Piano Teaching and Tutoring

When last I left you I had given two piano lessons and was about to start tutoring. Four months later, I now have 9 piano students and that 1 tutoree. Not a bad growth-rate and I still love what I’m doing too.

My current goal is to get to 10 hours a week. I’m more than half way there.

I’m also in the process of buying a new piano. This hasn’t been that fun because pianos are expensive and the ones I’d be really happy with are out of my budget. Also figuring out what exactly my budget is hasn’t been easy. Technically we can afford a lot, but how much do I really want to spend right now? I don’t know.

French

For the past few months I’ve been practicing French with my dad in the evenings. It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for years, but apparently now is the right time.

The method we’ve been using is to read French books out loud and translate them into English. Also on my own I’ve been working through a progressive French grammar book.

Without a doubt my French reading and pronunciation skills are improving. I’m not so sure about my speaking and listening skills. I’m also not so sure how much the grammar book is helping. Sure, I can do the exercises in the workbook, but can I remember them later? Je ne sais pas.

Early Music Workshop

I’m giving a workshop at a Renaissance Dance Symposium in July. The paper for the proceedings needed to be in by June 1st, so the week before I was frantically working to get that finished. Believe me, “symposium” and “proceedings” sound a lot more impressive than they are. The symposium is for my reenactment group, and the proceedings are made up of class notes, not impeccably researched scholarly material. No one should cite my paper. Ever. But still, I put in a decent amount of time on this thing, and it’s not entirely crap. (Although I already found one, somewhat significant, typo. *facepalm*)

The way I see it, the paper is a work in progress. I want to turn it into something that is worthy of being in a peer reviewed journal… it’s just not there yet.

Draperies

I made draperies for my living room window. This is more impressive than it sounds. For a few weeks they were my primary project and I let myself go into obsessed seamstress mode. I’m very happy with how they turned out.

And that covers the major highlights. I’ve done other things too like reading, playing video games, watching great TV, planting the garden, playing music, washing windows, etc. but the things above were my big projects.

Where I’m Going From Here

I will be doing more writing. Other than that, I’m not sure. I’m trying the “pay attention to what I actually want to do” method with all of my projects. We’ll see where that takes me.

I’ll be giving three lessons this week. Whee!

Piano Website
It’s up! Not complete, but I have something. Now I just have to resist the temptation to leave the blank pages as they are…

Tutoring
I’m going to start tutoring a girl in Algebra this week. Should be interesting.

Music Self Teaching
I spent a fair amount of time reading my mom-in-law’s college textbook on Tonal Harmony last week. And I enjoyed it. It wasn’t the fake “I’m reading this because I wish I liked this stuff” it was “this is really cool and useful.” I’d probably feel differently if I had this as a class in college. I like being able to go at my own pace (way ahead on the reading, taking my time on the exercises) and I like not have the stress of grades or exams.

As for actual practicing… yeah. I just wanted to do music theory. I did inadvertently do some sight singing exercises since it was part of the exercises in the music theory book, but… yeah.

Focus for This Week
My focus for this week is to continue my music self-teaching. Meaning: read more of the Tonal Harmony book, practice sight reading, practice sight singing, practice jazz chord stuff.

Also if I can fill in one of the pages on the website, that’d probably be good.

Piano Teaching
First student I talked about last time, quit before our first real lesson. (Boo!)

I resubmitted the Craigslist Ad, and from that got one new student who will have his first real lesson tomorrow. (Eek!) I had an interview with him and his Mom two Fridays ago, and it went really really well.

Before the interview I had the telltale scared feeling that’s accompanied many of the important conversations in my life. When I’ve had that feeling in the past my reaction was to try to avoid the conversation if I could. This time was different, though. I recognized the feeling as a good sign and let myself do the paranoid preparing (that is practicing the conversation in my head over and over again) that makes me feel better and really does prepare me for the upcoming conversation. Yay me! I will try to remember this for the future.

Two other students came last week for their interview. I had the scared feeling again, but it wasn’t as strong as the first time. I’m hoping that as I give more of these interviews that feeling will go away. It may be a good sign, but it isn’t exactly pleasant.

Piano Website…
…is almost done. Once this is posted, I’ll work on getting that live. Whee!

Diet
Aaron and I quit the slow carb diet experiment a little early because we felt like we got what we wanted to out of it, namely a good dietary reset. Before the diet fruit and fruit juice were staple foods; now I can honestly be happy with limiting them to desert. I think I can also be happy with eating desert desert (like cake and cookies) once a week. That’s a huge win for me.

Practicing Music Daily
Still working on this.

TPLT
Short term plan for this is to keep the Weekly progress reports updated.

