Why being a music teacher in July is like being a talented circus clown

Wait, you mean being a piano teacher is "seasonal" work?

It's amazing to think that it's now been six years since I first started teaching piano lessons on a regular basis. The "lesson learned" part of this process (which I'll describe in more detail later) emerged towards the tail end of this six year period, mainly because it's during this tail end that my clientele flourished up to 20+ students. As most people would guess, the majority of my students are kids, which means my time slots would involve after-school hours, the 3-6pm range. Most of my mornings and early afternoons were free for me to do whatever, or, more accurately, to work at my other various jobs and multi-tasking duties that I've just realized has the potential to turn me into a complete basket case. 

Now, with regard to this concept of students somehow identifying themselves as "school children", I noticed an interesting pattern: they all seem to want "free time" over the summer. By the time June rolled around, I found myself having to juggle appointments around, re-schedule, cancel, re-cancel, re-appoint, post-pone, re-post-pone, and even pre-pone. I know "pre-pone" isn't a word, but I'm sure I did it at some point. What would a "pre-pone" be, anyway? Is it re-enacting an appointment from the past that didn't happen? 

I digress... so all through the summer I was juggling these students around, rescheduling appointments, etc. Apparently, the reasons for kids wanting to cancel or reschedule their lessons included the following:

1. They didn't want to go to the lesson.

2. But it's summer!

3. They were busy because they were going to be fishing crawdads out of the water with a paperclip. 

4. They were chasing lizards in the back yard. 

5. But why do I have to go to piano? It's summer!

6. They were camping.

7. They were "sick". 

8. They were sick and/or camping. 

9. They were sick from camping and couldn't come to piano lessons because they had stomach cramps from eating too many s'mores.

10. They were sick of piano lessons and just want to go camping. 

11. "I'm not going to school, why am I coming to piano lessons?"

12. It was too hot.

13. Yes, they know the music store had air conditioning, but they really just wanted to sleep in and not change out of their pajamas the rest of their day. 

14. All of the above. 

Unicycles and flying chainsaws don't intimidate me

At first I was pleased that I was able to handle everyone's request for time changes. This was before I realized that the juggling of these time slots was a full-time job in itself, which meant extra time, which also meant extra time I was not getting paid for. I then realized that this is why a lot of private music teachers just say "screw it" and take the entire month of July off, or even the entire summer off. That way they can tell the students to just return on a certain date in August. They're going to be camping in the dirt and chasing frogs, anyway--they're not thinking about the phrasing of notes and the chord progressions in Bach's two-part invention. 

First I thought, "Hey, it's still a little extra money, even though many students are out of town." Then I realized this was not just a "juggling act." It was a circus act that involved me on a 12-foot unicycle, on stilts, juggling a set of chainsaws while balancing a pole on my nose with flames on top of it -- and then having to jump through a flaming hula-hoop at the same time. If you like doing that sort of thing, and making a few bucks for those few students who are still sticking around during the summer, then that's great. I'm considering doing the whole take-off-July thing next year. That is what "lesson learned" means to me. 

How many W-2's does it take to make a guy realize he's a sucker?

I continued, of course, to work on my other projects and jobs throughout the summer, as expected. I've been helping Vince Chambers out at Apollo Piano a couple days a week, and was being paid with a 1099. Then the payroll system was given to an employment agency to handle, so I technically work for them now, and I'm on a W-4. But the new school that he bought, which is now called Apollo Academy of Music, is paying me via another 1099, and I've been teaching two new students there (who also contribute to my apparently-amazing juggling ability). On top of that, I somehow found the time to write articles for Klazema Communications, an online freelance writing company that hired me to write website content for their clients. Another 1099!

As far teaching ESL, I'll be going back to that next week and will be teaching at the Sutter County One-Stop program Mondays through Thursdays, until 11:30am. W-2! Not to mention that I'm on a W-2 for Chico Unified (substitute teaching) as well as, I think, the Tri-County Substitute Teacher Consortium. I actually forgot whether I'm still on a W-2 with that place or if that was in the past. 

Is this even legal? I heard that in Finland they give you a fine if they find out you're holding down more than one job. And I'm doing this while writing this blog (I'm actually at Apollo Piano right now) and still producing my CD, August in Bloom, which is only half-way done, and of course revising my novella, and rehearsing for a live performance at a wedding that is taking place next month. 

