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First lesson of the day with super-keen little 8 yo girl just finished. She's doing bits of classical and also playing 'Ziggy Stardust' and 'Summer of '69'. Envying the energy. She'll do well, hopefully
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Ah, these guitar lessons - right now, very keen 8 year old girl playing almost to the end of the first book and also Ziggy Stardust, doing it for the first time and very well.
#guitarlessons #theseguitarlessons
#guitarlessons #theseguitarlessons
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Yesterday was perhaps the first real hot day of the year. I had my usual Saturday lessons -a bright eight year old girl in the morning, only just starting but awake and interested (more awake than I was, for sure), then the indomitable French boy who started at 5 and is now approaching 8 -a sometimes not very easy lesson but a rewarding one nonetheless, he's intelligent and musical although sometimes difficult to keep in focus. In the afternoon, very shy Chinese ethnic little girl who again is very musical and intelligent. She's been doing Grade 2 classical guitar material and yesterday she had her first electric guitar lesson -and I suspect that is the way this is going to go with her. She took to it straight away and even became much less shy. Finally, my UCL doctor pupil who has been my student for years and is playing Grade 6 and 7 pieces and who, although he lives near, prefers the lessons online (half the time he is on call, which probably has a part in this).
After all that I went to Colliers Wood (at the exact opposite end of the Northern Line) to meet @lproven on a rare, brief visit of his to London and who wanted to meet at a Venezuelan restaurant in that area. This was good, with his wife and child and another friend of his. I didn't know of the place and, being Venezuelan, was indeed looking forward to the food and perhaps snatches of conversation in the Venezuelan version of Spanish with the staff. All of which happened and was good.
Today, a couple of lessons -first one online, then one in person with this boy who probably plays more electric guitar than I can but also I feel still has a lot to learn -let's see whether I can help with that or whether he'll decide that he won't need that help. Then ... @bibliogoth meeting, discussing 'How to Kidnap the Rich' by Rahul Raina.
After all that I went to Colliers Wood (at the exact opposite end of the Northern Line) to meet @lproven on a rare, brief visit of his to London and who wanted to meet at a Venezuelan restaurant in that area. This was good, with his wife and child and another friend of his. I didn't know of the place and, being Venezuelan, was indeed looking forward to the food and perhaps snatches of conversation in the Venezuelan version of Spanish with the staff. All of which happened and was good.
Today, a couple of lessons -first one online, then one in person with this boy who probably plays more electric guitar than I can but also I feel still has a lot to learn -let's see whether I can help with that or whether he'll decide that he won't need that help. Then ... @bibliogoth meeting, discussing 'How to Kidnap the Rich' by Rahul Raina.
Doing my Friday morning banjo lesson in Australia.
Feeling a little bit like in Groundhog Day, another week rolls by pretty much the same as previous, maybe a little more in the ways my body tells me time is passing nonetheless and entropy increases and I develop new aches and worries.
Reading four or five books at a time now, although I'm not sure in the case of one of those books that I'll finish it. Still reading 'Detransition, Baby' by Torrey Peters, 'Earthlings' by Murata Sayaka, 'Realm Breaker' by Victoria Aveyard, 'Roadside Picnic' by Arkady Strugatsky.... way too much to have on the go in one. The one I might drop is, in all likelihood, not the one you might think. I also stupidly started '52 Ways to Walk' by Annabel Abbs-Street but that I don't have to follow that one linearly and can take it a little bit at a time -one week's walk at a time, in fact.
Currently teaching my banjo pupil the intricacies of the pentatonic scales and their five different 'modes...'
Feeling a little bit like in Groundhog Day, another week rolls by pretty much the same as previous, maybe a little more in the ways my body tells me time is passing nonetheless and entropy increases and I develop new aches and worries.
Reading four or five books at a time now, although I'm not sure in the case of one of those books that I'll finish it. Still reading 'Detransition, Baby' by Torrey Peters, 'Earthlings' by Murata Sayaka, 'Realm Breaker' by Victoria Aveyard, 'Roadside Picnic' by Arkady Strugatsky.... way too much to have on the go in one. The one I might drop is, in all likelihood, not the one you might think. I also stupidly started '52 Ways to Walk' by Annabel Abbs-Street but that I don't have to follow that one linearly and can take it a little bit at a time -one week's walk at a time, in fact.
