The Highly Sensitive Music Student

After a friend posted an article about how trendy restaurants are terrible for highly sensitive people (Why Restaurants are Hell for Highly Sensitive People), I started thinking about how high sensitivity affects music lessons. For those who haven't heard the term, a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) is someone who experiences acute physical, mental, or emotional responses to stimuli..Some google searching turned up this article: Teaching HSCs and HSPs to Swim, Drive, or Anything Else, which basically describes me and my own experience with learning skills like driving, music, etc.. and how I wish teachers would have responded.
For me reading about this brings up two questions.1.  How do I teach in a way that is productive for other highly sensitive people? 2. As a highly sensitive person, in what ways is my approach to teaching failing to cater to my less HSP students?

This post will address number one. I have to say that even as a private lesson instructor, I think private lessons can occasionally be too much for some students. Private lessons are obviously less environmentally stimulating and overwhelming than class settings, but can be very emotionally intense with so much attention focused on one individual student (especially highly driven students). As a student I often found lessons overwhelming (but I loved them anyway), except for with two of my teachers who I strongly suspect are also HSPs. I  think there are ways for a teacher to help a student be more comfortable and learn better. (I also wonder if there aren't better ways of learning than just private lessons that could be explored).
In terms of private lessons here are some dos and don't I found to be true for myself and suspect are true for many highly sensitive students (ones in bold are those I consider most important and also are most likely to go against what many music teachers believe or have been taught):

Do Not:

• (Especially for advanced students) Don't feel like you have to point out super obvious mistakes. I have ears and I know if I played an obvious wrong note or came in too early. Assume I heard it unless it happens again. When you point out even blatantly obvious mistakes it erodes my confidence and makes me think you think I'm either really stupid or not paying attention. 

• When you explain and demonstrate a new technique, make sure I understand it and let me try it out a few times, but please, please, please!! don't insist that I get it right before we move on. I might need to try it out on my own first. If you keep making me try it I will just tense up and develop anxiety surrounding the technique.

• Don't make me sing! (actually you can make the 33 year old me sing, but from age 9-about 27, nope). I didn't sign up for singing lessons and there are few things more nerve-wracking for a nervous music student than being made to sing in front of someone (if you are a voice teacher this obviously doesn't apply to you, but I'm pretty sure your students knew going in that there would be singing ;)). In my opinion the adage "if you can sing it, you can play it" is one of the most damaging ideas out there for music teachers (and not true, I can play a lot of things I can't sing, and I play a lot better in-tune than I sing).  There is nothing wrong with singing in lessons when it works for the student, but trying to make an already self-conscious student sing for you is basically torture for the student, and I can guarantee they will not learn from the experience. 

• Don't get freaked out if I cry. It's more likely than not nothing specifically you said or did, I'm just frustrated with my own inability to get something right or overwhelmed. It's possibly a sign that you have pushed to hard in the moment, just move on to something else. I'm fine, I promise. 

Please Do:

• Give me positive feedback and praise for what I do well. I'm not saying to avoid constructive criticism, but I need to know what I'm doing well or your criticism just layers on top of my own inner critic and can become overwhelming. Trust me, too much praise will not make me lazy and stop practicing, too much criticism might. I will work like crazy to live up to someone's positive opinion of me. Someone's overly critical feedback just makes me anxious about practicing and more likely to avoid it. 

• Give me an opportunity to demonstrate what I know. When possible ask a question instead of assuming I don't know or have never heard of something. Ask me what I heard and/or how I'm planning to practice something. Try giving me a chance to comment and/or ask questions before giving me your input. This shows me you trust me to evaluate my playing and understand what I need help with and what I can fix on my own with practice. 

• Whenever possible, allow me to play through an entire piece or movement once before commenting.  It's hard to get into any sort of flow when I know I might be stopped at any moment. (I think this is probably true for most students).

• Give me tools for musical expression, even if I don't have all of the basics down yet. I, in part, attribute my early struggles with rhythm to not having appropriate knowledge of the bow techniques (speed/weight/contact point) and phrasing to express the musical ideas I already had, so I played with the timing in order to play "expressively" (in my young musician mind). I think too many teachers think a student must get the rhythm absolutely correct before "adding" musical expression and dynamics, but I think many musically sensitive students need to express themselves musically from the start, and if they have the tools they will be more able to start playing expressively as they learn the accurate notes, rhythm, and technique. 

I'm curious to hear from those who might also be highly sensitive as to what in this list resonates (or doesn't ) and what you would add. Also, curious to hear from those who wouldn't consider themselves highly sensitive what you think about the suggestions and how they would or would not have worked for you as a student.

(Brevard Music Center-One of my favorite places in the world)