SassyBlonde

Hallelujah. I just finished teaching my seventh student of the day, and I swear, the only thing keeping me going has been the thought of going out tonight.

I love teaching, but man it really starts to get dicey by the time for my fifth student of the night, and if you're the seventh, well God help you and everybody else. It always pains me when that happens, too, because I start to feel like I'm not giving the kid the best of my abilities, but I guess when your parents have you so busy that the only time you can have a music lesson is 7pm on a Tuesday, then the breaks are the breaks. I've only got so many spoons for collateral.

I remember when I was in college, we would always pray for the best lesson spot with our teachers. My first one, you always wanted the spot in the middle of the morning, after he'd had his coffee and before lunch. After lunch, well, let's just say he did his lunches old school. With my second teacher that problem wasn't a concern, although you were much more likely to get his unvarnished self during that same time frame-- he'd had just enough coffee and wasn't starting to get stir-crazy yet.

I can totally sympathize now with their changes in attitude during the course of a day. The first few lessons are always great because I'm chock full of energy and going pedal to the metal (see, note to self parents-- schedule your kids early in the afternoon!) By just before dinner time I start to get kind of disinterested: my ears have started to hurt from being assaulted by the sounds of a manic barnyard and I'm hungry and tired. By the time I get to that last lesson of the day I'm just worn out. My longest lesson day just happens to fall on the same night as the open jazz session at Heidelah's bar, and sometimes that's the only thing that keeps me sane through the last hour or so. (Sane? you ask? Seriously. Sometime I'll have to record one of my beginner saxophone kids and post a clip here. It's like being assaulted by an angry amplified mule. I kind of end up looking like this kid's teacher by the end of it.)

That being said, I love teaching kids, I realIy do. There's something so great about the energy they return for your investment of time and energy-- when a kid really gets into learning music it's electric when they come in and really play something spectacular in their lesson. Beaming faces, proud parents, and a sense of achievement that they can really totally take credit for-- no one else can do the work for them, so when they get something right they can take all the credit.

And at the same time, after five hours of lessons there's nothing for it like a burger and a beer, so I'm for the bar. Whoop!