Manic Monday

Today was meant to look like this:
9-12 teach.
drive madly in car to... (God. Seriously. Drive madly IN CAR? What ELSE would I DRIVE in? Gah.)
1-3 meet to discuss next year's Autumn festival
drive madly home to...
4-6.30 teach.
eat something (possibly after cooking madly)
7.30 - falling over: attend class to make up for missing weekend class due to Book Club and bloggeratti meetup.

Instead, my 11.00 student failed to turn up. They also failed to (a) call my home (b) call/text my mobile (c) email me. This would not ordinarily bother me, EXCEPT that they were attending an 11.00 lesson because they requested a time change. So I shoehorned my existing 11.00 student into 9.30, confirmed swap, well done, everyone happy, yes yes.... No show. FAIL.

So I run late with my 10.30 and head upstairs at 11.30, satisfied that I can grab a snack and head out to this meeting. I'll just grab directions from whereis. And while I do that, why don't I just check my email? Where there happens to be a message advising that the 1pm meeting has been moved... forward... to 12.00 midday. Bastards.

Ok. That's ok. I can at least call the teacher who I'm deputising and apologise (living an hour away from meeting location makes attendance pretty moot). Dial number (helpfully provided on email signature).

"Hello?"
Crap. This guy has a brick in each hand and thinks I'm a plumbing contractor (or SOMETHING, you get the picture).
"Sorry. Wrong number."
I rechecked, of course, but either I have a permanent glitch in my brain whereby I read all '8's as '6' which is only just manifesting NOW after twenty-seven years, or the contact number on the email signature is wrong.

Leave apologetic message at home number. Drum fingers maniacally. No mobile number on teacher listing either.

Ok. Call the office! That's where the meeting IS. Heck, I could probably attend via skype. Or teleconference! Excellent.

"Due to meetings at the office today, no-one is available to take your call..."
This is NOT my day.
Leave apologetic message no.2.

Randomly google teacher and scroll through several irrelevant mentions before hitting a community advertisement. With mobile number. Oh baby.
Apologise and explain trying to get onto... but... yeah. Fail on my part.
(Win: shhhh. Don't have to drive to meeting.)

You can't please most of the people... any of the time.

Dear teacher, 
 blah blah on behalf of the Suzuki Music Violin/viola committee. Blah blah at Autumn Festival Mrs. Suzuki will take a session for all violin and viola teachers focusing on the 1st and 2nd movements (esp.2nd movt) of the Telemann viola concerto in Suzuki Viola Book 4. This is for all violin and viola teachers, whether you have played viola before or not. You are encouraged to study the piece in advance of Autumn Festival and play it in the session with Mrs. Suzuki. If you prefer to observe during this session, that is OK.


Uh, HELLO? There are FOUR viola teachers who turn up to Autumn Festival. They are all ALSO violin teachers (of whom there are more like FIFTY-four) and gee, aren't there some really HUGE changes (like an ADDED piece, several DELETED pieces and a whole lot of exercises) in the new VIOLIN books? 
We should totally study a viola piece. Clearly. It's for the common good. 

The violin/viola committee and the violin/viola teacher-trainers hope that in this session the following aims will be achieved:

·       Improving your tone production on viola and violin.

Of course, because tone production on violin and viola are SO the same. NOT. In fact, the viola teachers have spent several years bitching and griping that not just anyone should think they can pick up a viola and play because it's TOTALLY different to violin. Yah. Take that, violinist who thought they were going to jump the C-string fence. 

·       If you are asked to teach viola, you will be more familiar with the viola Level 4 graduation piece (2nd movt, Telemann Concerto in G major).

Because there are about ten viola students in Victoria who are at this level, CLEARLY we need all the violin teachers (who can't play viola because they're not trained violists) to be capable of teaching said piece.

·       We hope that some teachers who attend this session will then play with the viola group in the Grand Annual Concert this year, when the Telemann concerto movement will be performed.

Because we are generally a teeny tiny group who needs our numbers artificially bolstered by teachers playing violas they can't play. Awesome. 

I am helping to source instruments so that everyone will have a viola to play in the session. I hope that some teachers may already have access to violas, perhaps through their school. 

