Fall/Winter Updates

Time just flies by.  I am continually amazed that the only constant in life, time, just never seems like it is.  So much has gone on the past few months.
First, the students who inspired this blog have quit piano.  It was rather abrupt, which I was unhappy about (I found out on their lesson day), but I suppose that life's circumstances sometimes get in the way of piano.  The mom said that her parents had been paying for the lessons and they decided they could no longer do that.  I heard from a friend of the parent that she was just "tired of fighting the kids all the time" to practice.  And I heard from someone else that the parents are in the process of divorcing.  Any one of those things could have happened, and I actually suspect it's all three.  It's very true that the students weren't progressing--I could tell they spent very little time at the piano between lessons, but they are sweet children and I do miss seeing them.

Of couse, I immediately got requests from other families (who were referred by the above mom!), and I took two new students, both boys, which I always find interesting.  One of them had one lesson, arrived 15 minutes late, and then went home the following week sick from school and didn't have a lesson, and then last week was still on Thanksgiving break.  The other just had his first lesson on Thursday and it went very well.  He's a middle-schooler and has been playing for some time.  He came from the same teacher as the students who caused me to write this blog in the beginning, and I am seeing the same weaknesses.  Interesting...We're going to tackle that right away this time. 

I shuffled around a few other students because of scheduling things, and that's working out well.  On Mondays, I have 45 minutes free from 6-6:45, which is a perfect time to eat dinner and then teach two more lessons.

We're gearing up for our Christmas recital on December 18, and that's exciting.  I've worked a lot on my studio website, and even added a page for "virtual recitals".  I think families like sharing this with relatives far and near. 

One thing I noticed with a student, M, is that the same Christmas book she had last year and struggled with, she is still struggling with.  This was a real eye-opener for me, and I'm not sure what to do about it.  Does it mean she's not progressing?  I know that she works more slowly than others, but I'm spending a lot of time thinking about her playing. Her mom plays piano, and I think we'll have an email discussion about it.  I find that keeping parents in the loop is always appreciated, and since they see things day-to-day, whereas I only see the kids once a week, they can often have helpful input.

Getting ready for fall

Things are working out well with the fall schedule.  I had one student choose to not restart piano lessons; she's going to try tennis instead! I don't begrudge it when kids don't come back to piano, especially when they give it up to try something else.  I think that being a kid is all about exploring different interests and different opportunities.  I know there are plenty of people who feel exactly the opposite and that kids need to pick one thing and devote everything they have to it, but that's just not my thinking. And since I'm friends with her mom, I know that we'll all stay in touch and that maybe she'll come back to piano someday.

I will have 14 students, and two of them will come every other week.  Two others, who are taking lessons on an evening that I have a school meeting once a month, will miss that one week each month.  It's not ideal, but it happened this past year with my Monday students, and it actually worked out better than any of us thought.  Both sets of parents told me that they liked having the break once a month, and since we all knew the schedule ahead of time, I was able to assign the kids a little extra work when they had two weeks between lessons.

Monday: C&S, K&D, K&K (every other week)
Tuesday: R, Z&J
Weds: J,J,&D
Thurs: R&M

I stress out about stuff like this every year, and every year it works out.  Why do I stress?!?! In other news, I printed out membership applications for two music associations, one local and one national.  If I have this active a studio and plan to continue it, then I should join some professional organizations.  So that is something different for me.

Cutting loose

When is it time to cut loose a song that a student is not making any progress on?  I did it this week with the brother/sister duo who inspired this blog, and I have to say, it felt pretty good.  I am sure it felt even better to them.  Why should one song frustrate kids to the point they don't want to play?  I'm pretty sure it was the wrong song at the wong time, and I'm willing to say that to the kids.  Some I've picked, some they've picked, but no one is to blame.  Certainly, we've learned from the experience, and that's good.  But it's also good to take a step back, simplify, take a breather from what frustrates us. 

Summer Update II

Back in June, I looked at the wide open calendar and thought about everything I'd get done in the coming months.  Now here it is the middle of August and, while I've gotten a lot done, I am feeling the "last two weeks of summer panic" set in.  Luckily, I did enough home DIY projects that I'm not feeling pressured to work around the house.  I've seen most of my piano students a few times this summer, some more than others, but for some of them, we haven't been together for a lesson since school let out.

