I am judging a student concerto competition in a few short hours.  I am very excited to hear everybody play!  It’s the SIUE John and Kay Kendall 10th Concerto Competition.  First place will win $100 so the pressure is ON.

I used to participate in these sorts of competitions all the time when I was younger–I loved competitions…and winning 😉  When I didn’t win, I would vow to work harder and longer and win the next one.

As I got older, when I didn’t win something…I felt like it just meant I wasn’t good enough and maybe I should do something else.  Weird.  When did that change?  Was it in grad school?  Or afterwards (perhaps in my first orchestral job, when somebody in a principal position actually SAID that to me?)

I do know this:  I will be the best darned judge ever!

One of my strengths as a teacher is getting the kids ready to perform.  By this I mean, after they have learned the pieces/songs (of course!) then we practice performing.  My group classes are performing in two weeks and since Thanksgiving is in between, today I was in definite quasi-dress rehearsal mode!  We practiced walking “onstage” (we are still in the classroom), we practiced bowing, we practiced being quiet, we practiced waiting to play until the piano introduction had finished, and we definitely practiced our pieces over and over again.  Afterwards, we practiced bowing and leaving the “stage.”  I love doing this, I love getting the kids ready to perform.  They seem to enjoy it too, as it makes the hard work throughout the year worthwhile (not that students should only be working towards a performance, but that’s another subject entirely).  I talk about how they should be excited to show off their hard work to their friends and families, and how to act afterward.

Is there anything other teachers do to prepare their music students?  Any thoughts?  I have two more classes before we perform so more ideas are always welcome!

I don’t have quite enough time to get to the gym and back today, so I’m going to try a new workout video I’ve been hearing about.  Jillian’s 30 day shred!  I don’t watch the Biggest Loser, but I know she is the trainer from that show.  We’ll see how the video compares to a workout with Mike!

I have been reading the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris for the past month or so, but yesterday I finished up the last one (well, the last paperback one).  I needed something else to read, so I decided to reread “The Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin.  I first read this book about a year or more ago, and enjoyed it.  The author spends a year trying to make herself happier–it’s not that she was depressed or even terribly unhappy to begin with (unlike the author of Eat, Pray, Love!) but that she figured, why not make herself as happy as possible.  I haven’t finished rereading it so I don’t recall everything she does for the year, but I have been thinking about my own happiness project.  After all, that’s really (in a nutshell) what this blog is about!  I am starting to think about the new year and what sort of things I will want to achieve…after all, this past year has been about pottery, diet, personal training, and now running…where to go?  But it’s only mid-November now, so I won’t tell you any of my thoughts yet.  In any case, I just googled The Happiness Project and found the author’s website.

Okay, it’s that time of day…the time of day where I try to come up with something new to be thankful for!  Today I am thankful for my students.  My students continually challenge, delight, and impress me.  I am proud of their hard work and celebrate their successes.  They are also unique individuals and never cease to amaze me.  Not to mention that teaching violin gives great meaning to my life.  Thank you to all my wonderful students for being you!

I have a great story from today (names and places withheld 😉 )

I was teaching a class when suddenly one of the students let out a loud, quick fart!  The other students were disgusted or laughing (while moving away from him), and I didn’t want the student to be embarrassed so I tried to keep the class attentive and ignore it.  Suddenly the student cries out, “my allergy medicine makes me fart! ” and we all just lost it.  We were laughing hysterically for several minutes.  (The student was laughing with us–he didn’t seem embarrassed at all.)  Seriously…”my allergy medicine makes me fart!”  AWESOME.  (Thanks to my students for being wonderful anecdotes as well…kids say the darnedest things!).

It’s Frey-day!  That’s pronounced the same as Friday, for those of you who didn’t know 🙂

Today is usually my quasi-day off, but due to Veteran’s Day, I had 8 students at one of my schools.  Since I teach the students during their regular school day, I was concerned that they would forget today was a make-up from yesterday (unusual for a school to close for Veteran’s Day and then have class on Friday) so I called everybody yesterday to remind them.  As a result EVERYONE remembered their violin (this is rare).  It was a good day–the kids seemed to be in better moods than usual and we (well, they) learned quite a bit overall.  Now I’m at home catching up on various at home errands/computer work and preparing for tomorrow.

Tomorrow is a fun day–I am doing a 5k in the morning (yes, yes, I’m getting out of control but having so much fun!), two weddings, and then I will attend the St Louis Symphony concert (can’t pass up Leila Josefowicz and Scheherezade) and hopefully go out for drinks/dessert or cheese after the concert.

I used to usher for the Cleveland Orchestra when I started in college.  Each Thursday night I would walk down to the street (a few blocks) to Severance Hall, help people find their seats, and then spent two hours hearing some of the greatest concerts ever.  Now I don’t have to help anyone find their seat, and I can do the same thing… 😉  I am THANKFUL that I can attend as many symphony concerts as I want for free (thanks to the boyfriend 😉 ).  THANKS CHRIS AND THE SLSO FOR SUCH A WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY!

I will finish today’s thankful post with a new picture of my sister Leslie and her cat Albergo.

And so I’m too busy…I cannot add another student at my house.  I can’t remember ever being that way.  Yes, I probably COULD add another student, but seriously I would be exhausted and it would have to be an 8:00 student…which I was tempted tonight while talking to a very nice sounding young man on the phone.  Or maybe I should teach on the weekends…but I’m saving some time for some new commitments in the spring, and I can’t.  I just can’t.  But I feel bad, I feel like maybe I’ve overscheduled myself away from home and I should have focused more on simply adding to my home studio rather than trying to work outside the home.  But I can’t change anything now without disappointing a lot of people and I won’t do that.  Next year… we’ll see.  There are some things I definitely want to do, and I’ll need to remember this.  Maybe I can do three days at home next year.  Maybe not.  Maybe I’ll have to raise my rates… 😉

I can’t believe how fast my schedule filled up.

Does this mean the economy is recovering?

Today I had some plans for my classes at Child of God, but when I got there I remembered it was a half day for the kids…which means they were hyper and super excited!  I quickly changed gears and decided to play Hangman.  You know the rules of Hangman, right?  What we do is divide into two teams (ended up being just two on each team, or you can do even one versus two and switch around).  One team comes up with a word, phrase, or sentence, and the other team has to guess.  The violin part comes in here–before a guess, each person must do something on the violin that I request, i.e. perform a line of a song or execute ten perfect bow circles, that sort of thing.  If they accomplish their task (which I want them to do so it is a fun, positive, experience, so I usually give them more than one chance) they get to guess a letter.  It worked out really well today as the kids had a great time but they SECRETLY got a lot of practice/work done.  I did this for three classes in a round, ages K through 4 and it was great for everyone.

I wanted to link to a great blog entry from Laurie Niles, who runs the site violinist.com.  Here is a well-written article about cheap violins.  I have a couple of students who play on these “VSO’s” as she refers to them, and they have about 4 times the trouble the other students do.  Any new students of mine definitely need to read this!