Distorted Glitter

 

Saturday, July 05, 2008
i wonder why i wanted to blog about this. maybe just to let people know how dark the path of becoming a piano teacher can be.

i have this g4 kid that was transferred to me in June. only 3 lessons with her and now she wants immediate transfer of teacher and termination of lessons from the school starting of Aug. amazing.

so when she first came, i saw that she's wearing a watch and thus told her, it's best to take it out while practising and playing the piano. but she insists on wearing them, saying that during exam she also wears it and there's no problem to that. fine. mere warning/advice from me.

then there's the fingernails problem. poor ivory keys were scratched and hit with the 'musical' sounds of her nails. so i told her to cut them off.

now i think i'm such an honest person that i told her it's my first time teaching a g4 kid. who knows what tragic consequences it gave me.

what else..oh yes. when i told her she should slur the notes instead of chopping them up, you know what she said? 'but the book never says that.' or 'last time my teacher never say that'. fine i let that go for the first 2 lessons, saying that the note value says you should slur them, or it's not really nice to hear music being chopped by your fingers. when i told her to change fingerings, she says she's very comfortable playing weird fingerings like crawling notes with only 5 and 4. obviously weird fingerings aren't that great unless it's to your advantage. but i can't really make a judgement on that since she dun practice at all and keeps playing the wrong notes.

next, totally can tell she has no interest in playing the exam pieces anymore. her head will tilt one side when she plays but that's ok. maybe it's her habit. but the sound, i can tell it has no emotion to it. also, she would always forget to bring her books. do you know the 1st lesson with her she totally had no books with her? she came to class late and empty handed and i have to go borrow the spare version from the school. 2nd lesson she brought her exam pieces but not her theory book. 3rd lesson, told her to bring scales and sight reading and she didn't. and she also said 'oh, i forgot to cut my fingernails'

anw. during one of the 1st 2 lessons, she told me that she might be quitting the school coz her mother doesn't like the management for chasing her to pay school fees. she asked me whether i teach private and i said i dun mind and gave her my number. both of us assured each other her mother definitely will not tell the management that she's gonna go private under me. so this private thing is really private and secret. well i haven't heard from her or her mother regarding the private teaching.

now 3rd lesson is very crucial. coz i think i was strict with her. i kinda forced her to take off her watch coz i've repeated saying so for the past 2 lessons. then when i said that now we shall change the playing style for j ames h ook a ir piece into baroque detached quaver style, same response from her before i could explain the change, 'but last time my teacher never say that.'

so i told her, 'would you want to follow your previous teacher or you want to follow this style'
her: '......dunno.'
me: 'ok the reason is that j ames h ook is from around the baroque period and this is a kind of style played during that time. so your previous teacher or this style?'
her: '...ok lor, this one'

after hearing so many wrong notes, i asked her, how long did you practice?
she: i dunno
me: there's no dunno one. this week? how long did you practice? 5 min?
she: no lar. 15 to 30 min. today got prac, yesterday got prac.
me: then the rest leh?
she: cannot remember
me: so only 2 days lah? so do you think you can play well with only 2 days of practice?

oh and i was taking down notes for her in HER NOTEBOOK of what to take note by asking her to tell me what to write. and after saying one thing, she would turn the page to play the 2nd piece. i was like, 'wait! i haven't finish. turn back' 0_0

arh. when i finished teaching her and my next student for the day, my boss told me, 'eh your student has informed me that she's terminating her lessons. do you know what happened?' i was surprised coz she didn't mention it during class. but i told my boss that she dun practice much.
boss: she only wants to play church music is it?
me: arh yes i played one song with her. but i focused on her exam pieces too. but she's like not very interested in the exam pieces.
well the least this kid could do is to at least tell me u informed the management about quitting. one thing for good is that the fact i got surprised probably didn't leak out that i knew that she was about to quit. (since i think my acting skills is bad)


oh ya. i was asking her to write out the scales of harmonic and melodic in the theory book. write both ascending and descending, then she said: but the instructions never say anything about that.' WA COMMON SENSE PLEASE. they gave a damn long stave for you to write in the descending portion, of course you have to write them out right? then wad is the space for!?

and TODAY. while i was teaching my new beginner kid, my boss suddenly barge into the class and tell me, 'your g4 kid wants an immediate transfer for the rest of the month. she's quitting but she doesn't want you to teach the last 3 lessons anymore. the reason her mother gave is that her mother and her are not happy of you forcing her to take off her watch. there's no such thing that you can't wear your watch when you play the piano.'
me: but i think it's inappropriate to wear a watch. and my teacher said the same thing to me.
she: that's your preference, but of course if you wear something that obstruct your playing, you can't wear it, but there's no such thing of cannot wear watch when playing. i wear my watch when i play too. so that's your preference. and you cannot insist student of not wearing watch.
me: ok, i'm sorry. it's my preference about watches.
she: also, another reason she gave is that you told the student that you never teach g4 before, so her mother dun want inexperience teachers. i've already told you, you shouldn't tell that to your students. (i really can't rmb whether she told me that before, but still i'm stupid to say it out loud).
me: ok, i'm very sorry about this.
she: well learn from this now.

WA. i feel backstabbed. BULLSHIT. you know why? coz i think this little brat went to complain to her mother about me being fierce and strict on her and she's not happy about it. so her mother has to come up with some reasons to transfer. ok maybe that's the real reasons. but i'm attacked by my own words man. and i'm really disappointed and bu gan xing about it. i'm totally gonna shut my damn mouth next time.

told my mum about it. her comments were that my boss could have supported me on the watch reason (HA YA RIGHT. my boss is equally bad i tell you. but that's another story) and that this is call marketing yourself. don't ever carve out a path that your words can kill you and eat you up at the same time.

haha i kept thinking about this and i have more thoughts about it. i think too much lah. so for a split second, i was wondering if she would find me after she quit the school. well since she got my number and i wonder where she's gonna find piano teachers. and well doubt so. but if she were to, WA, i'm gonna say NO right in her bloody face and tell her, 'i don't think my teaching suits you' (actually i have a meaner phrase but i forgot.) WHATEVER THE CASE IS, at least i dun have to suffer under her during private teaching if that were to happened. besides my earnings dropping down by a lot, i'm still damn glad that she's outta my way. i really dun like her attitude. i feel that kids now haven't really seen the world, not that i've seen the world yet, but they are just naive and plain annoying and irritating about their attitude. ha my mum says maybe after she's been with many other piano teachers, she might see my style of teaching. well i dun count on that (:


bashed +++ 11:11 PM