How about "I can't play viola because I'm not fricking big enough? Ok, get me a three-quarter size and that'll be dandy, but then I have to lug two instruments around Festival for five days, learn a piece of music which will have little or no bearing on the well-being of my students, (while I still have a mountain of repertoire which needs correction/alteration) and no, my school doesn't have any violas because it's a government primary school and I have to fight for the privilege of teaching there." 

Frick. 

Nigel Kennedy: brilliant. MSO: Bunch of reanimated zombies.

On Saturday night Hubs and I saw Nigel Kennedy in concert with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Great programme - Bach and Duke Ellington. A jazz band integrated very well into a truncated orchestra and both the classical and the jazz works were performed in characteristically virtuosic style.

There's just one problem.
The MSO (and possibly the Melbourne music scene as a whole, not just the classical half) are uptight ponces who take themselves far too seriously and come across as having the wit, charm, and personality of a granite boulder.

Perhaps I am spoilt; a child of the eighties and a teen of the nineties, I'm used to the pop stars who looked like they could dance, sounded like they could sing, and managed to dress themselves without stylists. They may have even managed some faux-acting every once in a while.

There is something irresistable about a man who can clumsily and with great delight soul punch the fist of a cellist when a duet goes well. Who dares to play conerto movements out of the accepted order (yes, I'm sure they did that in Bach's day too!) and nearly falls over a cello on his way to check the time signature of a jazz composition. There's a lot to be said for people who PLAY the music rather than dissect it.

After the concert I collided with another Suzuki teacher; also a violinist, she confessed that she'd had something of a crush on Sir Nigel at the tender age of seventeen. Given he's thirty years older than me, I don't know about the crush factor, but he did keep me playing through my teenage years.

Actually, my beloved uncle (not a muso in any shape or form) stumbled across Kennedy's genius and bought eight-year-old me a cd.

A few years later he bought me a pair of cherry Doc Martens for Christmas (Nigel having a serious fetish for this footwear). He'd agonised over them so much and been so happy with the purchase for his twelve-year-old niece that his girlfriend bought him a pair too. Together we kicked the ponciness out of classical violin in our matching anti-establishment cherry Docs, defiantly unlaced and scuffed to all get out. Ah...Docs...

So, the concert? Wonderful. Brilliant. My mother-in-law is damned fantastic. Possibly better, however, than the gift of the concert was the reminder that we are all human. We are all here for only so long, and what we leave behind will or will not resonate. I think I'll try to stay focused on the music. The theory, the science... well, that's all well and good, but will my students say "Hey, she really taught me how to accent the mathematical progression of sequencing in Bach!"? Hm.

It's not unimportant, but it's not everything. And in the words of the man himself on Saturday night: "After twenty years ANYONE can play the Bach [A minor concerto] technically, it's REALLY knowing it that's the thing."

Gee. You think?

NB: Being the slave of a "serious" art form does not mean you are permanently in thrall to it. It will just make you incredibly boring, possibly devoid of the emotional depth and nuance that's necessary to play with conviction.

Possibly this is my nail in the coffin of our 'cultural' scene; it's perpetrators don't look like they're having fun and I don't really feel like joining them.

Box me up day.

So this guy really has Christmas' number. Yesterday was a good day, as far as days go.
But today I woke up and couldn't get up. Again. This isn't a new phenomenon; it's been a recurrent theme of my holidays thus far. I seem to have contracted a virulent form of inertia.

During term-time I fill my head with reasons the next day has to happen; lessons, errands, people, stuff. On holidays nothing seems to have the same urgency.

I've been told I need to 'upgrade' my violin. This, being a task which could consume finite amounts of time, money and emotional energy (hey, I'm attached to that thing. I've played it most days for the last... fourteen years) is simply too much for me to contemplate.

Can't do it. It's going to require communication with my accountant (who is LOVELY, but whom I prefer to avoid like the plague), some kind of refinancing or redraw on our mortgage, which then makes our mortgage BIGGER... and really, truly and not-quite-ready-to-deal-with-this-yet, I can't justify keeping my violin as well.

Which is a little devastating.

