Music Lessons

Music lessons

Once a week, for one hour, I expose my kids to the piano teacher. I don’t know exactly why I say it like that, but we’ve got the strangest relationship with this odd little old woman.

To give you a picture, she’s up there, maybe early 130’s? She remembers when she used to gather the leaves in the fall and pile them up against the exterior of the house for insulation during the winter. That’s got to be, like, the turn of the century or something. Not a gray hair on her head. Thin as a rail, big prescription glasses, and this constant, vacant smile. I think she smiles like that, all day long, alone or not, sleeping, awake, whatever.

She’s nice enough to talk to, a pleasant, upbeat Christian. Sometimes I can’t figure out what she’s talking about, I think she said that she dated Samuel Adams, but I do the mannerly, laugh and nod thing. The kids like her enough, they tell her about whatever they’re excited about at the moment… and then she starts teaching. Meaning, she goes into that old teaching persona, where she isn’t going to take any guff. But my kids don’t give guff. They aren’t guff givers.

My 8 year old will play 3 notes and then she’s stopped with an over bearing, “What are you doing? That’s not a B flat!” Three more notes, “Are those supposed to be half notes?” Three more notes, “Allegro… ALLEGRO!”

My son, who practices every single day, sits in his lesson with a stoic expression waiting for her to stop repeating, “You have to practice to get it right! Do you ever practice?”

They get extra work assigned as punishment if they don’t get their songs right. Total negative reinforcement stuff. I’ve spoken to her a few times, just to take her edge off. And things get better for a while, but it all boils down to her belief that this is how teaching is supposed to be.

Well, I don’t expect her to change her ways, so our options are clear. Keep her, or dump her. I lean toward dumping her, so do the kids. You should see their faces when she cancels out (she can’t drive in the rain, and sometimes forgets it’s Thursday). But dumping her has its down side. She’s a little old woman who needs the money. We’re her only customers. I mean c’mon. Plus, I’m too much of a chicken to actually do it. She’s kind of a sweet old lady when she’s not teaching. I don’t have the heart.

So that makes option 2 so much more attractive. Lets keep her. The kids CAN read music now. They ARE playing better all the time. And don’t kids need exposure to all kinds of personality types? It’ll help them to appreciate all the other teachers they’ll have throughout their lives. And she can’t live forever.