A line I heard that passed from one boy to another as they walked down the corridor outside The Shame of the Black Hole of Calcutta:
"Stop talking with your mouth open. You are doing my head in."
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| Author: | SteveHopwood [ Fri Jan 29, 2016 12:12 am ] |
| Post subject: | Thingies that happen to Steve in his other job |
A line I heard that passed from one boy to another as they walked down the corridor outside The Shame of the Black Hole of Calcutta: "Stop talking with your mouth open. You are doing my head in." |
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| Author: | SteveHopwood [ Sat Feb 20, 2016 10:24 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Thingies that happen to Steve in his other job |
A 6th former (16-18 years old) approached me on Friday and asked, "Please can I borrow a sheet of paper?" "Of course you can sweetheart. When will you bring it back?" Blank look of incomprehension. "Eh?" "Poppet, when you borrow something, you have to return it." Young lady thought for a few seconds, then her face cleared and she giggled. "You know what I mean." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I offered to stay behind on Thursday nights to help with the after-school vocal club. First into the room were one of the cutest pair of young teens I have seen in a long time. I do not know their names, so I will call them Him and Her. I guess they are about 13. Song folders are stored in a box at the front of the room, and Him found his first and retired to a seat. "Are you going to come and sit with me?" inquired Him. "Don't be stupid. You smell." responded Her. "Not as much as you" came the unimaginative response. "At least I change my clothes every day." "Really?" responded Her. "Impossible to tell" and went to sit next to him, holding her nose. Come the end of the session, Him and Her were the last to leave, so I asked Him, "Are you walking home with Her?" "Yes" he replied. "She would not make it across the road on her own." Came the response from Her, "I have to walk home with Him. He would get lost if he did not have me to lead him by the hand." |
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| Author: | SteveHopwood [ Wed Mar 16, 2016 11:41 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Thingies that happen to Steve in his other job |
Western music notation is based on the letters of the alphabet. Most instruments can play more notes than there are letters in the alphabet, so we use A to G. After G, we start again on A. C is an easily recognisable note on the piano, so counting up from C is a quick way for beginners to find another note. 14 year old Tamia had to find G today. She kept landing on F. "Say your thought process out loud to me sweetheart, so I can hear what is going wrong." I heard, "C,E,F,G". "I see the problem Tamia" I offered. "Think about what you just said to me." Look of blank incomprehension. Seconds of thought. Dawning of understanding and clearing of facial expression. Then panic. "Pleeeeease don't tell my English teacher."  Not a chance. Best that he/she does not get to know. |
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| Author: | SteveHopwood [ Tue Mar 29, 2016 4:11 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Thingies that happen to Steve in his other job |
The older sister of one of the stars of the Little Ussian Man episodes a few months ago, is an actor. She plays the piano a bit and the sax well, and understands a lot of music theory from her school days. She has an audition on Friday for a play about a the workers in a WW1 munitions factory. The audition includes singing a verse and chorus of, "Pack Up Your Troubles in an Old Kit Bag" whilst accompanying herself on the piano. She contacted me a couple of weeks ago asking me to help her with the piano part. It need not be played as written, which is a damn good job because it would have cut the number of people able to audition to not very many. I wrote down the chord structure for her and showed her how to play the chords whilst singing the melody. This young lady is in her early 20's, trained in and based in London, and is succeeding in her profession, so she understands a bit of the ways of the world, at least. She called me over again today to check that all was well in what she had prepared. Mostly it was - a couple of wrong intervals in her singing and we worked on characterisation a little, in terms of where to sing louder and softer. There is a line in the verse that includes the term, "artful dodger". Lizzies was pronouncing, "artful dogger". There is a similar word ending with 'ogger earlier on, so it was a case of concentrating on doing two things at once was causing her not to concentrate quite as much on the words as she might have done. I pointed to the phrase and asked, "Darling, do you really think you should be singing about dogging in an audition for a professional acting part?" Young people are always wonderful in these situations. The response always has three parts: A look of puzzlement for a few seconds. Face clears and puzzlement is replaced by understanding. A giggle, then, "Oops". |
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| Author: | SteveHopwood [ Sun Apr 03, 2016 8:23 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Thingies that happen to Steve in his other job |
It is Spring here in the northern hemisphere. All sorts of wildlife are getting together for the usual thingy. Birds are wonderful to watch. Every vocalisation they make to their potential mate is accompanied by a bob of the head. I came out of a pupil's house this evening and was accosted by a Dove sitting on a fence about two feet away from me. "Coooo, coooo, coooo" went the bird, each "Coooo" being accompanied by a head bob. This went on for a couple of minutes whilst I talked quiet nonsense to the bird. It flew off eventually. I was just propositioned by a Dove. |
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| Author: | SteveHopwood [ Tue Apr 12, 2016 7:48 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Thingies that happen to Steve in his other job |
