From my Seat Next to the Piano Bench

My piano studio is back up and running.  Hooray!  I’ve missed my students so very much, and missed wearing my teaching brain.  At the same time, I’ve been so grateful that I had the gift of having the whole summer off to spend with the kidlets and Baby Squirmy, and to rest and relax when I needed to.  To be honest, I was starting to actually get pretty nervous about teaching piano; I was worried I might have actually forgotten how to teach!  I’ve never had such a long break away from teaching piano since I’ve become a piano teacher.

Never fear, I was back in the groove with the first student.  I’m not sure why I was so anxious about it!  I’m reading a book about using Dalcroze Eurythmics with private music students, and I’m super duper excited about that.  I know it’s going to be just the thing for several of my students.  I want so badly to go and get a Dalcroze certification, but to get that I’d have to spend two or three weeks in St. Paul during the summer, and I don’t think that’s going to be possible for a few years, especially since I’m absolutely terrified of driving in The Cities.  Dalcroze training would be extremely beneficial for music and movement classes at the assisted living centers too, which is why I really want to learn more about it.  (I also really, really want a music therapy degree and a masters degree in English education, but both of those are much more extensive programs that are really out of the question at this point . . . even though they’d be SO useful!  Ack!  It’s too bad there wasn’t a way to get 5 degrees at once in college while I was in the business of being busy getting degrees).

Today my incremental footrest for the piano arrived!  It was like Christmas opening the box!  I’ve wanted one for so long, and my squirmy small students finally just drove me to splurging and getting one.  It’s so hard for them to focus at the piano when their feet are dangling and unbalanced, and they just get so wiggly.  Ya Ya just used it to practice, and she really liked it.

I have a few favorite teaching moments from the week.  Yesterday a fourth grade boy sat down for his lesson and looked at my pile of music on the floor.  “Is ‘Ogg’ in that pile?”  Last spring he played a piece entitled “Ogg (the Caveman)” that he completely loved.  I said, “Why yes it is!”  He looked at me with big eyes and said, “Can I play it again when I’m done playing these other songs?”  I said that would be great.  When he was finished with the things he had prepared to play for the day, I located “Ogg” in the pile and handed it to him.  “OK, let’s play this ONE last time!” I said brightly.  His face just fell.  “One last time?  Just one?  What are you going to do with that music?  Give it to another student to play?”  I looked at him and at the sheet music, and realized that no other student would play “Ogg”quite like this one, and rationalized that the sheet music only cost two dollars in the first place.  I told him he could have the music for his very own, and he nearly leaped off the bench in joy.  He thanked me about 20 times.

It’s a long and extremely hilarious story, but the short of it is that another student, a young first grader, told me in the middle of the lesson when his mother took his baby brother to the dining room to be less distractible that he was so glad she wasn’t here for the rest of the lesson because she was always nagging about going to the bathroom.  “And I don’t like to go to the bathroom!  I like to hold my poop and pee in a very long time. I’m VERY good at it.  I’m a master.  I will hold it in while I play this whole song for you, and then I’ll go.”  So he began.  His song was four lines long.  He got to line three and jumped off the bench and BOLTED upstairs for the bathroom.  Hilarious.