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

Finding the Sweet Spot

At last, I didn't respond with the word "meh"

In recent days I've been staying busy recording and editing for the upcoming album August In Bloom, and for a while it was an obsessive-compulsive game of finding the "acoustic sweet spot". I had to get into my mad scientist mentality (see my previous blog post) and I kept experimenting until I found something that was at least close to the sound I wanted. The phrase "acoustic sweet spot", by the way, is not an accurate technical term. I ripped it off from an episode of The Big Bang Theory, where Sheldon "tests" the acoustics in a movie theater by making embarrassing noises while his friend Leonard is in there, trying to impress his date. But, I digress...

For me, the sweet spot is the ideal sound from the recording of August In Bloom. It took multiple sound tests and multiple recordings for me to finally say, "Okay, I think I can record a song with these settings and confidently hand someone a CD." The intricacies of ProTools 12, the software I've been using, are many. It has also been one set-back after another, even if some of them are more-or-less excuses. Now, however, barring my admittance to a hospital and ending up with no limbs (or something just as drastic) there is no excuse for me not to work on this album. I had the option of teaching a summer session at the Sutter County Superintendent of Schools in Yuba City (my part-time day job), but I declined the offer, specifically to give myself more time to work on this project. So, say it with me: "No excuses, Thor!" ;)


Doing things my way...

Summer is just about here, and while many folks warned me that it's common to lose a few music students during this time of year, my clientele has stayed about the same. I lost a few (or, I should say, they informed me that they're "taking a break" from piano lessons), and this caused my count to dwindle a bit, but then I gained more students after that, keeping the count about the same as it was in the first place!

My next focus is going to be my curriculum. I've been experimenting quite a bit because I listen to feedback from different students. One of them, a retired woman in her 60's, absolutely loves one of the lesson books I use (The Alfred Piano Library) but a lot of the kids hate it. In response to this I looked at other publications, and I've ordered a stack full of lesson books from Amazon, but every book and every publication always has something that seems to be missing, at least for my teaching style.


The solution? (Yes, there is one! :) ) I've been using Sibelius software, which is a program that lets me write and print out my own sheet music. This means, of course, that I can write and print out any song, whether it's a cover or one of my own, and I can use it to design my own exercises. So all that's necessary to fix this is to write
and print out my own exercises, and fill in the "holes" that I've found in the other books.

Here come supplemental materials, here come custom-made lessons, here come happier students, here come more phone calls from folks who want to take lessons :D  The fun part is that I found a way to increase the size of the print when I write the notes out on the program.

It's almost as if "technology" is a big thing nowadays...

Becoming a mad scientist

The importance of "Mad Scientist Syndrome"

Okay, I know that the title above is the item that appears last on the title of the actual blog post, but I don't care. That's the wonderful thing about having your own blog :D

That being said, I have something to say about productivity. As most people know, this is just a fancy word for "getting things done." All jobs, careers, duties, tasks, etc., whether it's writing a report, cleaning a toilet, repairing a pressure system on the International Space Station, wiping the snot off your 3-year-old's nose, or writing a symphony -- all of these "tasks" require productivity. If they didn't require productivity, they wouldn't be tasks.

Needless to say, composing and creating music is no exception to this. Different types of tasks also require different time frames, and this is where the "Mad Scientist Syndrome" plays a key role.

How long does it take to clean a toilet? Twenty minutes? That's not a particularly long time. But how long does it take to write a symphony?

The writing of a symphony, or any other task that requires a similar amount of effort (as well as training and talent) is one that obviously calls for a longer time frame. Jobs that require these lengthy time frames are the ones that require the Mad Scientist mentality. Wiping your kid's nose is easily done by dropping what you're doing and just doing it quickly. "Drop everything and just do it" can be tricky to pull off, however, when the task involves writing an opera, building a house from scratch, starting a business, sculpting a statue, or designing the blueprint for a new shopping mall. When it comes to lengthy tasks like these, where do you start? "Just drop everything and do it real quick" isn't a realistic answer, but "Drop everything and just start," is. Why not start now? It may take you three months, three years, or more than a decade, but there's no better time than the present.


If a tree fell in the woods...

No, I am not asking that old question about whether a tree makes a sound if it falls when no one's there to hear it. (This is an easy question, by the way: Yes, it makes a sound. It creates sound waves. The sound waves are still there, even if nobody is there to detect the them -- it's not exactly rocket science). What I do want to accomplish, however, is making a connection between a fallen tree and this Mad Scientist syndrome I mentioned.

In 1997 I worked at a private resort near Santa Cruz, where my job was to maintain and clean cabins for the guests. I remember on one of the days that I worked there when a tree had fallen over unexpectedly, and as a result the landscapers had to run out with chainsaws and spend a day and a half sawing up the tree and removing it, so that it wouldn't block the trails. I don't know why, but I distinctly remember talking to one of the landscapers.

"At least you're getting your exercise," I told him jokingly.

