The World According to Ms. Alison

Among the many things which young beginning piano students find compelling are quite a few that to me have become fairly mundane realities.  Among them are:
(a).  The promise of one day being able to play "that song that goes DAHdeedahdeeDAHdeedahdahDUM".  God help us all.
(b).  The spinning office chair.  I should really get rid of that.
And (c).  The treble clef, that perpetually profitable icon of those companies who produce the diabolically tacky gift items designed especially for music teachers.

I cannot overstate how much young kids love drawing treble clefs, and what an effective bribe it is to have sparkle markers set aside for that very activity if and ONLY if a stellar job of practicing has been done this week.  This week though the understated nonchalance of Mr. Bass-ically Nice Clef finally caught the eye of one of my more precocious six year olds.  Ah, how precipitously he stole her heart, and how callous her abandonment of  the tall, handsome and hopelessly convoluted Mr. Trouble Clef.  I'm pretty sure no-one had ever dumped him before, actually. 

"Ms. Alison!" she cried, rapturously.  "It's just like drawing half of a heart!  Or a butterfly wing!"

Clearly this kid has the design sense to make a fortune.

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It seems that the general public may be labouring under the misconception that (classical) musicians may be sort of sophisticated and delicate of sensibility, as befits the spiritual guardians of one of the apexes of humanistic achievement, etc.  No pressure.

However.  Given that one of Mozarts more memorable lyrics was an ode to something much too Adult and Inappropriate for a general audience blog, it is an intriguing proposition that musical genius may be positively correlated to a high degree of talent in the conception and execution of potty humour.  And if so, I have a genius on my hands.  To whit:

Me (dramatic stage whisper, heavy Italian accent, in the manner of overwrought mob wife revealing epic secret): "Pianissimo means to play very, very, VERRRRRY...quietly"
Six year old Student X (transfixed):  "Pianeeeesssssssssssssssssssseemo"
Me (roaring):  "Quieter!!!"
Student X (giggling):  "Pianeeeee(heehee)eee(heeheeHEE)ssssssssseemo"
Me:  "It's kind of hard to spell so we just write it like this ('pp')"
Student X:  "Pee...pee"  (Hands to mouth;  shocked, uncontrollable giggling).  "Ms. Alison!  I just said "peepee!"

Later in the same lesson:
Me (dramatic opera singer voice):  "FORTE means to play...what's so funny?"
Student X (about to fall off of bench with hysterical giggling):  "Ms Alison...you just said FARTY!"

Yep.  Definitely keeping an eye on that one.

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Possibly the very best thing one can do to become a better teacher is to keep learning stuff.  Yes I know that is not a particularly profound insight, but I don't mean stuff as in "professional development" within one's own field, or trying a new recipe, or switching from PC to Mac (as smart as that is), or whatever. I mean STUFF.  As in totally brand new universes of risk, frustration and possibility.

Quite often my forays into said parallel universes are completely inadvertent and unpleasantly character-building.  However, today I stumbled in a somewhat intentional way into something I am quite sure is going to improve my teaching skills more than a million graduate degrees in piano pedagogy ever could.  Yep, that would be boxing.

There are so many things that gave me so much food for thought from just a 45 minute introduction to this amazing sport.  But the one thought I most want to touch upon is this:  I went home and practiced right away.  I want to go back tomorrow, despite the fact my shoulder blades feel like they have ground up glass underneath them.  I want to work hard and earn acknowledgement and respect in my coach's eyes, because I am so blown away by the skill and beauty of what he does.  I want to go to a real boxing match.  I want to hang out with boxers.  In the space of less than an hour this kid coach of mine has given me something to live up to.  A role model, even.

Is this even to a small degree the experience my new students have at their very first lesson?  Are they as excited to sit in front of what is perhaps the first real (as opposed to digital) piano they've ever been close enough to touch, as I was to actually step into a boxing ring for the first time?  Do they get the simultaneously comforting and challenging feeling that from the moment they sit on the bench I consider them musicians, and I expect them to act like it?  Do they get a glimpse into what to them is an entirely new world, but to me is just basic reality?  Are they really inspired by my playing for them a little bit, even a smidgen as much as I am inspired by my coach's mastery of the most basic thing?  Do they have a proprietary sense of pride that I am "their" teacher?

I must have seen about 5 minutes worth of boxing, on TV, in my entire life.  I'm guessing a lot of my students haven't experienced a whole lot of non-pop music, either.  I've never gone for the whole "music is a gift and I'm privileged to be able to share it" thing- that's a Disneyfied view of a reality that is a lot more complex.  But I am getting it, from today's experience, that there is only one chance at a very first lesson, it is the most important lesson that student will ever have, and that so much is communicated by the implications of who and what the teacher inherently IS,  more than the actual instruction received that day.

Is it enough to make them go home and practice right away, want to come back as soon as they can, to work hard because they've seen a little bit of something that really means something, and there's no stopping there.  Am I really the someone who embodies that something, to them?

Incidentally, there is a right way and a wrong way to make a fist, a round is three minutes, cover your face, don't give too much, keep your elbows in, stay on your toes, and one day you'll have a pretty decent left jab.

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