most people who call me for lessons go for the buy five at once deal, because there is a discount. new student, hard to figure out whether i am of any use to them. many references about musicians they love who i never heard of. i’m often responding, “no i don’t, no i never heard of them”. this must be disappointing for them, studying with someone who doesn’t know all the people they admire. they also have positions around melody and harmony that aren’t my way of speaking about music. reminding me of people i knew at music school. we didn’t speak the same language, back then i felt the pressure to prove i fit. to be able to join conversations about whether that was lydian or mixolidian, if it was a complex meter in 13 or 11. during the last meeting, i suggested maybe this is not working and i should return their money, no big deal …and that changed everything. things morphed quickly towards what i like to show people and things they want to know but can’t execute yet. this made way more sense about me being called a piano teacher and them a piano student. pretty sure the problem now was more or less solved and all because i was ready to say i don’t think i’m the person who can help you. there is no way at music school i could ever have said i don’t know if it’s mixolidian and i don’t fucking care. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"