It's that time of summer, when we start setting the schedule for the fall.  I'm going to start at 4:30 PM on Mondays to accommodate some young students.  It'll be a stretch for me to get home by then.  I'll just have to leave work at the first moment I can so that I'm home in time for them.  Starting at 4:30 will allow me to finish a little earlier, which is always a good thing.

Mondays
4:30-5:30: C&S
5:30-6:30: D&K

Tuesdays
5:00-5:30 R
5:30-6:00 C (?--she is one of those I haven't seen since early June)
6:00-7:00 K&K (every other week)
7:00-8:00 Z&J (hmm...this seems awfully late)

Wednesdays
5:00-6:30 J, J, &DS

Thursdays
4:30-5:00 M
5:45-6:15 R

Looking at this, I am feeling a little worried about Tuesdays.  Maybe I can get the every other week peopel to come on Mondays from 6:30-7:30.  That way they'll be the last people of the day and I'll be done earlier every other week. And I can move the Z&J brothers to 6-7 PM.  Hmmm....And my neighbor wants her three kids to take lessons again--I truly don't think I have room for 3 more students!! YIKES! This is a good problem to have, I suppose.

Ah, summer.

It is during the summer time that I notice how UN-exhausted I am when teaching piano.  After a full day of teaching school, the thought of four or five lessons in the evening sometimes overwhelmes me. But during the summer, it is positively joyful.  I have so much more energy and stamina for paying attention to everything the kids are doing.  What a difference!
So those two students who started me on this blog are still taking lessons, but sadly, not making much progress at all.  It takes the boy weeks and weeks to just learn one line--he is such a timid player and if he practices at home, he's not actually practicing, just playing through his pieces.  He is capable of reading the notes and playing the pieces, but the amount of progress he makes each week is just miniscule.
His sister, on the other hand, quit for a week.  But then she came back.  And I think she is the one with a bit more talent, although I realized that she cannot read notes.  So we put the books away and concentrated on strategies for learning the notes on the staff.  She is doing much better, but I don't have her in her book just yet.  We picked up one of her brother's old books and she is working through that one.  It's a level below where she was, but it's giving her the practice and the confidence she needs to start moving forward.
In other news, one of my students, Raymond, is very interesting.  His parents called me back in the fall and asked about piano lessons for him.  He was in sixth grade at the time, and a total beginner, so I picked up a book that was not too little-kiddish.  So.  It turns out that Raymond is autistic.  Oh my.  Why wouldn't his parents tell me anything?  It only took a few minutes to figure out that something was off, but sheesh...I have used every strategy in my book for working with autistic children.  It's really amazing how his brain works.  He came in very upset the other day, locking the door so his mother, who was walking a few steps behind him, couldn't follow him in.  And he was crying.  It was very hard to get the story out of him, but I think I figured out that his mom was bothering him to practice, and he didn't like that.  Whew.  We hardly played the piano that day, instead I let him cry and get out his frustrations before we could even think about playing songs.  I'm glad that I have him as a student, as it is helping me as much as I'm helping him (I hope).

Too quick to judge

After several lessons with the students who have caused me to begin writing this blog in the first place, I can tell that I have been too quick to judge their previous piano teacher.  It was TOTALLY not her fault (whoever she is).  Well, not totally her fault is probably how I should word it.  Unless she created these children...
Oh, my.  I have my work cut out for me.  Ineffective practice strategies? Not enough practice time? Unmotivated? I'm not sure what is causing the lack of progress--maybe it's just habit for them--but it is making me CRAZY!
Still thinking on this one...

Step-students

Is that terrible?  I kind of think of students that I get from other teachers as step-students for a while.  Maybe that's what parents think about chidlren of their spouse's, but I definitely have that feeling for a time.  It doesn't last long, well, maybe through a complete book or so, depending on how long that takes.

The students I wrote the original blog post about are my step-students, still.  We've only have about four lessons, but I feel slightly resentful having to clean up other teacher's errors.  How can a student who has been playing for over two years not know how to read notes?  How can she not know intervals?
How can a student who has been playing for over three years not progress to the point of playing hands together?  Oh, my.  I do have a lot of work to do. 

I love these children--they are both just delightful and kind and sweet, but they have some habits that I'd like to break.  They have some learned behaviors that I'd like them to un-learn. 

What's worse: a very beginning student or a step-student?  I'm not sure...