band directors

9-13-99

Spent the morning on the phone, tracking down band directors at area schools. It seems like they don't know what I'm talking about when I say I'd like to teach privately at their schools. Most of them take my name and put me on the list of teachers, in case students ask to take private lessons. How many students will go out of their way for more work?

What I want to do is drive to the school, set up in a classroom once a week and have the kids come to me. A lot more kids respond if the responsibility is taken off of their shoulders. If a teacher is provided for them, instead of having to ask. If they can just show up after school, instead of driving to a teacher's house. If the band director is breathing down their necks to show up.

But the band directors don't have the time to get involved in one more thing. They don't want to be a mediator between me and the kids, and they probably shouldn't have to be. They don't get paid to do that. Maybe it does help their programs in the long run, but it's just one extra pain in the ass. That, and they don't even know what I'm talking about down here. It's an extra pain in the ass just to have to sit and listen to me explain what I want to do.

I called six or seven schools, and a couple of music stores where they sell band instruments. I also called the Bibb County Schools' music coordination office. That was about when I gave up for the day. I only called because there was a huge list of Macon area schools in the phone book and I couldn't figure out which ones were elementary, which were magnets, which of the magnets were for arts.... This clueless woman told me that they don't handle private instructors for music students. Yes, there are magnet schools for music, but the teachers at those schools give the music lessons after school. She suggested that I put an ad in the "Penny Pincher" and see if students respond.

What? Okay, for one thing, I can't imagine how a public school teacher has the knowledge or the time to give all the students advanced instruction on their specific instruments. There's no way.

The Penny Pincher, huh? Sounds like the Lansing Shopping Guide. I remember that little publication well—thirty pages of "Wedding Dress—Never Worn" and "'92 Escort Runs Good" ads. The page for music lessons also includes "massage" therapy and stump removal. There's always some loser advertising organ lessons on that page. The "organ" in question is probably not a musical instrument.

I was, to put it frankly, insulted. I had to stop calling schools because I was on the edge of my last nerve. Somehow I knew it would be a bad idea to snip at the band directors if I wanted them to consider recommending me to their kids. I spent the afternoon crashed on the couch with a Nintendo paddle in my hands, waiting for the phone to ring.

And it did! Some random band director in Warner Robins called me, and she wasn't even one of the ones I called this morning. No kidding. I couldn't figure out what she wanted. She didn't want me to teach, didn't have any kids interested in lessons, didn't even get my name right. She said, "Is this Mrs. Ca...Cap...Cappy—uhh...piu...ooo...."

I rescued her gently: "Yes...?"

"I don't know your first name...."

(me, thinking) "You don't know my last name, either." (speaking) "I'm Betsy."

I think she just wanted to find out what instruments "Joe" and I taught, in case she ever had a kid who wanted to take lessons. By the end of the conversation she'd wrangled me into a sectional for her brass students, so I could get to know the kids. I hate that. It's not so much that I hate doing it, but I remember being in school and thinking people like me were big dorks. I'd rather play for them, let them develop a sense of awe. (ha ha.) Let them feel privileged to study with someone so good. Keep in mind that anyone who's played more than three years is amazing to these kids.

Nobody else called me. Well, Professor Sinder returned a call I'd made a week or so ago. I made up a stupid excuse to call him, out of homesickness, mostly. John was totally right when he told me that I'd want to go back to school before the school year was two weeks over.

Well, now that the teaching thing looks bad, I might get a job in (shudder) retail. First option is music retail, selling sheet music or band instruments. Something has to come through sometime.