Currently teaching my banjo pupil the intricacies of the pentatonic scales and their five different 'modes...'
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Finished my last lesson for the day, a Zoom one. I suppose I have developed quite an elaborate set up for my remote lessons. I'm using a Mac Studio with two screens -on the left one I run the Zoom session, on the right one .pdfs of the music we are working on (this is easier on my eyes than keeping the music on the stand, which I also do in some cases). The webcam is an iPhone Xr which gives me a much better picture than the webcams I had been using. The microphone is a Blue Yeti USB cardioid/bidirectional mic -not anything top of the range but much better than what is built into the computers or the cams. I also keep the laptop on a stand -I use this to type a log of the lessons with the exercises and pieces and comments on what we are working on (and where we are in relation to payment), same as I used to do on pupils' notebooks but nowadays don't, and email a copy of the one for the current lesson to the pupil -this allows me to see a copy of those notes that I can review or refer back to.
I normally keep at hand a classical guitar, an Alhambra mid range that by now looks so battered, poor thing. And an Epiphone Les Paul running through a Marshall Valvestate amp.
Probably over the top. What you need for a guitar lesson really is two chars, two guitars, one music stand. But my setup works for me and, it would seem, for my remote pupils.
I normally keep at hand a classical guitar, an Alhambra mid range that by now looks so battered, poor thing. And an Epiphone Les Paul running through a Marshall Valvestate amp.
Probably over the top. What you need for a guitar lesson really is two chars, two guitars, one music stand. But my setup works for me and, it would seem, for my remote pupils.
Got up at 9, made coffee and an arepa as usual for breakfast, which was that arepa with pancetta, coffee and orange juice. Practised a bit of guitar or, rather, read through bits of the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro by Bach -the Prelude is quite accessible, possibly to a grade 6 for 7. The Allegro is a little more involved and it has to be, of course, faster. The Fugue is enormously complex and I've been looking at several transcriptions of this and making decisions, as many things don't translate 100% from the lute to the guitar, given the much more extensive range of the former.
Now doing my first lesson of the day, online on Zoom. Boy that has just done a Grade 4, so we are doing a couple of Grade 5 pieces as well as a couple of Rockschool/Trinity Rock & Pop songs.
It's a lovely day outside. Friend coming to London to visit later, might look for somewhere with outside space for light lunch and catch-up.
Now doing my first lesson of the day, online on Zoom. Boy that has just done a Grade 4, so we are doing a couple of Grade 5 pieces as well as a couple of Rockschool/Trinity Rock & Pop songs.
It's a lovely day outside. Friend coming to London to visit later, might look for somewhere with outside space for light lunch and catch-up.
In my teaching room at the school in Watford, pupils not turning up... Outside is the rain.
Need more coffee but there isn't a source of it nearby. The staff common rooms have nescafé, that horrible stuff in a red tin -there are limits one must not cross 😆
Need more coffee but there isn't a source of it nearby. The staff common rooms have nescafé, that horrible stuff in a red tin -there are limits one must not cross 😆
Haven't been posting much as I've mostly been preoccupied with the coming quite major operation. They hammer into you everything that can go wrong so, inevitably, you fret and stress a lot about it.
Half-way through resolving the issue of what I'm going to do with my two schools during the down-time. One of them has accepted doing online lessons and they should be implementing a way to do that (a new person in charge of those things, this could be interesting) this coming week. At least there is some good chance I will be able to do some remote guitar teaching work while in recovery. Alas, thanks to Mrs T. (as with so much else), when you're an instrumental music teacher you essentially get paid by lesson given; if the lesson doesn't happen you don't get paid. So I need to get that moving forward.
Op is on the 15th. I can begin to seriously worry about that now....
NP: Me playing little piano grade 2 pieces
NR: 'The City We Became' by N K Jemisin
Half-way through resolving the issue of what I'm going to do with my two schools during the down-time. One of them has accepted doing online lessons and they should be implementing a way to do that (a new person in charge of those things, this could be interesting) this coming week. At least there is some good chance I will be able to do some remote guitar teaching work while in recovery. Alas, thanks to Mrs T. (as with so much else), when you're an instrumental music teacher you essentially get paid by lesson given; if the lesson doesn't happen you don't get paid. So I need to get that moving forward.
Op is on the 15th. I can begin to seriously worry about that now....