"Yeah," he replied. "Well, I was going to clean the pool, organize the shed, check up on the electrical, clean the gutters, AND take a trip to the city dump. But instead, THIS tree here just had to fall over, so we've gotta spend all day taking care of that instead."

Just like the fallen tree incident that day, there are some tasks that suddenly become necessary because of an unexpected event, and if the needed task is something that requires nearly all of your attention, and/or is overwhelming and time-consuming, then often times everything else has to be dropped.

This was similar to what happened when I decided to take on the task of making a 15-minute slideshow for my aunt and uncle of their trip to Antarctica -- and yes, I was like a mad scientist, wrapped up in the work and the recordings, even forgetting to eat lunch. I was like that landscaper guy who had to "drop everything" and get it done -- you get lost in the work and feel energized because there's so much to do and somewhat of a sense of urgency.

This mad scientist mentality is healthy, in my opinion, because it helps to maximize quality. I've seen a lot of people get into this mindset and thrive on it. When it comes to music, musicians and composers should try and get into this frame of mind when they're creating something. I had quite a few other things on my plate that I knew I had to get to, so I didn't spend quite as much time on the Antarctica project as I wanted, but I finished it nevertheless. Agreeing to take on that project was a lot like being a landscaper and having to deal with a fallen tree unexpectedly; I had to drop everything and focus on just that.




More Time Needed for the Album

The recording project August In Bloom, my next piano CD, is taking up so much more time than I anticipated that for a few days (or maybe a week or so) I was feeling frustrated and discouraged. I realized, however, that this feeling of pressure and angst was because of the deadline I had set for myself (April 29th). The recording process has not only been time-consuming, but it has been a series of experiments. I ended up upgrading my software, which in turn required me to buy a new (better) computer, which in turn also required me to install and learn how to use the new software. Basically it has ended up with me spending more time doing sound and recording tests rather than recording the actual tracks. So I submitted a request to myself and asked myself permission if it was okay to extend my own deadline, and I told myself "damn you Thor, what's your excuse this time?" and after explaining to myself how I wanted to find the right sound, I granted myself the extension. This clearly took a lot of convincing ;)

The background tracks (strings, percussion, etc.) are being included in most songs, so this also requires more of my time. There is no rest for the Mad Scientist.







 

Playing your music wrong... on purpose

Play the notes right. Okay, now play them differently...

I talked about something called "Controlled Imperfection" on the last edition of "Piano Thor'sday", so I figured I would cover the topic here as well. As I mentioned during the broadcast, not all musicians know how to read music (many of them don't), but those who do were probably taught, originally, to play the music exactly as it's written on the paper, in the most accurate and best manner possible. If you're playing a piece by some other composer, this is generally true (sort of). Well, at first anyway. I tell my students this at the early stages of my Beginner Course. Then, if the student ends up being with me for a number of months, I tell them not to.

Sheet music is perfect for showing you which notes to play, and what the beat is. It also gives you a general idea of what the tempo is (the speed of the song). But, as any seasoned musician knows, many things about how to perform a piece are subjective. These subjective elements about musical performance are, in my opinion, grossly understated by most music teachers. I'm one of those teachers who has no problem telling a kid a bunch of rules about note-reading, and then telling that same kid to bend those very rules, just for effect. If the kid knows which rules he or she is breaking, and knows why they're being broken, what's the harm? It's the good old Mark Twain effect. The famous author certainly knew the rules about English grammar when he wrote Huckleberry Finn, but he deliberately broke a variety of rules in order to use a dialect that was common in that geographic region.

As many people know, performers who play the correct notes in a piece but have their own "style" (they play it at a certain speed, they perform at a certain volume, they play certain parts gracefully and other parts aggressively, etc.), it's called a performer's interpretation of a piece. The fun part about learning music is how free you can be to interpret pieces in your own way.  During the broadcast last week I covered four ways that you can vary your interpretations of a piece, which I've summarized below.


Four ways to explore your interpretations 

1. Vary your tempo (a.k.a. change your speed)

Pianist Valentina Lisitsa concentrating on interpretation
while playing a Nocturne

When playing a song, speed up in some places and slow down in other places. There is a healthy balance between doing these two things at just the right time. This technique normally only applies to music that doesn't have a consistent drumbeat, like most rock and pop songs do, so if you're in a band and writing a song that involves a drummer, this might be an exception (but not necessarily). For any kind of solo performance, though, whether it's a flute, a guitar, a piano, a violin, etc., I typically suggest using this technique fairly regularly. The beautiful part is that you can actually master this to the point where the listener almost-sort-of doesn't know there's an actual beat, even though there is one. The listeners can hear the beat, but they can't. Or the beat (even the time signature) can just change completely during a song.


2. Create a delay

So, wait. You're playing certain pairs of notes together, just like the sheet music tells you to do? What are you, crazy? ;)

In printed sheet music, notes that are to be played simultaneously appear to "line up" so that if you took a ruler you could draw a line and the notes would both touch the line. It's generally good to play many of these pairs of notes together, but occasionally it's also very effective to play them so that there's a slight lag, or "delay," meaning you play the lower note a split-second before the higher note. I do this frequently and deliberately, and it creates a very nice sentimental effect, thus showing this so-called "controlled imperfection". It shows that you're human and not a robot, making the song sound far more emotional and touching. This is very common among soloists and vocalists alike, and again you can see examples of it on my broadcast from last week (you can watch a recording of it here).


