10 things I wish I'd been told before I became a music teacher:

1. You are in charge of your studio, not the parents who pay you.
2. You are a music teacher because you are a musician. This means that you do know best with fingerings.
3. You can never assume the parents know everything (or anything). Be overly clear and explain often.
4. No one practices as much as they tell you.
5. Being corrected every single week is never fun. We think it's to improve them, your student will think it's that they can never be perfect. Try to mix it up with something positive.
6. You're never too old for stickers.
7. Knowing the notes on the staff is no guarantee that note reading will follow.
8. If you ask a student if they'd like to do something, there's a 50% chance they'll say no. Choose your phrasing wisely.
9. Some days, you just won't get anything done in lesson. Don't feel guilty about it.
10. Dotted quarter notes are never not going to be confusing.

Music through the eyes of the young

Last weekend, I took my 27 year old fiance Dan, who has the maturity level of an 8 year old, to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to see a family production of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. This concert was geared towards children, and since Dan has little to no experience with music, I thought it would be just at the right level to keep him awake and entertained.

We were one of the only couples there without children, but that didn't bother us. The conductor, guest Edwin Outwater, was great at telling the kids all about the different instruments, setting up excerpts, and describing how music could set the mood. At one point during Rimsky-Korsakov's Suite From the Snow Maiden, we all flapped our arms like birds, as depicted by the violins (most of the kids flapped whenever they felt the urge, not just when the violins played).

It was really fun to see a concert like this. While in my previous posts, I talked about the importance of concerts for the sake of learning and finding yourself, or finding inspiration, this was a great one just for finding simple joy in music. It doesn't have to be moving or powerful music (though when the monster theme boomed, everyone moved pretty high off their seats!), but it can just be fun. And instilling this in children at a young age could go a long way in inspiring them to play music themselves or in continuing to support the arts as they grow up.

Some of my favorite moments came from the children in the seats surrounding me. Though their parents tried to shush them, they didn't let that stop them from showing their excitement. The little girl next to me would cry out "I love the flute!" every time the orchestra began to play, while the little boy in front of me was convinced that the dancer portraying Ivan, the hunter, was actually the monster, and would shout "Is that the monster?" every entrance Ivan made. His sister was very skeptical of the Firebird's costume, and behind me, another young girl continuously dropped her program just so that Dan could pick it up for her. Sometimes it's nice to go see a top orchestra perform a classic piece without being so stuffy about it. Maybe we should all flap our arms like birds during concerts more often.

Are you prepared for who could walk into your private studio?

Are you prepared to teach a child with 2 dads? What about a Christian who's waiting for marriage while you live with your fiancee? Is your studio wheelchair accessible not just for your students but for their parents? Are you OK with all manners of race and religion? Can you adapt to a student with a disability, or will you turn them down on sight? Do you have a problem with inter-racial couples? Do you consider people with tattoos and piercings to be immature and lazy?

If you have issues with any of the above, I'm not here to judge you. But as a teacher, you do need to be prepared to be open-minded. You need to be honest with yourself on whether you can give your students the attention they deserve while accepting and respecting all manner of parents, and also students. You need to respect your students/parents' beliefs, but not allow them to compromise your own, or insult other students/parents in your studio.

In short, you as a private music teacher must think of yourself as an equal opportunity teacher. This means keeping thoughts, comments, and facial expressions to yourself if you don't agree with the values or beliefs of a family. Not treating one family differently than another based on how much money they make. Making sure your studio is fully accessible so that someone like my own fiance, Dan, can take his future children to their music lessons without needing me to tag along and help. You will have to leave politics, religion, values, current events, and opinions locked in a drawer during the times that you are teaching, meeting with a wedding client, holding conferences, or giving a recital. This is not to say you must be a robot, but your priority as a teacher should be to make sure everyone feels welcome, accepted, respected, and equal within your studio. You may not be able to control how they are treated out in the real world, but when they're with you, make sure everyone gets to be the same.