Oh, and then I have to FIND a violin I'm happy with. Which makes me recoil violently, imagining all kinds of uncertainty about is this one better? Significantly better? However many thousands of dollars better? Really? AM I SURE???

Luckily I have my darling husband to divert me from my existential angst with riveting enquiries such as this one: "At what age do you think I should stop carrying Lappy on my hip?"
Dude. It'a a laptop. I know you love it like your firstborn child, but if Apple haven't come up with a way to make it follow you from room to room on delicate silver legs YET, it's probably never going to happen.  Think of it as your wonderfully intelligent child with tragically withered and useless legs.

And never mention baking trays again. Thank you.

Nearly there.

Just one more day.
Given the amount of refined sugar happily sitting in my refrigerator (honey delight, Maltesers, Lindt, Cadbury, homemade macaroons, butter shortbread, etc, etc, so forth and so on) that really shouldn't be too hard. It's been a long term.

I don't actually remember my last whole day off. You know, the kind where you can sleep in, eat toast, eat more toast, realise it's lunchtime and expend HUGE effort upon taking a shower, eat more toast and think about a short nap before dinner.... Huh. No wonder I feel like a beached whale.

And before the interminable chorus begins, let me say it for you: Oh, enjoy it now, because when you have kids...!

You know what? You're a bunch of mongers. Jealous mongers. Because I am actively non-engaged in procreation. I'm practising, thank you very much. Only when I feel that I could pass some kind of theoretical examination (not just the practical) will I attempt to bring another living thing into this world. Then and only then will I actively relinquish my sleeping-in privileges and consign them to the days PB (pre-baby). Until then, all you jealous people shut up.

Moreover, if I was really making the most of it (or, indeed, if you REALLY wanted me to make the most of it), I'd be doing this EVERY DAY. Yep. EVERY day. But I'm not. Once a week, usually more like once a fortnight.
Or, in this particular instance, once a term. So stuff your jealousy back into your skull and relax in the knowledge that I am run ragged, on empty, sleep-deprived and a little crazy right now. Just like all you parents.

It's possible that my iphone will replace the need for offspring entirely. After all, I now have something to do with every waking minute of every day (clearly I don't already have enough to keep me busy).

In other news, played Pachelbel's Canon with three of my students for the staffroom today (yes, it was full of staff at the time). Two Gr 6, one Gr 5, me. Response: Gushing. Me: You ain't seen NOTHING yet. The best part: they really haven't. There's something immensely kick-ass about being a Suzuki teacher.

There is something much less kick-ass about your husband calling out a correction to your blog post.

Yeah, well, it's my blog and I'll type "than" instead of "thank" if I want to, than you so very damn much.

See? Running on EMPTY. No sparkles left in the magic wand, try me in January.
Or February.
Perhaps.
Maybe the sugar's making me cranky....
I should totally refuel.

Once I get started...

On the weekend I was told "To set the record straight, this is not a 'teaching method'. You cannot buy ten volumes of Suzuki books and become a 'Suzuki Teacher'."
While I couldn't agree more with this statement and have had to explain this to many parents in the past (usually parents criticising Suzuki because they'd not had a 'true' Suzuki teacher), the reason for making this statement bothers me a little.

In the last few years, the violin repertoire has undergone major revisions. There are many more photographic illustrations, exercises, technical preparations and instructions contained in the new books. So many more that it is difficult to understand the necessity of the apprenticeship model and hours of observation required in teacher training. I feel that the new books (which come packaged with a cd) make it easier for teachers to access the repertoire and teach suzuki method.

Shouldn't I be jumping up and down and yelping for joy? Hooray, give me the book, I'll work through it diligently with each student, they'll be ever-so-well prepared and my life will be easy. I won't need to innovate, to identify potential technical hurdles, or even demonstrate good posture - it's all RIGHT HERE IN THIS BOOK!

Wrong. I feel that these new books make it easier for teachers to access the repertoire and teach suzuki method while having little or no understanding of the philosophy.

