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.”

I think I’m nearly at the point of not accepting any more students. I have a few more I’m talking to that seem to fit into my schedule, but I think I’m almost at my breaking point. I wanted 20 hours and I think I might be past that, or not quite there, or perhaps I can’t do the advanced math required to figure out how many hours I’m teaching? I have over 30 students, that much I know.

I’m teaching out of a house for the first time in awhile and it’s wonderful. I like not worrying about bothering the neighbors and I like the big room I’m teaching in with big windows that make it feel like I’m a real person. For many years I have taught in small rooms with no windows and I’m never going back. And even though I’ve had good experiences at some of the schools I taught at in the past, I’m never going back to that either. Teaching privately at home is the best. I’m glad I was forced to take the plunge the other year. This is my second year of teaching only at my house and it’s working out better than I could have dreamed.

It’s a busy rehearsal time as well. I was thinking this morning how much fun I’m having with performances coming up. I’ve got 3 quartet concerts, a million band concerts (I will tell you more soon), a solo (well, with piano!) recital, and MORE. Basically, I’m busy but enjoying life, and feeling accomplished and like I’m really working on improving myself and going places, even if they are just small places!

Wedding…

Recording session

Oh, and jury duty was fine. It took longer than it should have and ended with a mistrial before the final jury was selected. Luckily I only missed part of a few days of teaching.

I took this moments before my number was finally called to be on a panel. 

Flowers downtown at lunch break.

Isn’t the arch lovely this time of year?

How are you doing this fall? Feeling overwhelmed, accomplished, or some combination of both?

Well, no, not really.

But today I only have teaching in the MORNING and then the rest of the day free!

Summer teaching is a mess. During the year I have a regular schedule and students show up every week. During the summer…I’m rescheduling all the time. I am okay with this because the options are either to have no students at all in the summer…or to be really flexible and let them come when they can. Obviously the second option is best for my studio, both financially and musically. So each day is a little bit different, and I have been spending hours of time trying to figure out schedules and communicating with parents, and honestly, I think I’ve basically got June worked out, except for a few days. Well, I think I have this week figured out at least.

I also think I generally have my summer worked out. Teaching, a few concerts, an opera, a recording session, a bit of vacation (destination still nebulous, but the time is set!) and a lot of work around the house. I played for approximately 9 hours of weddings over the weekend and this thought occurred to me: much of the winter is spent scheduling and filling weekends for the spring and summer. That’s the fun part…dreaming about the paychecks and having your bills covered during the hard months. But then you get down to the actual work required to get those checks, and WOW it can be a lot. This weekend was pretty crazy…people ask how was my weekend, and I just look at them blankly. What, it’s Tuesday already?

I took a little trip out of town last week to see my youngest sister Carrie graduate from college and visit with family. It was nice to get out of town!

The proud graduate standing in between my parents. Next stop: New York City! (Well that’s not entirely true as I believe there are many stops in between, but come fall she’ll be in New York.)

I’m having photo trouble today so that’s all you get. I’ll get some more up later 🙂 I know, I know, needs more cat too.

I was having lunch with a fellow music teacher and we got on the subject of what makes somebody good with kids. To be a good teacher, it really helps to be good with kids. Being a good violinist is basically unimportant, because if the student doesn’t see you as a real person, or if they don’t think you are being genuine, or don’t understand them, they won’t pay attention to you or what you are trying to teach them.

I think I’m good with kids because I remember how it felt to BE a child. It’s easy to relate to people when you understand where they are coming from, and weren’t we all children once? I hadn’t really given it a lot of thought, but it occurred to me during our talk that many adults have forgotten how it felt to be a child, a preteen, or a teenager. I guess one of my special skills is remembering my emotions from earlier in life (could be related to my violin playing, as I rely on my emotions to inspire my playing…) and that helps me relate.

“I am mentally preparing myself for the five-year-old mind. I want to come down to their physical limitations and up to their sense of wonder and awe.”—Shinichi Suzuki

Sometimes I feel like I have a much harder time relating to the adults. Maybe it’s because I still feel like a child so often! There’s that famous quote from the bible:

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 1 Corinthians 13:11

Why should we put away childish things? In my living room I have the complete Harry Potter series, a Lord of the Ring Pez Dispenser collection, stuffed animals, a couple of tiny sombreros, and a cowbell, for starters. I also have boring adult things like wedding contracts, various legal forms, my checkbook and bill paying materials…but I’d say the childlike items are far more fun. When new kids come in and look around, I like for them to see that I am not so serious about things. Once you relate to the student, then you can convince them to listen to you, to trust you, and to play those 4 notes over and over and over.

I do have a problem though: I want my students to practice scales, but I recall that, as a child, I refused to practice scales. I pretended I did, I blatantly lied to my teachers about whether or not I had practiced them, but I didn’t practice them. But I DID practice them in college, and now I practice scales quite a bit, and I KNOW they are important and good for us, and should be practiced. But I have a hard time convincing my students of this. Perhaps because I remember how much I hated doing it when I was younger. So there’s a flaw here in my thinking…but I try to learn from my students too, in the hopes that I can give them my strengths and not my weaknesses.

Teaching is hard.

It’s hard trying to figure out what to teach a student at that time (and what to wait on), how to encourage and help a student without overwhelming her, how to break a difficult task into small steps, and figuring out when what you are doing isn’t working and you need to go a different way…for starters.

And sometimes you feel like you are failing the student, or that they are failing you (or perhaps that again you are failing them even further by failing to inspire them to do what they need to)…sometimes you feel like the student is learning and growing despite all the idiotic things you are trying to teach them…and sometimes it just all comes together and your heart just bursts with pride. Because the thing is, it really still all boils down to the student and their work.

And then you leave, and on their last lesson, they write you a note (and stick it in a beautiful Indian bag), thanking you. And the note tells you that, in a nutshell, that yes, you are doing okay. And we teachers need and love to hear this. We work so hard, we think about teaching and music all the time, we don’t get health insurance or stock options or paid vacation or sick days, so we really do need this. It tells us that what we are doing is worth it.

And it tells you ALSO that there is so much more to violin teaching than just teaching the violin…that private lessons create a very special bond between teacher and student, and it’s so often about much more than left hand technique or bowings or phrasing—it’s about life, and how to treat people, and giving a child somebody to tell about their day or another adult to bounce their problems off, or showing them how patience and hard work will produce success.

It’s been a hard year for me, and the last few days have been especially tough. But I feel like I am indeed on the right track, and I’m doing okay. Thanks to my students for reminding me of that.

(Chris playing on a tiny violin while we were visiting friends the other night.)

My heart is very full this evening. I think the older I get the more I feel affected by these things 🙂