14 year old Tamsin and Katy are 'best friends'. Tamsin has been having lessons with me for a few weeks and knows that the only softer man she will ever meet is her dad. Katy started with me today. I found out these two are best friends when Tamsin escorted Katy to me. "She is a bit of a dope, so I needed to bring her to you" announced T. "I just let her carry on thinking that, so her mum keeps on paying me to be her friend" replied K. Gorgeous these two, I tell you. If it is possible to die of a dose of cute, then I seriously need to check out my will. Katy ended her lesson and made way for Tamsin. We discovered an extra bag in the room, and on checking we confirmed it belonged to Katy. My wind-up a teenager senses went into instant overdrive. "You want to wind her up sweetheart? Katy knows where she left her bag and so will come to pick it up when the bell goes. What say we hide it and pretend we have no knowledge of it?" The Shame of the Black Hole of Calcutta does not have a lot of hiding spaces, but a bag will just about fit in the space between the wall and the end of the piano and can be masked by one of the inmates. The bell went and a panic stricken Katy arrived to pick up her bag. Tamsin and I affected puzzlement and suggested she had actually left it back in the classroom, so off she went. Tamsin lifted both hers and Katy's bag and announced, "I will put her out of her misery." Then she grinned and entoned, "I might take some time though." I look forward to many entertaining incidents with these two. I will never stop saying this: if more people spent more time enjoying happy teens, the world would be a better place. |
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| Author: | SteveHopwood [ Thu Apr 14, 2016 9:38 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Thingies that happen to Steve in his other job |
As a general rule, I do not comment on my perception of whether a child has practised in between lessons. If I ask them how much work they have done, they will lie. If I roast them for not working and they have in fact done a lot but got nowhere (and this is easily possible when playing an instrument) they will be devastated. If I laud them to the heavens for working so magnificently hard and they have not actually touched the piece for a week, I look a tit. Leah was clueless today. She did manage to play through the 3 line piece that we spent 40 minutes on last week, but it took some time and it was clear that she was reading it frantically. It was pretty impressive reading for a kid at her stage. What started to say to her was, "You have clearly not touched this since last week, so your reading was pretty impressive. Well done." I would then have reminded her that practise in between lessons is the only way to make progress. I got as far as the comma in what I was going to say when Leah interrupted with, "I forgot to practise." I fixed Leah with a gimlet glare and asked, "Bearing in mind that one of the very few thingies that rouse me to uncontrollable fury is being treated like an idiot by a 12 year old, would you care to reconsider that last statement?" There was a gulp. A few seconds frantic silence. I can imagine what was going through this poor child's head. "Sorry." I let her off with that and moved on. A 12 year old child not practising a piano piece does not come high on my list of crimes against humanity. |
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| Author: | SteveHopwood [ Thu Apr 14, 2016 10:54 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Thingies that happen to Steve in his other job |
12 year old Maddy was late for her lesson yesterday. I had in my briefcase an early Beethoven piano sonata that I shall perform in a recital during the summer. I did not know whether Maddy was going to turn up, so I started playing it just to see how much work I need to do to bring the work up to scratch - not a lot as it is one I performed many times in a past life. I leave the door to the Shame of the Black Hole of Calcutta open as much as possible. Leaving aside the fact that it is unbearable to inhabit otherwise, I see no harm in letting the rest of the school know that their piano teacher is the nearest they will ever come to employing a virtuoso. Remember Daisy and her plaintive, "How?" from a few posts ago, after I had played her something? I sensed a presence hovering in the doorway and turned to see a wide-eyed Maddy gawping in amazement. "How?" she asked equally plaintively. I didn't give her the full version either. Best not to hit kids with something they cannot possibly comprehend. Instead, "Lots of practise sweetheart. Come on in and play to me." |
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| Author: | SteveHopwood [ Wed Apr 20, 2016 10:24 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Thingies that happen to Steve in his other job |
I am part of a group of like-minded peripatetic teachers who help each other out as much as possible - they are the reason I now teach the piano in two schools. One of our favourite gripes is the way kids park their brains in the corridor before entering the teaching room. Boy oh boy, and with the best will in the world, but they can be hard work.  Ben is 12. He is soooooo cute. He has a wonderful sense of humour and is actually quite clever. He was giving a passable imitation of Mr No Brain on Monday. "Ehup Ben" I remarked. "You are taking gormless idiocy to a new level of expertise this afternoon." I knew I could rely on him to question that last statement. A few seconds thought then, "What does 'gormless' mean?" I replied, "You know how you can often work out the meaning of a word from its context?" Enthusiastic nod. "The context here is, 'gormless' and 'idiocy'. You understand 'idiocy'?" Nod of affirmation. "Work it out." Usual three stage thingy: Initial puzzlement. Face clears as enlightenment dawns. "Sorry." ("Oops" is another common one. There are others, but they can wait.) |
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| Author: | SteveHopwood [ Wed Apr 20, 2016 10:36 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Thingies that happen to Steve in his other job |
I am not sure if I have described before here the problem of The Moving Piano, so I will describe it now. We pianists do not play wrong notes. Ok, so we do but it is not our fault. People mistakenly think that a piano is an inanimate object. It is not. It is a live entity with a malicious sense of humour - Forex is a great buddy of the piano. Bits of it move subtly and unnoticeably. The note we are aiming for is suddenly and ever so slightly, in a different position and so we strike a different one to that which we were aiming for. Definitely not our fault. Most kids buy into this with rampant enthusiasm. I propounded this to 13 year old Alice this afternoon. Alice is a matter-of-fact sort of girl. She clearly disbelieved it. Foolish child. My next lesson was with Holly, a friend of Alice. I described to her Alice's disbelief of the idea that Holly adopted with colossal joy quite some time ago. Holly's comment? "She needs help, does that girl." |
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