Terry G and Me, or Terry Gilliam on Where (or What) Practicing the Piano Will Get You…

I have always liked Terry Gilliam’s films. Who among us has not seen at least one of them? “The Life of Brian,” “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” “The Fisher King,” “Brazil,” “The Time Bandits,” “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” among others, as well as his most recent, “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.”  So I decided to read his autobiography, his “pre posthumous autobiography,” to be exact,* in which he makes two maddeningly** brief references to his musical education. That’s right, our hero studied the piano (he still plays), the French horn and sang in the church choir. He even mentioned that he went without Christmas presents for two years as a youth to help pay for his piano – rather notable in itself.

However, I was particularly struck in his story by the amount he had of what seemed like luck, but was undoubtedly caused, if you read carefully, in no small amount by his amazing drive and the self-discipline which fuels it, both developed at an early age.

So, yet again, my devious and ever present violin teacher mind, perennially searching for more ammunition to motivate our students and their parents to practice, got the better of me and I couldn’t help but wonder what effect his music education had on his career and success as a filmmaker.

So I decided to ask him…

Even though he is almost 78, there is no other way to describe him other than bubbly. He has an infectious giggle, makes jokes continuously and has irrepressible energy – exactly what you would expect from the public persona of an ex-Python. You could almost forget who he is and the enormity of his accomplishments until you ask him a serious question and then everything changes. I think his answers to my questions here below are interesting enough to share with all you music teachers, parents and students who may read this.

The Teaching We Don’t Do Is More Important Than We Think

Recently I attended a wedding. It was a lovely event, everything lovingly and expertly planned, all went very smoothly and everyone had a very good time. There was a beautiful program, crediting everyone for his or her part in the event from the caterers to the grandparents of the bride and groom – even the names and composers of the pieces played by the string quartet. And then I took a closer look. On this program was listed a very famous piece by J.S. Bach but gave Handel as its composer. Who cares, you say? Well, my inner and outer violin teacher got the better of me and I felt the need to point this out to the wedding planner who had certainly been responsible for the printing and proofing of this program. Handel would no doubt have been delighted to get credit for this piece, but someone has to defend Bach. No?

So I waited until after the wedding reception was over, found the wedding planner and as nicely as I could, informed her that there was a slight mistake on the program which, of course, makes no difference to this wedding so we needn’t bother the bride and her mother with this. But since she can never know who will be at her next event (the conductor of the New York Phil?), she might want to make sure to get the credits for the music right.

Okay, big deal, you might say. But what astonished me was her answer. “Really? Well then who wrote it?” “J. S. Bach,” I replied. “Oh,” she said thoughtfully, “I think I may have heard of him.”

There you have it. An experienced wedding and event planner who had organized a big and very expensive wedding with everything going like clockwork, thinks she may have heard of J. S. Bach. I imagine there are lots of printed programs at weddings like this and lots of Bach played, too. So what is shocking is not that she got the attribution wrong (and I cannot believe the professional string quartet gave her the wrong composer) – anyone can make a mistake – but that she really hadn’t the slightest idea who Bach was.

Bach, possibly the greatest musical genius who has ever lived. (Okay, it’s my opinion, but no one can deny Bach’s importance in music, present or past.) Which brings me to my point: this experience brought home to me with a thud that the lack of music education has become worse than appalling. That there are people with university degrees, professional people, who do not know who Bach was. Her comment should be at the level of “I think I may have heard of World War II.”  Or, “I think I may have heard of Shakespeare.” Or, “I may have heard about DNA, the atomic bomb, penicillin, reading and writing, etc.”

Overwhelmingness or What Teaching and Motherhood* Have in Common

Cellphone Serenity

Ah, the convenience of modern technology. Those smartphones can be so useful to the teacher during the lesson. I use mine to take photos. I tell my students that their position is so perfect that I’m going to take a photo of them for myself – and send a copy to their parents. They are so proud when I do this. I also offer to take a video if an older student doesn’t come equipped with a mother and a phone that can do this (it happens) and send it to them via one of those marvelous apps. I can make a video of a student playing with poor posture and then with good posture and show him the difference.  I also use my tablet with the music apps so I can keep all my scores and parts in one very small and convenient place and, being connected to wi-fi, can make corrections and send them to the student via email in case she “forgets” to bring the right part with her that day. And the apps for metronomes and tuning? Ah yes, I don’t know what I would do without my smartphone. And it also serves for me to receive urgent telephone calls from parents who have suddenly discovered their child has a fever and can’t come to lesson. It also is useful in case of family emergencies. Or text messages telling me that a student is delayed but arriving.

Yes, I love my smartphone. Thank heavens I have it at lessons and am connected to my server and wi-fi. I am smart enough to know that I shouldn’t be talking casually on the phone during the lesson. No one has to remind me of this. I am an adult, after all. But on rare occasion I have to take phone calls – for example, when my doctor calls me about something important (I have had issues), or my daughter tells me she has gone into labor so I can worry about her appropriately (this happens rarely). So why is it as a teacher, I should feel entitled to tell all the parents of my students that they can’t have their smartphones or use them during lesson time? Are they not adults, too?

But how can we deal with parents who (ab)use those pesky cell phones during lesson time?

How to Build Your Reputation – the Kind You Want

“Do you worry that your poor students will ruin your reputation? I am trying to build my studio and worry that these few students (among many who are good students) may affect my ability to earn a living.”

A young teacher, rightly concerned about building her studio and keeping it thriving, asked me this question.

My answer? It all depends on what kind of reputation you want. There are lots of different ones and some of them can be combined while others are in a class all by themselves. Here are a few examples:

one who turns out only competition winners
one whose students all play well up to teacher’s very high standard
one whose students faithfully obey all teacher’s studio strictures – or else
one whose students enjoy playing music at any level
one who wants her students to love music as she does
one who will teach any student who wants to learn, no matter what
one who will teach any student as along as the parents are willing to continue, no matter what

The first three don’t have to worry about poor students: they don’t have them. Who might worry would be those in the last four categories. So I will address this to them and my young colleague who said that she believed all students should have lessons as long as they enjoy them.

If you worry about your reputation while you’re teaching, you are focused on yourself and your goals instead of what you should be focusing on: your student. The one thing you should never worry about is what other people think. If you do, that’s a guaranteed recipe for disaster. Why? Because your thoughts are putting you into a different teacher category than the one you may want to be in. You stop doing whatever you are doing for your student and start doing it for yourself. Is that what you want? No, I didn’t think so. So here’s how to build a good reputation:

Have you ever heard of Tchaikovsky’s white horse of happiness? He said it was on his enormous estate and you could only find it if you didn’t look for it or think about it.* So don’t think about it – or your reputation. Decide what kind of teacher you want to be and then be it without worrying about how you look or even thinking about yourself at all. This may mean you wind up teaching poor students, i.e., the ones who don’t practice, listen to you, take your advice, etc.. This can be hard on you, if you let it, but it surely be difficult if you are worrying about how that student will make you look. You are in a service profession which means you should be worried about your clients’ (i.e., the students’) problems, not you having a problem with their problems and what that means for you.

Desperate Times, Desperate Measures. Or How to Deal With Your Strong-Willed Stubborn Student and Survive

“Why Does My Teacher Get So Frustrated?” Letter to a Perplexed Student

Mount Rush-no-more….And How to Get There

The Paranoia of Progress