SassyBlonde

By and large, I like teaching my students. Most of the time it's fun to see them accomplishing new things and learning, trying out new ideas and flexing their musical muscles. It's always so rewarding to hear a student make an artistic breakthrough, to see that look on their faces when the light goes on and they realize they've made someone react simply by the sounds they've created.

For every artistic breakthrough, though, there's a kid who has a complete artistic breakdown, and most of the time it has nothing to to with ability: it has to do with discipline.

I've talked before about the Catch-22 of musicians needing discipline. It's the one ingredient that any successful musician has, whether they're trying it on as a vocation or an avocation. Either way, though, you can't be a good musician without it. Kids with no discipline don't end up as musicians that really know what they're doing, they just dick around and hate themselves when they grow up for being amateurish. I have no vested interest in that-- I want my students to understand what is required for them to become artistically viable musicians, whether they end up only playing for their own pleasure or for a paycheck someday. If they honestly decide that the instrument, and music, is not for them, then fine, but I want them to try as long as they study with me, and the difference in very obvious in the two situations. It's also very obvious if the kid just doesn't like me, and that's fine too.

This week I had another kid in the long procession of disciplinary failures. What usually happens is that during some random lesson I'll begin to test the student's ability to take criticism and disapproval about their practice habits if they've been bad so far. I'll set them up on a practice schedule-- so many minutes, so many times during the course of the week, and I'll talk to their parents about it at the end of the lesson to make sure they know what I'm requiring of their child. Nothing insane, small goals like fifteen minutes of work a day, but I'm firm about it. If the kid doesn't have the self-motivation to do it at their age, then I enlist the parents to help them along and get them on the right path. The next step usually involves consequences-- no practicing, they get sent home and owe their parents the money for the lesson, in work, trade, or cash, whatever makes the biggest difference then and will have the biggest long-term effect.

Most kids I have to have "the talk" with never make it past the first step, and this kid was no exception. We had the talk at her last lesson and I let her mom know the deal, and both of them seemed on board when they left. In classic fashion, though, I got a phone call the day before the next lesson letting me know they weren't coming and that they wanted to talk to me about whether or not they would be continuing lessons. The problem, apparently, was that the kid was now saying she didn't like the sound of the clarinet-- that it hurt her ears, and she wanted to quit.

Ummm... bullshit flag.

What happened was that the first time this kid's parent had to make her work at it, she decided that she didn't like having to work. It's not as if she's ever practiced before in any serious way. After all this time she can't even remember the notes. She never has her assignments done, and her parents are paying me an enormous amount of money that is completely going to waste because this kid isn't doing the work, which is seriously less time than she spends on the phone texting her friends after school. Twenty minutes a day, five days a week.

I guess what bothers me so much is that this is a trend with a lot of parents. I'm sorry baby, you might have to do something unpleasant? You don't have to then. It's okay for you to quit.

Bull. Complete and utter crap.

When the going gets tough for these kids, they'll drop everything because no one ever required them to persevere. It's pervasive-- I watch it on their faces. Rather than think through a problem, they wait for someone to give them the answer. Rather than requiring them to work, their parents make it easy by making excuses for them and not requiring them to be responsible for their choices. And when they grow up, they'll expect someone to make it easy for them, and life will punch them in the face. It's not just about quitting music lessons-- these are kids that will quit all kinds of things for the rest of their lives because it's "too hard" or they were "too busy" or their mom said they didn't have to. It drives me crazy.

It's not that I mourn the loss of this one particular kid-- I don't. It's a relief not to be pissed off for one more half-hour lesson every week, and I have a waiting list of kids wanting to get going with lessons. I just hate having to kick somebody out that revolving door when they haven't even tried.

At least they had the good grace to read the guidelines and not request a refund (I don't give refunds, ever, because if they're going to waste my time it's at least going to buy me a new pair of shoes.)