Piano Lesson Moments

1st Moment: Yesterday I was teaching a Beethoven tune to one of my piano students. Even though the lesson books I use have mostly original music (written by the publishers for pedagogical purposes) occasionally they will stick in classical themes that have been arranged to a level more appropriate for younger piano students. So to show which pieces weren't written by the publishers they will put the original composer's name under the title, along with the composer's birth and death years, country or nationality, and the word "arranged."

So last night I was working on this piece with my youngest student (who also, by the way, is my hardest working student) and when he found out that Beethoven wrote this song he got really excited (which is true of nearly all my students... they all love Beethoven). And when he saw the dates underneath he asked "oh is that Beethoven's phone number?" and then I told him "no, those are the years he was alive." And then my student said "oh I was gonna call him." And then a minute later he was like "oh wait, phones weren't invented when Beethoven was alive, so I couldn't call him anyway."

Haha... kids.

2nd Moment: This also occured yesterday. It's not a funny story, just an observation.

The girl I teach immediately after my Beethoven student has done very well in the short 2 years she's been with me. So yesterday we were working on a couple minuets (we called it Minuet week), and one of them is Bach's Minuet in G, which is probably the most commonly known minuet, though I'm sure most people would know it as a cell phone ringer (I'm sure Bach loves that). But as I was helping her through the piece, I remembered what it was like when I was learning the song.... a long time ago. I think I learned it about 2 or 3 months into my lessons, and I think it probably took my about 4 or 5 months to learn in total. This girl will probably learn it in less than 3 weeks. Now granted she has a much better foundation than I had before it was introduced to me, but still. That either shows that I am a good teacher, or that I was a poor student. But I prefer to think that she is just a natural pianist.

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