It is what it is. Read it and see.

In front of me on the floor are sprawled the pieces of music I stole from the school’s library tonight, which I have to arrange somehow into an easily follow-able assortment for tomorrow … my sister and I are playing violin duets (with possibly some piano thrown in for good measure) as guests arrive for our cousin’s wedding.

Late Beethoven piano sonatas are playing on the stereo.  I haven’t heard this particular album (Charles Rosen) in literally years.  I’m listening straight through my entire music collection to recalibrate myself.  I’ve played some of these myself, and my fingers itch and yearn.

Another funny day of being a musician and teacher.  Sometimes I wish my 20-year-old self could have watched my 29-year-old self deal with certain things.  But of course, that’s how we learn, isn’t it? – by being confronted with problems, failing to solve them, and humbly taking into account how we could approach them differently.  Trial and error.  I haven’t felt the usual anxiety before meeting a new student this year at all.

There are far too many now to give OD names to, as I once did.  But here’s a sketch of my Friday group.

First there’s a little girl who is just starting on Suzuki piano with me.  She has already gotten to Book 3 in Suzuki violin, though, from what I can tell when I accompany her violin group classes, her education has been spotty at best.  She has just come to our school and switched teachers – in fact, she has my former violin teacher – and I hope this will fill in some of the gaps for her.  We’ve had just two lessons now, and I think she is going to enjoy herself.

Then there’s the littler girl whose mother is a piano teacher herself.  She has transferred to me from a colleague who left the school (more’s the pity – she was a good teacher and fine pianist), and for the first month or so, I didn’t hear this girl’s voice at all.  When I asked a question, she would simply turn around on the stool and look at her mom.  This grew irritating to her mother.  I won’t go into all the details, but there have been a few strange experiences with this particular family … At one point, in front of the girl, the mother wondered aloud if they needed to switch to a stricter teacher, because the girl wasn’t "respecting" me; I had to bite my tongue not to say, "Perhaps you need to find a teacher *you* respect, because your child is picking up from you your own lack of respect towards me." What I *did* say was, "You have to allow for a transition period when there’s a new teacher!"  But today’s lesson was very good, full of progress and laughter.  I innocently didn’t bring up what the registrar had told me earlier today ("Just to give you a head’s up, Music Shivers, but when I called them about their payments, they hedged and said they wanted to try a different teacher, if they could fit them into a group lesson … ").  All I said was, "I have two new registrations – twin boys who are looking to be in a group class.  Would you be interested in joining them?"  The mother hemmed and hawwed and after some talk, she agreed that logistically, the time we had was still best for her.  "Okay, just checking," I beamed benevolently.  (Now, if the office calls her to see if she still wants to switch teachers, this oughtta be interesting.)

Next comes the older Hispanic boy who started lessons last year, partially, I think, because his piano-playing best friend had inspired him.  At his first lesson ever, his friend came in too, and sat in an attitude of quiet, attentive support as I taught the basics – finger numbers, Middle C … He has been impatient to get through his beginner book, and after skipping some of the less important pieces towards the end of it, today we finally graduated to an RCM book.  I’ve put him into Grade 1 because his reading still needs work, but I think after five or so pieces he’ll be ready to jump, perhaps even to Grade 3.  I find it somehow reassuring that there is a preteen boy in this world who will diligently work through a book of beginner pieces because he wants to play the kinds of things his best friend plays.  Today he said, "My friend comes over sometimes to help me practice, and now that I’m in RCM, he’ll be helping me to read some of the harder stuff."  I told him this was an excellent arrangement.  Come to think of it, it’s a very Suzuki arrangement, in philosophy – Children learn from one another.

A similar thing happened with my next student.  He is seven, and has watched for two years as two girls in his class at school have learned Suzuki piano – one of them with me.  He liked what they were doing so much that finally he asked his mother if he could study it too.  His mother approached me, because her sister (this boy’s aunt) was a participant in one of my baby/toddler music classes and thought I’d be nice.  I said cautiously at that meeting, "Let’s see if Suzuki is really right for him.  He’s starting a bit late and I don’t want to discourage him – Suzuki is sequential and I don’t want him to feel the burden of having to catch up with his friends."  But at his first lesson, after playing around a bit and getting to know things, I asked him what he’d like to do.  He said, "Suzuki!" so definitely, that I decided we’d try it.  And he is gobbling it up.  Of course, he’s a bit older – and I’m a rebel this way anyway, so I have him already doing note flashcards – and he will often come to a lesson saying "I’ve figured out the next piece!  Is this it?"  I might have to correct one or two minor things, but his own desire is mostly driving him on, and it’s a treat to teach.  At the end of *every* lesson, he says, "Thank you.  I had fun!"

The last Friday student is a girl of about 7 who just started in October, and has an incredibly mischeivous sense of humour.  I have to keep on my toes, thinking of how to engage her in what I think could very easily become boring or "too hard" if I don’t spice it up some way.  She is gradually focusing better.  She’s not really badly behaved – she just loves a good joke.  I love how, one time, I said, "Oh, you do *that* part so WELL! so legato and connected!" and every lesson since, she comes in, sits down, and immediately plays "that part," eyes flashing triumph.

After these private lessons, I accompany the Suzuki cello and flute group classes.  This is down time for me.  I sit demurely behind the grand piano, let another teacher lead a class, and play the accompaniments to melodies I have been listening to since I was a toddler.

I keep having moments where I walk home from work, dialing my parents on my cellphone, saying, "I really, really love my life.  Thanks for helping me become this person."

This isn’t to say that I don’t occasionally become wistful for the limbs I’ve had to lop off.  When was the last time I wrote FICTION?  Or composed?  (I had an idea yesterday for that, actually … )  Or really dug my teeth into a new piano piece of my own?  (I am performing a violin piece on Nov. 21st with

that Ridiculously Unnameable Orthodox Guy accompanying me on piano.  And I’m playing viola in two quartets at the same concert.  But piano … !)  At least I sing, sometimes three times a week, for church services; that keeps something alive, something that feeds right back into the rest of the musical week.

Maybe sometime I’ll tell you my Tuesday stories, or Thursday stories, or …

Oh, and for those of you who would be interested to know this, the Friar recently got engaged.  In one sense it was a shock, because I never would have predicted he’d marry before I did; but in another sense it is a relief, because I can kill the last smidge of hope left in me more effectively now.  I wish him a lot in his life.  A mutual friend of ours went out to visit him this year, and when she came back, she told me, "You’d like his girlfriend; she’s a lot like you actually … "  Which stung bitterly, but how can I not approve his choice then?  And she works in his field, so she’ll be a helpmate to him in a way I couldn’t have been.

Life has a way of humbling me.  But I have to let it.  I pray to be like my Oma, and have whatever hardships I experience turn me sweet, not bitter.

And there’s still so much to LEARN.  Just the other day I was reading in Astronomy magazine (I succumbed after years of hesitation, and finally just bought a damned subscription – I was buying them all the time anyway!) about the earth’s magnetosphere.

Oh, and there’s music to arrange.  So I’ll do that … now.  Perhaps with some tea.  (Late Beethoven piano sonatas are still playing.  We’re in the middle of a somewhat urgent fugue now, urgency transfigured into soft yielding sweetness.  Oh Ludwig.  I get it, now.)