Don't forget your own musical education and enrichment.

As teachers and performers, we are always encouraging our students to attend recitals and concerts so they can learn more about themselves as a musician. We often are at the recitals of our colleagues to show them support, and let's face it, to pad the audience as they do for us to make it look like we have more people there. But how often do we go to a recital or a concert just to be inspired by the music?

This past weekend, I went to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with my cousin-in-law and her father, an avid piano player in his free time. I've haven't been to a professional solo piano recital since I was a little girl at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. The soloist, Maurizio Pollini, has won a Grammy for his recording of Chopin's Nocturnes, and to Uncle Marc, he's a lifelong hero.

I originally was attending because Uncle Marc and Monica had asked me to, and because it was a free chance to see a concert at the Symphony Center. I wasn't very familiar with Chopin as he doesn't really translate to the harp, and I thought a two hour concert of all solo piano music would be boring. When I arrived and the program said he was doing 24 preludes in a row, I knew it would be nap time.

Then when Pollini opened with 2 Nocturnes-it was absolutely breathtaking. Completely flawless, gentle, delicate, emotional, technically brilliant-I was in awe the entire concert. I enjoyed listening to music for the first time in years. I didn't feel the need to know the harmonic patterns, to see his fingers, to review his stage presence. And I thought about just how long it has been since I allowed a fellow musician to inspire me instead of sitting through the concert criticizing and forming opinions on every note. After years of college recitals, and watching concerts just to support a friend, it felt refreshing to relax and enjoy music without needing to form an opinion, congratulate someone, overlook catastrophes, and second guess whether my reaction to it would decide if I was a competent musician.

I forgot what it was like to have a goal to sound better than you can ever be. I forgot that getting through something without mistakes isn't enough, nor is being expressive enough to cover your mistakes. I forgot that the whole package includes incredibly high standards both for yourself and others.

I remembered that I want to be an inspiration. I want my music to be beautiful, not nice, my technique to be flawless, not good, and my emotions to be transparent, not contained. I was reminded why I love to play, and that it's not because I need to learn 65 notes by Saturday or be fired. I recognized the massive reward this man must have felt to have all of his hard work and tireless hours spent on these pieces pay off in the form of a wildly receptive and appreciative audience and a flawless performance.

It's easy to forget in all the hours of rehearsals, lessons, practicing, and tedious gigs that we are musicians because we have the ability to share our emotions and talents with others through our instruments. My thanks to Mr. Pollini for reminding me.

Harder isn't always better.

When you're learning and developing as a student, moving on to harder pieces means more challenges, techniques, and musical decisions to learn from. But once you're out of college, giving solo recitals, concerto concerts, and gigging various place, are harder pieces still necessary?

I adored my college harp teacher. I learned more from her than I thought possible, she trained me to be my own critic, and she had brilliant musical ideas. But I always hated having certain pieces I wanted to learn be shot down because they weren't at a high enough level of difficulty.

While I understand that it's important to learn the difficult pieces, and to show what you can do, sometimes the easier pieces are just better pieces. Just because it has a hundred more notes and goes much faster doesn't make it more beautiful, more challenging musically, or even more difficult technically. Being a "virtuoso" isn't at the top of my list of things to do. However playing pieces that I can connect with emotionally and that the audience will be touched by is always one of my goals. And to achieve that, lately I've been going back to the easier pieces.

For one thing, sometimes the high levels of difficulty can be so distracting that you don't even bother with the musicality. For another, it can feel unapproachable for the listener. Finally, the saying "less is more" applies to music too. Sometimes less complexity means more beautiful melodies to relate to.

I think in a lot of ways, the easier pieces are just as challenging as the advanced ones. Once you hit a point in your playing where you can pretty much learn any piece, the real challenge is control. Just because you can go fast and loud doesn't mean you have to, just as being able to throw rubato in doesn't always make it appropriate.

