One of my students showed up with a 2 by 2 Rubik’s Cube. I didn’t even know that was a thing. He showed me how to solve it in about two seconds. By that I mean, he attempted to show me how to solve it, but I still didn’t get it. Maybe with practice. But he solved it, repeatedly, in about two seconds. Maybe next week he’ll bring the bigger one!
My first student’s sister gave me a violin book that was evidently on my front steps. At first I thought, wow, that’s been there all night, but then I remembered that I did indeed leave the house to run errands earlier in the day. And didn’t remember seeing it. The book in question: I know the student who it belongs too, and she had thought she’d forgotten it the night before. Evidently she’d dropped it, but I wonder if she dropped it down the street and somebody saw it and knew I taught violin and that it might be mine, and dropped it on the steps for us? Either way, lucky it didn’t rain overnight!
My other students were fabulous in their own ways. My last student had a great lesson involving playing duets by Hindemith from the Doflein books (I’m trying them out on him and having a great time with them…I’m not sure he is, but I think it’s wonderful all the “modern” music in them…by “modern” we are talking early to mid-1900’s) and then a fun time with Brahms Hungarian Dance doing lots of “DRAMA.” I love when you get a student to the point that they can start making real music and teaching them how to show emotion in their playing. Not that you can’t do that, kind of, from the beginning, but there are SO many technical things to worry about.
Music is fun. And while I actually enjoy nerdy technical things while I’m playing and actually enjoy (sometimes!) practicing technique and thinking about all those amazing things in the Basics book especially in regards to bow technique, it’s especially fun to teach a student about rubato, and timing, and expressing emotion ( not necessarily YOUR emotion, but just emotion in general, like acting) in the pieces. That’s the most fun. Teaching beginners is so much harder for me!
My youngest student today kept requesting activities during her lesson. Granted, they were different activities than the ones I was suggesting, and probably easier, but I love when they suggest their own activities. It also reminded me that I need to do the easy fun activities more often with other students. Sometimes I forget and worry that they are going to want to learn more new stuff and get bored…when I need to focus on continuing to improve what they already know. Another student worked diligently on a c sharp minor scale and didn’t even complain it was too hard, which was amazing.
I should write more about the good stuff. Teaching is exhausting many days, but today I feel invigorated. Of course, I had two day off cancellations and my last student wasn’t coming either, so it was a shorter day…maybe that’s why I feel better about it. But maybe it was just a good day, where I feel like, yeah, these kids are all right. People like to complain about kids these days and how they aren’t as smart, or strong, or hard-working as “we” used to be. I would disagree. My students are generally remarkable and give me hope for the future. And they are, as far as I can tell, pretty normal kids.
This article from the Washington Post was going around the web the other week. Nothing in it surprises me in the least, but maybe it would be of interest to you. I like the line, “We shouldn’t be surprised we can train the brain.”