Past that I will give myself one hour a day to work on the site. Can be writing. Can be working on the new design. Can be working on a guest post. Doesn’t matter. I get one hour and that’s it. Right now I waste a lot of time, so this will force me to be more efficient with it. We’ll see where this goes.

Momentum
I’m a lot less frustrated than I was in the last progress report. Things are happening. I have some focus. I’m happy with where I’m going. Yay!

Piano Teaching
Last week I had my first student come in for an interview. (Yay!) We went over the studio policy (finally got that done) and I got to get to know what her goals are for lessons. We’ll have our first official lesson next week. Progress has been made.

I still haven’t put much time or effort into the website, though. Too many conflicting priorities…

TPLT Focus
Even though I didn’t publish anything over break, I didn’t ignore the blog. I’ve been frustrated for a long time about how TPLT is too unfocused. “Living Consciously” is too vague a topic to be exciting… and to be honest I’m too self-conscious to promote it that way. So I spent some time during the end of the year consciously thinking about how to focus it. I’ve come up with something I think will work… but I’ll be announcing it with a disclaimer since I’ve made pronouncements in the past that haven’t come to be.

TPLT Action Steps
There are three things I really need to do for TPLT in order to take it where I want it to go.

• Write consistently for the blog.
• Write up guest posts.
• Work on the new design.

For whatever reason, my brain interprets these as monumental, time-consuming tasks that all need to be done NOW. I can only work on one thing at a time, and because they’re all equally important and time-sensitive, I don’t know which one to pick…. so I don’t do anything. *Sigh*

To be honest, I don’t have a clever response for how to deal with these things, so I’m just going to forgive myself and keep moving forward. Do a little bit of writing, a little bit of working on the design, etc. I’ve heard that works…

Music Practice
I want to get in the habit of practicing my instruments daily. I am not there yet… and to be honest I never have been. I do play /regularly/ (at least weekly with singing and monthly with recorder) but regularly is not the same as daily and play is not the same as practice.

The problem: I have 4 instruments I’m trying to work on (piano, recorder, violin, and voice) and I only have so much uninterrupted time in a day. 2 hours a day (at least) is a lot to commit to. Where will I put it? I’m having hard enough time with 45 minutes of Power 90.

I need to think about this some more.

Diet
Aaron and I are trying the Slow Carb Diet this month just to see what happens. All I can say about it so far is that it hasn’t been that hard to adapt to. It’s too early to make any more profound conclusions.

In conclusion: Nique is Frustrated
I want to be making tons of progress toward my goals and do everything I want to do. I’m nowhere near there yet.

One foot in front of the other… One moment at a time….

Have a happy holiday season everyone!

Last Week’s Top Priority: Piano Teaching

The big piano-teaching related thing I did last week was finish a draft of my Studio Policy. Notice I said “finish a draft,” not just “finish”. I decided to wait to polish it until after next week when I can go over it with my mother-in-law, a long-time piano teacher. It’d be silly of me to send out an early version only to make significant changes a week later. I let my prospective students know about the delay, and I think I’ve answered their basic questions already.

The other major accomplishment of last week was emailing the 5 bloggers for a guest posting slot. (Actually it was 4 bloggers since one of them ran two blogs…) So far I’ve heard back from two bloggers: one maybe/yes and one no. Rejection wasn’t nearly as discouraging as I’d feared.

So, I did the two big things I wanted to do. Yay me.

This Week’s Top Priority: TPLT

Big things I want to get done

• Post for Wednesday
• Guest Post for the yes/maybe blogger
• Post for next Wednesday

If I have extra time I’ll work on tweaking TPLT’s new theme.

I’m focusing on writing because I don’t want to have to worry about it over Christmas.

Other Priorities: Sewing and Piano Teaching
These will be put on hold this week.

Other Priorities: Year-end Review and Goals for the New Year
This will be happening over the next few weeks.

So this week will mostly involve writing. Luckily I like writing.

There was a man who woke one day convinced that he was a zombie. When he told his wife he was a zombie, she tried to talk him out of this outrageous opinion.

“You are not a zombie!” she said.

“I am a zombie.” he answered.

“What makes you think you are a zombie?” she asked rhetorically.

“Don’t you think zombies know they are zombies?” he answered with great sincerity.

His wife realized she was not getting anywhere so she called his mother and told her what was going on. His mother tried to help.

“I’m your mother, wouldn’t I know if I gave birth to a zombie?”

“You didn’t,” he explained, “I became a zombie later.”

“I didn’t raise my son to be a zombie, or especially to think he is a zombie,” his mother pleaded.

“Nonetheless, I am a zombie,” hes said, unmoved by his mother’s appeal to his identity and sense of guilt.

Later that day his wife called in their minister to talk to her husband.

“You are not a zombie, you are probably going through a midlife crisis,” the minister said, trying to be the psychologist he always wanted to be.

