Perspective

First off, I'll sort of apologize. I know reading new blog entries is fun and all and I haven't been too good about being regular and when I do post I tend to post 2 and 3 at a time, etc. etc. At the same time, I'm trying not to feel very guilty about not publishing more often. After all, this is for fun, right? Anyway, hope you keep looking even though it's not always updated.

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Now the Army has me teaching trumpet lessons. A strange twist of fate, well maybe not fate, but it was rather unexpected request. The deal works something like this. The school on post, Zama High School (go Trojans? maybe?), has a small band program with (I think) only one teacher in charge of all 7-12th graders. Not too bad considering the size, but these are very isolated students. Not much of an easy way to get lessons or exposure to music in the community. That's where the Army band comes in. The teacher has chosen about 30 kids to take lessons from several members of the band and our commander has graciously agreed to this. Of course this happens on "Army time" so we make our standard $0.37/hour instead of the slightly better lesson rate of $12/half hour. That and the fact we didn't have a choice got several people upset, but I'm liking things so far.

I was assigned two students for a single half hour slot. To me this is a very bad set up. I'd rather have about 4-5 kids or just 1. With a larger group you can run things like a sectional and focus on learning a few phrases of a piece as an ensemble. With a single student you can focus on their individual playing needs. With only 2, you have to do a mix of the two somehow. I'm still trying to figure out the best approach. My best solution so far is to ask for another band guy to take one of the students so we each have a one on one environment, but I still hesitate to do this.

It's only been two lessons, but I already really enjoy teaching these kids. I don't want to give one of them up. It's weird because I know I'm not a great teacher or anything, but I just get excited about every student I've ever had. I love trying to get inside their heads to figure out what they can and can't do, decide how to fix the problems, try to motivate the student to do the same, and then see results. Sadly results don't come nearly as often as I'd like, but still, it's an exciting experience.

Then I see the kids faces and think back to my days of taking lessons. The kids are thinking about things totally different than I am and it's hard for me to keep that in mind. They're thinking about not screwing up and trying to play a couple of things right so they can "pass" their lesson. Again, I may not be an ideal teacher, but this is the furthest thing from my mind. I'd like to hear some good playing, yes, but I'm just as happy to hear the mistakes. I want to know how I can help and mistakes are a big part of that. I'm thinking about making you into a musician for years down the road, I'm not about to jump on you because you missed the fingering of that A#. Sure, I'll have you fix it, but I promise I won't get worked up, so why do they? Getting the kids to loosen up and just play is one of the hardest things to do, especially with the 7-10th graders.

That being said I try to run the lessons in a relaxed way. Try to keep the kids involved, but too often I end up talking too much. It's good stuff, but these kids need to PLAY if they're going to learn anything. Well, hopefully they get something out of my clowning around.