Okay, so here's the thing...
(You know what I'm going to say is going to be a rant when I start with those words.)
The people who live above me have a 10-year-old daughter who plays piano. Their piano is right above my living room, so for the past two years, I have listened to her practice. Every day. Loudly. This is fine. I took piano lessons for close to 10 years. I understand the need/desire to practice your little behind off to get those songs perfected. This is not the problem.
The problem is that she feels the need to try to play everything as fast as she possibly can. Fast until she hits a difficult part, then she slows down, then speeds up again once she's comfortable. No matter how it's supposed to sound. And hey, I used to do this to, to a degree. Every kid did. Hell, my brother learned to play The Entertainer from memory while laying backwards on the piano stool (he's special).
However, she also doesn't stop when she makes mistakes. She just keeps going each time she stumbles. This is fine in a performance, but how is she to learn the song if she doesn't address the mistakes?! I almost want to call her teacher and ask how she's telling the girl to practice. Mine (Sharon, a wonderful woman and great teacher) always told me that any time you make a mistake, you start over at the beginning of the song. I can't tell you how many times I had to start over, or how many hours I spent going over the same songs until I got them committed to memory and perfected. But I got them perfect.
And yes, (to quote AI) we're talkin' 'bout a practice.
And now she's learning scales. I'm impressed, actually. A lot of instructors, unless the student is learning conservatory, bypass scales altogether. This is mind-boggling to me. Absolutely insane. How any self-respecting music teacher could bypass teaching the scale is beyond me. I just do not understand. Anyway, she is learning scales, and again, she's playing them as quickly as she can, making mistakes and not correcting them. There's no point to learning scales if you're not going to learn them correctly.
It's driving me insane! I want to buy her a metronome and teach her how to use it. I think it'd be out of line if I did that very thing...
And yes, I did used to teach music. I taught saxophone and flute to several students, and I ran a children's choir when I was in high school. I'm not an expert, by any means, but I do think I know what I'm talking about.
A musician is not a musician if they cannot keep time.
And time, like real time or just having rhythm is something you can't teach. At least in my experience. And once you've heard someone play that can't keep time you start seeing it in every other aspect of their life: How they walk and talk and (often, strangely) how they cook.
But isn't it kind of a great reminder of those days when all that existed was you and a practice room and seemingly endless sheets of music? It was almost like you got to climb inside the pieces you were learning and figure out how they worked (or didn't).
Although having the reminder in the form of a 10 year old playing bad scales with no rhythm might be a bit much after 10 minutes (maybe less)...