I know if you practiced piano or not!

Five signs that you haven't prepared for your lessons adequately:

1. I ask you to play your scale for the week and you ask which one it was--if you had really learned it, you would know!
2. I ask you to play something you were assigned and you can't find it in your book and don't recognize it when you flip by it.
3. When you go to start a piece, you either ask what the starting notes are, or start it on the wrong notes.
4. Review pieces sound the same or worse than they did at the last lesson.
5. You have to stop to "figure out the notes", or you register an expression of surprise when you reach a certain point in the music.