“Zombies don’t have midlife crises,” was all the man replied.

The minister recommended a psychiatrist. The wife got an emergency appointment, and within the hour the husband was in the psychiatrist’s office.

“So, you think you are a zombie?” the psychiatrist asked.

“I know I am a zombie,” the man said.

“Tell me, do zombies bleed?” the psychiatrist asked.

“Of course not,” said the man, “zombies are the living dead. They don’t bleed.” The man was a little annoyed at the psychiatrist’s patronizing question.

“Well, watch this,” said the psychiatrist as he picked up a pin. He took the man’s finger and made a tiny pin prick. The man looked at his finger with great amazement and said nothing for three or four minutes.

“What do you know,” the man finally said, “zombies do bleed!”

We lie all the time, to our friends and to ourselves. “That outfit looks great on you.” “I failed the test because the teacher hates me.”

We do it because it avoids awkwardness in the short term. If you say the outfit looks terrible you’ll create drama. If you tell yourself you failed because of you didn’t study you might have to make a change in your life. A little lie is a lot easier than an uncomfortable truth.

Of course, long term, if you lie you’re going to have problems. Example: if you direct your life as a zombie when you’re really a living mortal you might unnecessarily kill people for their brains. Or you might be less cautious since you’re already dead. Or you might stop showering since zombies don’t shower. Bad times for all.

If you don’t think you lie to yourself, you’re lying to yourself right now.

Seriously.

This Week’s Challenge: Write down at least one instance where you lied to yourself. Deep down your heart of hearts knew the truth and you didn’t accept it. Bonus points if other people echoed your heart of hearts. If you’re feeling brave put you answer in the comments.

If you honestly can’t think of anything, ask your significant other or best friend or one of your parents or siblings for help.

We’ll talk more about this next week.

So, last week on my “to-do” list I had:

• Refine short pitch
• Email people I know with kids who might be in need of piano lessons
• Email Ann Arbor Piano Teachers Association about what I need to do to join
• Set up basic website for piano teaching.
• Practice giving my elevator pitch

Of those things, I got everything done except the website. Yay me. I especially got a lot of pay off from emailing the people in my network.  I have a few students for January and a few more potential students for sometime after that. Whee!

The website didn’t happen for a couple reasons: 1) the server I use for development wasn’t working properly, and it didn’t get fixed until the weekend and 2) it’s just going to take me a while to do, and there are other more pressing things to work on.

All in all, last week was pretty productive.

This Week’s Top Priority: Piano Teaching

Still sticking to piano teaching. I want to be sure I’m as prepared as possible for my first lessons. There’s a lot to do.

On the list:

• Studio Policy: This is my most important task for this week because my prospective students need to get a copy ASAP.
• Plan a Month’s Worth of Lessons
• Plan My Own Practice
• Make Some Master Plans: Meaning, flesh out a student’s path to mastery. How can I take a student from no musical knowledge to improvising off a lead sheet or playing a Chopin Etude? The more clarity I have the better a teacher I can be.
• Basic Website: Once the studio policy is done I should have enough information to put on a website. It won’t be great, but I’ll at least have somewhere to point people to.

Again, of the things on this list the Studio Policy is the most important task. I’m not sure what’s the most important of the rest of these. I need to figure that out.

Other Projects: Sewing Guide Project

I didn’t work on this at all last week. Realistically, I probably won’t work on it this week either. Maybe next week.

Other Projects: TPLT

I think emailing two bloggers a day may be a wee bit much. That’d be 10 bloggers a week. If they all said yes, I’d be in trouble!

Last week I didn’t email any. This week I’ll aim for 1 blogger a day or 5 a week. I emailed one today, already.

The other big thing to work on here is the redesign. I got the logo from my designer (yay!) so I should have all I need.

—–

Another week of lots to do.

I’ll consider it a success if on Friday I have a finished Studio Policy and have emailed 5 bloggers about writing guest posts.

• Your kid takes violin lessons from your sister, a professional violin teacher.
• Your Mom babysits your kids a few days a week.
• Your brother is living in the spare room of your house.
• Your best friend, a professional mechanic, fixes your car when it breaks down.

Should you exchange money for these services? If you were dealing with strangers then the answer would be simple: yes, you should exchange money. But this is family, and money and family is a volatile combination. What should you do?

The answer is… it depends. Your sister, the violin teacher, could expect you to pay her (since it’s… you know.. her job!) or she could be insulted that you’re trying to pay her to spend time with her niece and nephew. There’s no way to know unless you talk to her about it.

If you’re in this situation, you might be tempted to take an educated guess based on what you know about your sister, but I highly recommend you don’t do that. There are a lot social expectations here.