NP: Me playing little piano grade 2 pieces
NR: 'The City We Became' by N K Jemisin
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So life slowly goes back to normal, or some sort of normal.
Not for me just yet, though. Facing a major surgical operation in a month and a half so still keeping fairly low. Not going to clubs or socials, although I did go to the exhibition at Electrowerkz last night and have met with a friend or two for a pint in pubs with garden, outside.
I do have to go to those two schools to teach guitar, though, which is, at least in one of the two, a bit worrying. But again, we must play with the cards we're dealt with.
Not for me just yet, though. Facing a major surgical operation in a month and a half so still keeping fairly low. Not going to clubs or socials, although I did go to the exhibition at Electrowerkz last night and have met with a friend or two for a pint in pubs with garden, outside.
I do have to go to those two schools to teach guitar, though, which is, at least in one of the two, a bit worrying. But again, we must play with the cards we're dealt with.
So the heat wave came and went and the rain returned. Life as normal , then.
Shell keeps harassing me with phone calls, emails, paper mail. Even though the matter is supposed to be in the hands of the Citizens' Advice Bureau. It is so draining, so very stressful.
Lessons have diminished with the school holiday but still almost reasonably busy, a couple of new pupils that are going to make me work hard in preparing material as they are interested in aspects of the guitar playing thing that I've not delved into that much -and they are relatively advanced. This is a good thing.
Had two pupils sitting for grade exams, one was an 11 year old boy doing a classical guitar ABRSM Grade 3, he did very well with a 127 Merit. The other one, a young man in Plymouth who did a Grade 5 classical achieving a Merit with the highest marks I've seen in a very long time. This was satisfying. I do have more problematic pupils that need a different level of attention, though. I also have a little 10 year old pupil, she is about to do a Trinity Rock & Pop electric guitar grade 3 exam, I expect she should do well.
ION, problems with blood pressure, prostate and other things that remind me that time is passing and the second law of thermodynamics spares no-one. But overall well. Have sent the form for a state pension but I already have seen that for some reason that I can't think of there are many years in which NI contributions don't appear as paid so I'm not counting on that. Not that I would want to retire.
Shell keeps harassing me with phone calls, emails, paper mail. Even though the matter is supposed to be in the hands of the Citizens' Advice Bureau. It is so draining, so very stressful.
Lessons have diminished with the school holiday but still almost reasonably busy, a couple of new pupils that are going to make me work hard in preparing material as they are interested in aspects of the guitar playing thing that I've not delved into that much -and they are relatively advanced. This is a good thing.
Had two pupils sitting for grade exams, one was an 11 year old boy doing a classical guitar ABRSM Grade 3, he did very well with a 127 Merit. The other one, a young man in Plymouth who did a Grade 5 classical achieving a Merit with the highest marks I've seen in a very long time. This was satisfying. I do have more problematic pupils that need a different level of attention, though. I also have a little 10 year old pupil, she is about to do a Trinity Rock & Pop electric guitar grade 3 exam, I expect she should do well.
ION, problems with blood pressure, prostate and other things that remind me that time is passing and the second law of thermodynamics spares no-one. But overall well. Have sent the form for a state pension but I already have seen that for some reason that I can't think of there are many years in which NI contributions don't appear as paid so I'm not counting on that. Not that I would want to retire.
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If you take lessons with me and get a mail/SMS/Whatsapp message that says something like "Good morning , Hope all is ok at your end. Did you make the payment? Not showing here yet" that probably means two things. One is you are behind with your payments, I think you completely forgot and I'm worried. The other one is that I'm probably pennies away from my overdraft limit and I'm worried.
Little things about this making a living as a in independent music teacher.....
Little things about this making a living as a in independent music teacher.....
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Adding a guitar reference page to my little guitar lessons website. Not a lot in there as yet, and almost all of it classical guitar related but both things may change, time allowing (and time, alas, may indeed allow for the next couple of weeks)
Guitar Reference Links | Flavio Matani Guitar Lessons:
Guitar Reference Links | Flavio Matani Guitar Lessons:
Teaching at that school in Highbury today. Well, not a lot of teaching as all Years 7, 10, 11 etc have all been sent home to isolate. There's been quite a few cases in the school -including the music dept. Am I worried about this?
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.... of course I am, what do you think.
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.... of course I am, what do you think.