I feel that including so many photographs will make teachers lazy about demonstration and perhaps make parents a little lazy too - I don't need to watch other children, learn how to hold the bow, integrate this information into my own nervous system -Here! It's right here in the book! Look at that! Do it like that! (I know, I'm so cynical. You try teaching for ten years and let me know how your idealism fares.)

And the exercises. Hm. The problem here is that not every child needs every point prepared. Some children need one skill presented fifty different ways. Some don't. Overteaching is the quickest and easiest way to kill a child's interest. They will have different standards of perfection and it's not our job to impose OUR standards upon them. Rather, we need to keep modelling what we feel to be desirable and accept that their opinion may be different - they may not yet be capable of reproducing information at that level.

What's my real beef? I guess I feel that many teachers are not passionate about what they do. Or that they have become limited to a box of ideas and won't venture beyond it. I find reading the work of other educationalists fascinating. The way that Steiner and Montessori link to kinesiology and BrainGym; Glenn Doman and John Holt; Reggio Emilia  (and here ) and Suzuki's preschool and elementary school and the obvious resemblance to Kumon....

Ask why teachers teach what they do, why they do, how they do. And if they don't know, finding out may re-inspire them.

I've been thinking...

[insert obligatory joke here]

But really, I have. Been stomping around the blogosphere and wondering why do we all do this crazy thing?

For some, it looks like venturing into their creative side. Writing should, coulda, woulda been their career. I am guilty of this, sure. For four years I wrote religiously. I wrote about the girl sitting opposite me on the train, the boy frothing milk for my latte, every imagined slight and glance and songline and outfit.

I have notebooks FULL of ridiculous minutiae that I cannot bring myself to throw away. Or burn. Or lose. I think I've decided that if I destroy the evidence, it never happened. Dangerous and a little strange, because that's not the way I live at all.


I enjoy the discipline that choosing to write every day imposes on me. As one who's practiced an instrument most days of my life, this structure appeals. I can run away from it, I can embrace it. Sometimes I can hide within it.

Today has been one of those days. Teaching and reading and teaching and practicing. I'm working on Bohm's Moto Perpetuo; a quick little piece in double semiquavers. The difficulty is not the piece per se, it's the variation of the same piece that I learned to play when I was eight. Relearning it now... but not exactly the same... is killing me. Were it an entirely different piece of music, fine. It's the nearly-but-not-quite that sets my teeth on edge and, maddeningly, has me making the same bunch of hardwired, careless errors.

It's the same with everything, really. Those situations that are nearly the same but they're not. Advice on how to break out?

Oh, and I'm still sick. Advice on THAT welcome too. 

Cursed, I tell you!

Stringalong WAS today, happily for me, as I drove up and taught and led concert item and all that jazz.  Saw a teacher after a hiatus of...six years? He's a lovely guy who spent many hours showing me Sydney from the pillion of his motorcycle... that sounded a bit wrong, but it's very true!

Afterward thought I would just continue driving into Melbourne and surprise my darling hubs. Balmy evening, we could stroll along Southbank, maybe catch a show at the Arts Centre, just do whatever. I'd fee like I'd actually had a Sunday instead of having worked ALL weekend, I'd get to see him after he's played cards ALL weekend, everyone's a winner. Right? Uh, yeah. Of course.

In a delicious twist of irony, hubs leaves the tournament early, forfeiting the contention to some prize packs, and heads home on the train. So I'm standing in Federation Square when he FINALLY answers my twenty-eighth phone call (ok, ok, maybe my eighth phone call).
"Where are you?"
"I'm on my way home! I'm about halfway!" I can HEAR the grin in his voice. I, on the other hand, having
(a) driven forty minutes IN to the city,
(b) ferreted around for a parking spot,
(c) walked quite a reasonable distance WITH violin because leaving it in the car = risk not prepared to take,
(d) prepped a nice little scenario involving
      (i) me surprising hubs @ MCG,
      (ii) choosing somewhere to eat,
      (iii) walking around the pretty bits of our city hand-in-hand on a balmy springtime evening enjoying some weekend time...

WAS SHATTERED. I proceeded to swear VERY loudly and flail limbs about in the public space occupied by many Melburnians walking around hand-in-hand, discussing their evening plans with loved ones. Bastards, all. And then I walked all the way back to my car and drove all the way home. And in hours it's going to be Monday. Again. WHAT HAPPENED TO MY WEEKEND???