For instance, she may actually want to be paid, but if you don’t pay her she probably won’t argue with you since social norms say siblings shouldn’t pay each other for services. She could start feeling resentful because she doesn’t want to work for free, and then start feeling guilty that she feels resentful… and it’s a vicious cycle and she probably won’t bring it up to you.

Or it could be the other way around. It’s possible that even though she doesn’t feel like she needs to paid, she’s afraid to tell you to stop paying her since it might hurt your pride… or something. Awkward.

The point is if you guess wrong, the situation won’t resolve itself. The longer you let the problem fester the worse it gets, and in the end it can only be solved with an open, honest conversation about what each person wants. You might as well have that conversation in the beginning. It’ll be easier that way. And don’t wait for them to initiate the conversation. Most people won’t do it.

Talking to the Giver

If you’re the one receiving a service from a friend or family member, and you think you need to have a conversation with them about payment, you can easily make the conversation go well. Just, have the giver decide whether or not to be paid and assure the giver that neither answer will negatively affect the relationship. Doing that empowers the giver, which is a good thing.

Of course you need to actually show that you’re OK with either answer. Don’t be pissy if your sister says she wants to be paid for the violin lessons she’s giving your kids. Be gracious and agree to pay her. If you don’t have the money to pay her, be honest about it and ask her for suggestions on how to solve the problem. Then go do something fun together.

There’s a chance that your sister may be insulted for being asked if she wants to be paid. If that’s the case, assure her that you’re only trying to pay her for the value she’s providing. It’s a compliment, not an insult. Both sides look good this way.

Talking to the Receiver

If you’re the one giving services and you’re feeling resentful because you aren’t being paid by your friend or family member, you’re in a tough place. The conversation you have with the receiver more than likely won’t go well because nobody likes being told their free ride is over.

Before you start creating drama, figure out what category you’re in:

• You need the money
• You simply want to be paid for the work you do
• You feel like there’s something lacking in the relationship

If there’s something lacking in the relationship, asking them outright to be paid could cause more problems than it solves. It says, “you don’t feel like family to me anymore so you should pay me like the other strangers I work with do.” Assuming they do start paying you, every time money changes hands it will reinforce your estrangement. Not good. (Unless you really do want to poison the relationship. If that’s the case, by all means…)

Instead, ignore the money issue and focus on healing the relationship since that’s where the problem is. What would need to happen in order for you to feel OK with the idea of serving your family member for free? How can you make that happen? Work to make it happen.

Even if you’re the kind of person who always wants to be paid for your services, if you feel your relationship with your friend or family member is broken, you should focus on fixing the relationship before you go about asking to get paid. Once the relationship is healed, money can change hands without problems. Yes, it’ll take longer, but better that than making the relationship worse. Alternately you could stop providing your service to them until the relationship is healed.

If the relationship is healthy, but you need the money or simply want to be paid for your services, try having a frank conversation with your friend or family member about it. Be humble. Be honest. Be gentle. If they’re sane you should eventually be able to come to some kind of agreement. If the conversation ends badly, and you feel you were misunderstood, find someone both of your respect to talk to them about it. There’s nothing wrong with being paid for your services, even if it’s family doing the paying.

Doing business with family is trickier than doing it with strangers because of all the unwritten social rules, but it’s not impossible.

Last week I focused on getting my piano teaching business up and running. Here’s what I did:

• Wrote my pitch
• Scheduled a time for the piano to get tuned
• Put up a cratigslist ad

Of these, the first was the most important so naturally it was the most difficult. Bleh. Eventually I got over my issues with it, and wrote up something that looks kind of like a pitch.

The other two things weren’t too hard to do. The piano’s getting tuned this coming week. The craigslist ad came together quickly once I had the pitch done sufficiently. It’s not perfect, but I can fix it later.

This Week’s Top Priority: Piano Teaching

I’m going to continue with the piano teaching project this week since I’ve gained some momentum on it. Here’s the task list:

• Refine short pitch
• Email people I know with kids who might be in need of piano lessons
• Email Ann Arbor Piano Teachers Association about what I need to do to join
• Set up basic website for piano teaching.
• Practice giving my elevator pitch

It’s pretty long, but I have confidence I can get these things done since I don’t have as much resistance to the idea as I did last week. (I hope.)

I’d like to make some progress on my other projects too, so here’s the plan for those..assuming I have the capacity to work on them.

Other Projects: Sewing Guide Project

• Write complete list of topics to cover in guide.
• Outline one lesson.

Other Projects: TPLT

• Email two bloggers daily asking if I can write a guest post for them.
• Bug logo designer for my logo.
• Write up plan for blog redesign.

This list should be looked at as more of a wish list than a list of promises. I’ll do my best to get these things done, but I’m not going to guilt myself into doing any of it.  It’s possible I’m not supposed to do all of it. We’ll see.