I had given Ko-Fi a try and opened an account there -Ko-Fi is a crowdfunding site, a bit like Patreon but people can make one-off contributions rather than subscriptions which seemed to me better suited to what I do. The metaphor they use is that of buying the artist a virtual cup of coffee, contributing a couple of quid at a time. Seemed like a good idea. It didn't work. In the beginning I had three people contributing and then nothing ever happened again even though I did try to spread the word.
I'd also joined Bark.com, a site that claims to unite people wanting a service and people providing it, at the suggestion of a pianist friend who had found that useful in getting piano pupils. After spending something like a hundred and fifty quid in the 'credits' that you have to buy before hand, I haven't got one single pupil from that source (although there is one who _might_ start lessons in the near future, so there is that too). So Bark didn't bite.
Still looking for alternatives...
I'd also joined Bark.com, a site that claims to unite people wanting a service and people providing it, at the suggestion of a pianist friend who had found that useful in getting piano pupils. After spending something like a hundred and fifty quid in the 'credits' that you have to buy before hand, I haven't got one single pupil from that source (although there is one who _might_ start lessons in the near future, so there is that too). So Bark didn't bite.
Still looking for alternatives...
This term I have two pupils doing their Grade 8. One, classical guitar on Trinity College exams. The other one is a theory of music pupil on ABRSM. This is of course immensely satisfying.
If only I could make a decent living out of this as well.....
If only I could make a decent living out of this as well.....
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You get some strange enquiries, when you advertise for music lessons. You get a lot of calls from people who think they can take private music lessons for the price of a coffee. Sometimes it's even of the 'of course, music lessons, wink wink' type, which I find incomprehensible but I suppose it's a big world out there with all sorts of weirdness. More commonly it is scams and spam. Yesterday's one looked ok at first: 'I'm looking for a guitar teacher for my family'. Ok, give me more details... 'Three females (gave me ages between 19 and 24) for a weekly lesson each for 24 weeks'. Ok, that's unusual. Keep going... 'This is a present for them, I would love to meet you but I'm in hospital about to be operated of lung cancer'. Hmmm... something's not quite right here... keep going... 'in your studio, the limo driver will bring them over to you'. Of course he will. Do you also have a few hundred million in a bank account that you need to dispose of?
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I do get big bouts of Impostor Syndrome. I'm never quite sure I know what I'm doing well enough and am painfully aware of where I fall short.
Until, that is, the moment inevitable when someone contacts me wanting me to play for them for free ('you'll get lots of exposure', they say; 'you can die of exposure', says I) or, as just happened, somebody from a tutors' agency (must be, by their wording) sends me a message with offer of teaching work with lots of conditions and paying me half what I normally charge. Go find somebody else -there' s plenty of those, alas.
Until, that is, the moment inevitable when someone contacts me wanting me to play for them for free ('you'll get lots of exposure', they say; 'you can die of exposure', says I) or, as just happened, somebody from a tutors' agency (must be, by their wording) sends me a message with offer of teaching work with lots of conditions and paying me half what I normally charge. Go find somebody else -there' s plenty of those, alas.
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Saturday morning. A good lie-in, although sleep was disturbed by waking up with a horrendous leg cramp that took forever to go away.
Now it's sunny, had breakfast at leisure and am half way through my first lesson with my pupil, preparing his guitar Grade 7, playing 'A Foggy Day' by Gershwin. Not a bad morning, overall. Good morning, world!
Now it's sunny, had breakfast at leisure and am half way through my first lesson with my pupil, preparing his guitar Grade 7, playing 'A Foggy Day' by Gershwin. Not a bad morning, overall. Good morning, world!
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How I hate getting up early.
On Tuesdays, it is 5:20 am. Not that early by the standards of many people I know who have to do this every day -but it is quite uphill for me. Always was and that hasn't changed as I get older. Not an early bird, this one here. Been teaching at this school for twenty years and it only seems to get more difficult.
One of the peculiar things that happen in relation to this is that I stress about sleeping too little or not hearing the alarm, etc. Which keeps me awake and results in too little sleep....
On Tuesdays, it is 5:20 am. Not that early by the standards of many people I know who have to do this every day -but it is quite uphill for me. Always was and that hasn't changed as I get older. Not an early bird, this one here. Been teaching at this school for twenty years and it only seems to get more difficult.
One of the peculiar things that happen in relation to this is that I stress about sleeping too little or not hearing the alarm, etc. Which keeps me awake and results in too little sleep....
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