When it comes to musical ability some people may fall into the trap of believing someone is either born with natural talent, or not. This type of fixed mindset thinking can hold students back from learning a wide variety of things and leading a rich life. If you believe that you do not have the potential for something, then why even try?
Students with a growth mindset know that they can improve on any task or skill if they are diligent and work to overcome their obstacles. People with a growth mindset believe that traits such as intelligence, personality, creativity are things that can be cultivated over time. Because of this they do not see failure as an option!
Some very common fixed mindset misconceptions are: "I am tone deaf", "I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket", "I have no rhythm"...and the list goes on and on of people telling me why they cannot learn. There has been a lot of research disproving these false beliefs. People might just think they are tone deaf, but in reality only less than 4% of the population actually suffers from not being able to distinguish between pitches.
What really happens is we convince ourselves we can’t do it so we don’t, and when you don’t do something regularly, it becomes a bit harder to do it well! Do you drive a car with a standard transmission? Can you tell the difference between your brother and sister when they call on the phone? Guess what? You aren’t tone deaf!
At Encore we see obstacles as an opportunity to grow, we teach students to seek out challenges and to learn how to face them- there is nothing better than the feeling a student gets when something they once thought was hard is now easy!
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