Just start with the hardest part! | Yuju Lee | TEDxChadwick International School
Fifth grader Yuju Lee shares how six years of cello practice taught her to tackle challenges by starting with the hardest parts first. Through her experience at an intensive winter cello camp learning Bach's Suite No. 3 Prelude, she demonstrates how beginning with difficulties rather than easy sections leads to better outcomes.
Summary
Yuju Lee, a fifth-grade cellist with six years of experience, presents her philosophy of approaching challenges by starting with the most difficult aspects first. She compares herself to a beaver that builds dams piece by piece, emphasizing persistence over immediate results. Her transformative experience came during a winter cello camp where students practiced from morning to night by choice, not force, and had to perform lessons publicly with potential public scolding for inadequate practice. At this camp, she encountered Bach's Suite No. 3 Prelude, a piece that required unprecedented technical demands including extended left-hand stretches, complex bow adjustments to achieve deep and powerful sounds, and the ability to maintain musical continuity like holding one long breath throughout. Despite initially doubting her ability to master the piece's multiple simultaneous technical requirements, she applied her established practice method of starting with the hardest sections first, believing they deserve her best energy before tackling easier passages. This approach contrasts with most people's tendency to begin with comfortable or easy sections. By the camp's final day, she successfully performed the complete piece, describing it as imperfect but great and her biggest overcome challenge. She concludes by advocating for immediate action on difficult tasks regardless of readiness level, arguing that starting itself creates readiness.
Key Insights
- Lee describes herself as an 'enthusiastic beaver' because beavers build dams by carrying small pieces one by one, with no visible change for a long time until suddenly there's a massive dam
- Lee explains that at the winter cello camp, everyone chose to attend voluntarily including herself, with no one being forced by parents despite the intensive practice schedule
- Lee describes Bach's Suite No. 3 Prelude as feeling like holding one long breath throughout the piece, requiring unprecedented left-hand stretches and complex bow adjustments for deep, ringing, soft but powerful sound
- Lee reveals her contrarian practice method of starting with the hardest parts first and connecting easier parts later, opposite to most people who start with parts they're good at or that are easy
- Lee argues that starting with the hardest parts deserves your best energy, and that starting itself is what makes you ready rather than waiting until you feel prepared
Topics
Transcript
[0:10] One, two, three, four, five, and six years. For six years, I've been playing the cello. And during those years, I've noticed something about myself. I've noticed that I'm an enthusiastic beaver. Not because I like trees, but because beavers don't build a dime all at once. They carry small pieces one by one. And [0:42] for a long time, nothing changes. But one day, there's a massive dam. That's how I practice the cello. When something doesn't work, I don't just walk away. I stay with it until it works. The cello has been teaching me this for years. But one week in a small practice room made me realize it. [1:13] Last winter break, I went to…
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