Life lessons 'n shit (or, a little late night pedagogical musing)...

I teach a lot of F*@&ing piano lessons every week. This week has seemed particularly long (which is probably why I used the F word to describe piano lessons...wonder how often that's been done...hm...)

Anyway, I was reminded today of something my piano pedagogy professor used to say in graduate school: "Always remember that you are not teaching piano, you are teaching people." He reiterated the same sentiment by telling us to, "teach the child first, music second, and the instrument third."

Like so much one learns in school, this is a concept that made sense to me in the abstract while I was sitting in the classroom but has become increasingly practical in the day-to-day grind of teaching.

There are days when teaching music history or teaching piano really is less about the subject or the instrument and more about the person sitting in front of me. Piano students have parents who get divorced and death touches everyone - regardless of age. College students raise children on their own while trying to put themselves through school. Some college kids even fight in wars - real ones - like, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And I find myself, in the midst of all the awful stuff that sometimes makes up people's lives, trying to convince a 19 year old that Baroque opera is worth a second listen or an 8 year old that articulation and the shape of a phrase matters.

I'm keenly aware that my role is that of music teacher not music therapist. There are brilliant music therapists in this world who are well-trained for that job. However, anyone who teaches music is mindful of the fact that because music is personal and because it so often elicits emotional responses, the teacher/therapist role is sometimes blurred. The only way around that reality, I'm convinced, would involve a dispassionate or clinical approach to one's students and one's subject.

I really have no conclusion or point to this little rant, except to say that this has been a long week. Oh, and that I think teaching music is important and that it makes a real difference in people's lives.

And one more thing...

I've been meaning to post the following quote from Alex Ross's insightful article from the New Yorker last month on fictional music/musicians in literature. Seems to fit here:

"When we listen deeply, we aren't simply registering music's ebb and flow; we are remaking music in our own image, investing minor details with private significance."

Investing minor details with private significance.

Exactly.

It's state fair time in Minnesota...

Yes, Minnesota...where Al Franken showed up and did this:



I'm impressed. I've watched this about six times tonight and while it isn't perfect (Tennessee for instance is a little stubby in his version), it's pretty damn good. Almost as impressive as winning that Senate seat, Mr. Franken...Now get back to work and get all 50 of those states some universal health care!

P.S. Just in case you haven't heard, this year at the Texas state fair one can consume (drum roll please) FRIED BUTTER. I kid you not. Fried butter.

Like I said, better pass that health care bill...

Hours and hours and hours of fun...

This just in (because I just found it):

Pitchfork listed its top 500 (yes, 500) songs of the 2000's. And they posted all 500 with MP3s. Go Crazy, kids!

(Just FYI, I think the Young Jeezy song "Go Crazy" is somewhere in the 300s. You know the one..."pop my collar then they swing they chain, all the gangstas in the street they be doin they thang...")

I'm going to stay up all night going through this list.

It's the freakin' weekend, baby, I'm bout to have me some fun....

(That was #19...)

Back to school blues (quote of the day)...

It's the first week of school and I'm dragging my heels a bit. I just had a really nice two weeks off and, as Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke can tell you, Reality Bites.

I spent a lot of time alone this summer and I think the sudden onslaught of students is overwhelming. All I want to do at the end of the day is sit in total silence and read. Feeling a tad like a hermit reminded me of this quote I heard on an episode of This American Life recently:

"Here's the thing about people: I don't really like them. That's why I find racism so curious. There are so many reasons to dislike people. You're gonna go with color? So I avoid the people whenever possible, try to keep my distance. It's really better for everyone."

~ Shalom Auslander

I never go to bed on time (or, ode to fast food chicken and beautiful men playing banjo)...

I never go to bed on time. Never. Ever. I'm not even terribly sure what time "on time" is, but I'm sure it has to be sometime before 3am. Especially when your alarm is set to go off around 7:30...

Anyway, the point of this post is actually to give you a little ear (and eye) candy in the form of a new video of an acoustic performance by the Avett Brothers (just posted on myoldkentuckyblog.com).

The Avett Brothers~Telling Time from LaundroMatinee on Vimeo.

Scott Avett has to be one of the best things North Carolina has ever given this world. Well, at least a very close third behind the first airplane and, of course, Bojangles Chicken 'n Biscuits. Actually, I could totally go for a BoBerry biscuit right now...or one of the cinnamon ones...oh man...a whole chicken basket is not a bad idea!

Now I'm starving.

Anyway, if you too suffer from insomnia and an insatiable appetite for cajun chicken biscuits, you should kill some time by watching the following clip. The second song they sing (around 7 minutes through) is my favorite ("things change and get strange with the movement of time...it's happening right now to you...down with the shine, the perfect shine, poisons the well, ruins my mind, i get took for a ride every time, down with the glistening shine.....")



And if you have never eaten at a Bojangles, get in your car right now and drive east young man, drive east. You won't regret it.

Healthcare debatable debacle (red state diaries seen and heard)...

I've been taking a bit of a break from blog land this month. What have I been doing, you ask? Well, in short, sleeping, drinking, and reading way too much about health care reform. So, Monday morning I decided to take a break from the sleeping and the drinking and participate a bit more actively in the debate. Texas senators Pete Sessions (R/Douchebag)and Eddie Bernice Johnson (D) met Monday morning in Dallas for what is believed to be the only bipartisan congressional debate on health care reform this month. As expected, the Texas republican party organized a protest outside the building where the debate was taking place. Along with my sister and a friend, I joined the "Silent Majority" counter-demonstration that (just FYI) had about twice as many people than the not-so-quiet minority against reform.





The whole thing was pretty peaceful. The pro-insurance reform demonstrators wore white shirts and marched quietly in a circle. A few of the anti-insurance reform people shouted a bit. My favorite was when a lady yelled at me and my friends, "Hey, you should be smiling. Hey, sheeple! Smile!" Sheeple? Odd.

We also got, "I hope you don't get cancer someday!" Um, er, thanks? Likewise, I'm sure.

But by far my favorite moment came when I took a break from the demonstration for a minute to run to my car. I was walking behind some Republican ladies holding "Say No To Obamacare!" signs and wrapped head to toe in American flag wear. I heard the following excerpt from their conversation...

"Well, I am really lucky right now because I'm still on my husband's insurance plan and he's got a good one that covers me too."

Yes, lady. You are lucky. Here's hoping your husband doesn't lose his job. I imagine if that happened, and you didn't have a job, you just might be interested in a public healthcare option that wouldn't deny you based on any pre-existing conditions...

Maybe not, but I'm just sayin'...

I know this is the opposite of feminism...

But I love Mad Men:



Don Draper. Le sigh...