My What?

I used to give piano lessons after I finished my degree, when I was figuring out how to effectively market my knowledge about the Romanov dynasty and Peter the Great’s ship-building practices.

Known for my goofy sense of humour (as demonstrated by the “Laurie Rea is very funy” graffiti on my kitchen wall), I tended to attract parents looking for a “creative” alternative to the more traditional music schools. In other words, they thought I wouldn’t yell at their kids if they didn’t practise.

Basically, I violated rule number one of every handbook ever written about effective piano teaching: Don’t ever try to make them like you!

I was recently informed that one of my former students is now a professional musician and that her parents consider me a key source of inspiration. Flattering? A little bit. Certainly something worth adding to that “important achievements/contributions” list I keep telling myself to create.

Then again, I’m pretty certain I can pinpoint the pivotal pedogical event that sent my former student (let’s call her Julia) down the path towards musical greatness. I’d love to claim that it was my fine performance as a piano teacher, or even a particularly moving piece of music, but sadly I cannot.

For the first six months or so of lessons, Julia was like any other student. That is, she rarely practised, she enjoyed hanging upside down from the piano bench, and she liked to fidget. A lot. Then one day, when I was overtired and she was particularly intent on ignoring everything that I asked her to do, I suddenly blurted out “Fuck Julia!” and then gasped and covered my mouth while she stared at me in wide-eyed silence.

“You said a bad word,” she finally said while I stared at the Breughel painting on the wall above the piano, frantically looking for some way to escape.

“Yes Julia.” I finally said. “I did say a bad word, and I should not have said it, but sometimes…” (I cannot help cringing as I write this.) “…I get very frustrated when you don’t listen.”

I don’t remember much of what ensued immediately afterwards, but in the following months she showed remarkable improvement. Not only did she practise every day, she actually seemed to enjoy it.

Now, rest assured that I am not advocating random profane outbursts as a motivational tool. And I’m not even sure there’s an actual lesson to be found in this story. Except perhaps that sometimes the roots of inspiration are not nearly as “inspirational” as we’d like them to be.

Then again, what the F*** do I know about pedagogy?