3. Vary your dynamics

The musical notation for a crescendo (getting louder)
and a decrescendo (getting softer). The 'p' signals you
 to play quietly, while the 'f 'signals you to play loudly. 

One of the things I tell people often, especially students, is that playing music is one of the only times in life when it's acceptable to be a complete drama queen. In music, "dynamics" refers to the loudness or quietness of the notes during a piece. Most instruments allow for this, with some exceptions (i.e. the harpsichord apparently has a fixed volume level). The harder you bang on a piano, however, the louder the note will sound. The harder you dig your  bow into a string on a violin, the louder the sound will be that comes out. It's wonderful. This dynamism and variation in the volume of an instrument allows for a huge range of potential for emotional expression.

Sheet music does, actually, have symbols for changes in dynamics (i.e. there are symbols for a crescendo, meaning to "play louder", as shown above) but the measure by which how much louder you play and the decibel levels are not exact, so it's still pretty subjective. This subjectivity is what makes it fun to be a performer -- you can interpret the song how you want.


4. Let some of the notes linger

A fermata symbol, used in music to indicate
that a note needs to be held longer than its value.
A soloist can play the next note at his/her discretion,
whereas a musician must wait and play the next note
at the conductor's discretion.

Many pianists and other instrumentalists will occasionally play a note for a longer duration than what's written on the sheet music, causing a certain note to "linger" before playing the next note. I demonstrated this during my live stream last week, but you can certainly see more examples of it from other performers. There are symbols for this as well, such as the "grand pause" (two diagonal lines directly after the note that's supposed to linger) and the fermata, illustrated to the right.


Since I know that examples always help, I attached a video of world renowned pianist Evgeny Kissin below. He's playing a piece by Chopin (from memory, of course, hence he no longer needs the sheet music) but if you listen to it and watch him you can clearly seem him using the techniques of interpretation I mentioned above.

Hope this helps. Beethoven said it best in his famous quote, which I feel really pin-points this entire discussion: "To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable."

Putting music to the penguins

Let's get to the bottom of this...

Gentoo penguin (Antarctic Peninsula)

No, I didn't go to Antarctica, and no, I didn't adopt a penguin. I would never actually adopt one anyway -- I mean, sure, they're cute, but I heard they poop everywhere.

The titles and headings of blog posts (or Twitter feeds) can sometimes be misleading, and I've had at least two people ask me if I actually went to the deserted continent (hence the title of the heading above). What I did do, however, is agree to put music to an Antarctica slideshow for my aunt and uncle. They visited Antarctica years ago, and have saved a plethora of penguin pictures, as well as pictures of the magnificent cliffs, shores, snow, etc., involving their trip to the bottom of the globe. To clarify, I've already done a slideshow with my music for my aunt's retirement ceremony, which she's having in February.

The fun part about making these slideshows, aside from living through my aunt and uncle vicariously, is timing the slides so that the music syncs up with the pictures. I used my song "The Falls of Dynjandi" for the retirement one, and now I have my work cut out for me as they want one for their Antarctica trip. The images are amazing to look through, as you can see by the couple of pictures I provided below.


 

There's no deadline so far for finishing this particular project, since I'm still working on August In Bloom, but I'll definitely provide updates on the progress. I normally use Windows media player to make the slideshow, but have also been experimenting with another program by Sony called Imagination Studio. In the mean time, you can check out the slideshow I did for my aunt (below). It's dedicated to her upcoming retirement ceremony but a few Antarctica shots are still included.

My uncle checking out the finished product.

A concert in the works!

Speaking of something that has nothing to do with penguins,
I chose a date for the release of August In Bloom (my next piano album), which will be Saturday, April 29th, 2017. The later-than-January date was decided upon partly because I also plan to put on a concert that will accompany the release of the CD, so that I can perform the songs from the album (and sell the CD's during the break at the concert). Just like the slideshow project for my aunt and uncle's mingling with the penguins, I have my work cut out for me as far as getting this concert together by April. A few people seem pleased, also, that the release of the CD is closer to summer (since it's summer-themed).


Yes, you get to meet Zoey

Okay, so I named my piano. Stop laughing! It's just a sign of a passion for music (or an unhealthy obsession). Part of the plan so far is to hire one of the movers affiliated with Apollo Piano in Chico to haul the piano to the concert and back. It's a pretty penny well-spent to ensure quality sound that I'm not taking any chances on. The venue where the concert will be held is still to be determined, but updates will be available soon, including the news feed on my website (which you can check out here).

The plans for the concert are still in the early stages, but if you're wondering if songs from other albums besides August In Bloom will be performed, the answer of course is yes :)

Comments are always welcome while I stay busy working towards the April date. And if I don't see you in person between now and then, I'll see you in the spring!