too.
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