P.S. There are now fourteen SIGNED Magic cards in our house. I didn't bring them home. I am married to SUCH a geek.

It's a bit sad...

When sleep deprivation thanks to hubs' swine flu (flight flu, Seattle flu, whatEVER, I just don't want it in my lungs) drives me to the couch to sleep. Get a mute button. That's NOT a request.

It's cold on the couch. Even with a double fleecy blanket and a quilt, so I keep waking up because my feet are cold and my legs are cramped, and then they cramp more when I try to pull my legs up closer to my chest (aka going foetal) to tuck my toes beneath blankety goodness. Doesn't this mean I lack salt in my diet? Quick, someone work out a way of adding salt to chocolate (in a delicious way, not ewwww, this chocolate is all salty and gross).

When the resultant back pain has crippled me all day. And continues to do so. I am not a nice person when in pain. I've untwisted my vertebrae four or five times and still feel kinked up. I really have to call my osteo tomorrow. I just don't feel like explaining myself (and taking any level of responsibility for my irresponsible absence).

When I fail to understand just how late "not late" is. Apparently the "not late" that goes with cards is not the same as the "not late" that goes with shopping. FAIL.

When, three days into term four, I have devolved to my regular teaching wardrobe of jeans and a top. Ok, it's a particularly nice navy-blue button-down in some lovely italian yarn (which I subversively paired with GREY jeans) but ye gods, jeans and top. Again.

That yoghurt makes me happy. Strawberry easiyo, in fact. I've discovered that if you top it up with more boiling water about six hours in I can get it to set JUST RIGHT. I know... excited about the consistency of yoghurt. Shoot me now.

I think I'm done. Ok, not so bad. On the positive side, my wallpaper-goal-setting initiative is off to a good start. Everyone seems to have the idea of goal-setting and I think small gold stars are going to make an appearance next week for those who feel they've attained their goal. If the goal's still in progress, the star can wait, so it's not an automatic Hey! Now everybody gets a star!

I'm sure this would earn me disapprobation by the warm fuzzy lot, but I go forth confident in my position that Suzuki philosophy is not merely about being 'nice' to children but sometimes doling out the tough love. If I have to withhold small gold stars to do this and encourage a sense of self-assessment and accountability, so be it. (Just getting all comfy on my castle, thanks.)

I'm going to bed now. There are some things that only sleep can make better. And tonight I'm retaining the bed. I've decided the person who will spend the most time with small people on any given subsequent day retains the bed. Ok, so that's always going to be me, but that's really (and why wouldn't it be???) fine. With me. Hmmm. Oh frick. Now I'm coughing.

New idea!

So, new term, new concert, new idea.

It may have been discussed at PD last week that Western society is very good at seeing the glass at not only half empty, but unwashed, chipped, and the wrong size/shape/color/SOMETHING. Oh, and full of the wrong substance. Of course. Translated into teacher-speak, our students seem to get really hung up on what they can't do, to the point of overlooking the twenty things they CAN. I thought it might be useful this term to give very specific and targeted goal ownership... which then facilitates achievement ownership... which makes everyone happier becasue they're force to own up to all the things they CAN do. Hooray.

How does one do this, I hear you ask? Well, in my INFINITE brilliance, I availed myself of some very attractive scrapbooking card and two packets of post-it notes, one star-shaped, one arrow-shaped (OF COURSE the shapes are significant; do you people know NOTHING?!) and sallied forth to change the world. My studio now looks like:

I really ought to have moved that chair out of the way first...

mmmm...that's my deliciously fire-engine-red fiberglass case on the shelf there...

 

And here you can see my nanna trolley that I take to school every week, plus THE bookshelf.

 

Isn't that paper beautiful? I LOVE it.

There's 29 sheets up, one for each student to claim (that's their name on the star) and post their goals and accomplishments on each week. I'll put the other dozen up at school for my primary students who I see at school on Wednesdays.