I have nothing against playing very difficult pieces and concertos. Certainly the challenge is an important part of being a musician and the repertoire has to be learned. But don't discount anything less as being unimportant or "learning pieces." Sometimes the simple things matter too.

Sticker Challenges

I mentioned a few months ago that I was hoping to ween my students off of stickers, or at least reward less of them at the end of lesson. However, I can't deny that the promise of a sticker or two really gets them to listen well in lesson. So we've come to a compromise of sorts: sticker challenges.

Sticker challenges can only happen once a lesson, unless my supply says otherwise. Generally, sticker challenges involve small stickers only (stars are my current choice) and you get to put it on your music rather than your binder, book, or in some cases, all over your clothes. You receive this one sticker if you complete a technique challenge for a piece you are working on. For example: if you can play all the way through your piece with less than 4 buzzes per line(a staccato sound against a string that stops it and makes a noise), you have won your sticker challenge. This has really gotten my students to focus on the technique I want them to work on, and they count with me to see how many they've gotten. Many times, even after they've earned the sticker, they want to try again and beat their own record.

Putting the sticker on their music rather than their usual spots has helped motivate my students to keep improving that technique and to try improving other parts of their pieces as well. They want the day to come when they can play with zero buzzes, instead of 4 or less, and they love seeing a few stickers in a row where they know they accomplished something to improve on their music.

Rest assured, there are still end of lesson stickers (sparkly hearts this week). Every once in a while if I have a new sheet of stickers to reveal, they get an extra hard challenge, or a longer one than normal, for the honor of taking out a new sheet of end-of-lesson stickers. But now they are earning stickers for being excellent musicians, not just for following a teacher's directions, and I think they can really tell the difference.

Lessons: Counseling sessions and parenting lessons too?

Sometimes, my students have problems being bullied at school. They come to lessons acting mopey and quiet, and rarely want to cooperate. If their parent isn't attending lesson, I am left to find out what is wrong and how to comfort them.

As I have not yet had children myself, and was the youngest child at home, this is often challenging for me. While I know what my advice may be, I also worry about stepping on the parents toes, or on values they may trying to teach their child. After all, I may think it works best to ignore bullies, but a parent might think talking to either the bully or the teacher is a better idea. It also becomes a concern of whether or not the parent is aware of the bullying going on. If the student may be telling me this in confidence because s/he does not want to share it at home, am I responsible for telling his/her parents anyway? Although it is certainly their responsibility to know, if I betray that confidence I also run the risk of my student not coming to me if it happens again, and still not telling his/her parents.

Another area to be careful about is values, beliefs, political views, etc. I may be a Gay Pride activist in my free time, but that doesn't mean I can have rainbow symbols all over my studio. I may be for Palin or Obama, but I can't hang a sign in my window or on my lawn. We want both our students and our parents to feel comfortable in our studios, and broadcasting your political, religious, moral, or social views may cause conflict. Be very careful about what you reveal to your students, as they are still learning and developing their own beliefs.

We as teachers are responsible for our students' technique, theory knowledge, sight-reading skills, and 45 minutes to an hour of their attention for one day a week. We are also mentors and role models. A student-teacher relationship in a private lesson setting often develops over many years, and as a teacher you become a constant in your student's life in a different way than a parent, family member, or school teacher.

This may also mean that you are responsible for enforcing your student's good behavior in lesson. You don't want to assume that your students learned how to share, listen, and cooperate for every situation, and in group lessons, recitals, or individual lessons, that will fall on you to keep track of. You must be willing to tell a parent when their child is misbehaving, even at the risk of offending them. After all, they are paying you to teach their child for 45-60 minutes, and it is a waste of their money if you have to spend a large chunk of lesson waiting for their child to cooperate or settle down.

The bottom line is that being a private music teacher isn't just about the music. You have to be a parent, sister, teacher, and role model. Your students become your responsibility physically, emotionally, and morally when they come to lesson, and you need to be prepared for that.