I'm not sure if I should be proud of the fact that, even last year when I filed my taxes, my CPA (who happens to do my taxes every year) actually got confused. And I mean genuinely confused, like he was actually furrowing his brow. And he's been a CPA for decades.

I'm going to use the remaining time in my shift here at the piano store to think about whether I should be proud of this, or if I've piled too much on my plate. After that, I'm going home and taking a nap. 

Updates: Accompaniment, August In Bloom, Apollo Academy

Excitement Builds for a September Wedding

I briefly mentioned in the News tab of my website that I was going to be playing a wedding gig in September. This will be a good opportunity to network with a couple of other musicians (two vocalists that I haven't met yet) and to gain more experience. I'll be accompanying the two singers, and one of the songs includes Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", one of my favorites (you can also read about the artist in another blog post I wrote last year, by clicking here). The only other time I did an accompaniment "gig" is when I played the piano for a vocalist who sang Christina Perri's "Lonely" at a talent show. It was enough experience for me to "catch the bug" and be more than willing to do an accompaniment again. There's something rewarding about collaborating in real-time with other musicians and having to get everything "just right".

I've only been able to reach one of the vocalists (by phone) so far, and will be meeting with both of them on Sunday morning to talk about the details--where we'll set up, the order of the songs to perform, and when we'll have our dress rehearsal. I've already begun practicing "Hallelujah" and the actual accompaniment is not difficult. I'm not used to only having to play the background, without having to worry about the melody, and I have to admit it's pretty nice.


Halfway to Completion 

August In Bloom (the piano album I'm producing) seems to have been more like a series of experiments rather than a straight-forward album project, and in a good way. I now feel like I understand ProTools 12 like the back of my hand, at least in the capacity that I need to in order to finish the project. I'm halfway done, for the most part (there are 10 tracks, and 5 of them have been successfully recorded). As luck would have it, the album just may be finished by some time in August, making the title quite appropriate for the timing ;)

I believe one of the best approaches is to originally record acoustically. The final recording ends up being digital. But yes, I can play acoustically first, and at the same time record that into the internal memory of the hybrid piano (Yamaha AvantGrande N2). All I have to do after that is play it back, but during the play back I have the piano plugged into the digital recording software. Playing acoustically requires me to get up early, because I have office neighbors and I need to be alone when I play out loud instead of playing with headphones. The bottom line with this issue is that playing acoustically just does something to me where I instantly get inspired to play way, way better, and with much fewer mistakes.


Official Transition to Chico's New Music School

What was once The Wright Keys Academy (the piano school on Vallombrosa Avenue, in Chico) is now owned by Vincent Chambers and bears the new name of Apollo Academy of Music, and soon to be a full-fledged music school that offers classes in a variety of different instruments, as well as music workshops and group lessons. There are package deals being offered right now (Fall and Spring tuition) and some word-of-mouth going on. So far, the folks I've talked to about this seem excited, and the first student I taught at the location seems thrilled.

A few people have asked me questions about the actual piano store itself (Apollo Piano) and yes, that location will stay. In fact, it has been upgraded! The beautiful pianos in there have been rearranged, and new furniture has been brought in to make guests more comfortable. Maybe they did a study showing that people who sit down to listen to piano music are more likely to buy one--who knows :D The store also has a new employee whose job is to keep the books and schedule all the appointments while she's there in the mornings. I'm there two days a week, and I think my job is to hold the floor down with my feet, and drool while I stare at the pianos. Okay, so maybe I've done a few other things while I'm there (print out price signs, answer phones, greet customers, and, you know, drool while I stare at the pianos).

The entire Apollo Piano staff had a meeting recently at a very quiet and work-conducive space (a rusty pizza joint, with beer) and we discussed a number of issues, including a problem having to do with Apollo Piano's moving service. When you sell pianos, you generally have to offer piano moving services, and this can be challenging for several reasons. Since this delves into something a little different than the issues I want to focus on, however, the piano moving plight will be a topic of another post.

In the mean time, I've finalized my routine for the rest of the summer, as well as the routine I'll start when I go back to teaching some of the ESL classes at Sutter County Schools. For now, maybe I'll shoot for having that album done in August-ish. Something has to bloom out of the hot month of August, so it may as well be a finished album :D