This term our concert falls at the end of the eighth week, so enough time for everyone to see progress being made! I visualise children replacing the arrow with a star as each goal is achieved, then I'll take them all down and display them at our concert. Very boring post today, I know... I wore myself out after teaching by spreading 250 litres of mulch. I need another 250 litres.

But if any teachers/parents out there want to advise I'd be happy to hear it!

Stupid teachers are the worst kind.

In a discussion with suzukisinger this morning I formed this snazzy little hypothesis. Catchy, no? Ranks ONLY JUST below my other favorite: Stupid people are the worst kind. However, they're my favorite kind to rant about.

I realise I've covered this angst before, probably while in Japan, but out here in the crazy west (that's on an international geographical level, not a statewide level) we have this INSANE-O idea that the people who can, do. Those who can't, teach.

My objections to this stupid-to-top-all-stupid ideas are endless. And whoever decided that the hypen key should sit all the way over THERE on the keyboard is also pretty dumb.
I stumbled across a blog this morning that briefly discussed the blogger's return to piano lessons, and how that was great, BUT these pieces were more complex rhythmically and melodically and therefore causing blogger a little trepidation. And that's absolutely fair enough.

What I take issue with is the following: rhymically AND melodically more complex? Come on. Let's develop one skill at a time. You know, play a piece you CAN ALREADY PLAY WELL with a syncopated rhythm, or drill the finger pattern with different rhythms which gradually become more complex until you can put together the rhythmic pattern required...and do all this stuff while you listen to someone REALLY FANTASTIC play the piece BEAUTIFULLY. Because having an accurate model of what you're aiming for going around and around in your head will help you get closer to that thing.

I am constantly astounded at the (music) teachers who don't THINK about this stuff.
Good readers are often good spellers.
Children from homes where English is spoken every day with grammatical accuracy often speak well themselves.
Children from bilingual homes are often bilingual (and note, this depends on the frequency with which they are exposed to second language).
There are SO many more examples I could go on to name, but gee, would it be ROCKET SCIENCE to assume that if you are exposed to a certain piece of music you WILL BE ABLE TO PLAY IT?

I'd like to share a little here. Nothing earthshattering, but bear with me. I'm sure all the mothers and teachers out there have had this moment.

So, O and I are driving along in the car, listening to a particular Minuet by Boccherini, and I say "Bock-A-Ree-Neeee!!" with obvious delight. (I should point out that O will be 2 in November.)
He looks interested, so I have another go: "Bock-A-Ree-Neeee!!"
and hear, from the backseat: "Bock-A-Nee-Nee!"
We continue to declaim this theme and variations for a little while, and now, two weeks later, it's a clear and confident "Bock-A-Nee-Nee!" whenever he hears THAT particular piece of music.

My point is, we don't wait to teach a child to SPEAK until they can read. I'd be sitting in that car for another five years thinking "Gee, better not tell him who wrote this, he hasn't been taught to read it yet!"
And they can read a hell of a lot earlier than we wait to teach them, but that's another post. Why do we persist in thinking that mnusic, which is perceived AURALLY, should be learned VISUALLY???

Teachers, stop tormenting your students. Give them decent recordings of their repertoire and tell them to listen to it. Put some joy back in. Or I will come to your house and take your instrument apart. With an axe. Well, I probably won't, but it's a nice threat.

Happy day...

Go T! Congratulations to one of my students; she played her way to a scholarship/music bursary thingy at a local college today and I couldn't be happier for her. She is not a child to whom violin comes easily, but works damn hard and has seen the results of her consistency over the last few months pay off. I've worked with this (nearly teen!)kid for six years, and her parents have been behind her all the way. Actually, not so much behind as beside, in front of, beneath... all the things they should be.

J's at a scholarship interview this afternoon; hopefully he goes well. His presumptive secondary school usually gives scholarships to singers, so a (mostly classical)violinist may be too wacky for them... but we'll see.

Today's been a good day. Three sleeps till our concert and I'm actually not losing sleep over anyone flunking their solo or bursting into tears. They're well prepared and mostly seem to appreciate the improvement they've made by focusing practice on an already-mastered piece and taking it up through different skill levels. And I haven't been at all surprised by the parents/children who have chosen to make that effort!