Yay Students!

Today I wanted to try a meditation practice with the kids.

"OK scholars, today we are going to start class with one minute of listening.  This is what musicians have to do really well, so we are going to practice this.  So for one minute we are going to be silent and just listen to the sounds around us.  Can you hear the highway noise, people talking down the hall?  See how much you can hear."

"So is this a game????"

"Um, sure, yeah, it's a game.  Definitely a game."

If every endeavor could just be viewed as a game.  Playing all these things that we do in life, things that are stressful or difficult.  It's just a game.  And they seemed to like this game.

There are so many intriguing challenges in teaching.  It's part puzzle, part intuitive guidance.  And what a pleasure to meet all these people.  Today after class, one of my student's mothers was a little late, unusual for her, and she said that she had family visiting from her country.  "Ah and where is that?"  "Senegal."  "And how often do they come?"  "Oh my brother comes for 10 days (?), but my mother, this is her first time.  I told her last night, 'You should go to bed,' and she just looked at me and said, 'No, no I can't, I'm just so happy to see you.'"  What an incredible reunion and wonderful to share in her joy of it.

And now I'm building a studio of adults which is really exciting.  A woman from India, a classically trained Indian vocalist, who works as a graphic artist.  Another who is a traveling nurse but studied cello for 4 years and after a year off is taking advantage of being in New York long enough to start lessons again.  Another who is a photographer and enjoys helping hoarders  de-clutter.  A woman from China, an architect who has lived here for 2 years, who caused me to bow to her humility as she entered my apartment and immediately took off her shoes, bowing as she did so.  And tonight a New York lawyer, who's family moved here from Russia in 1905 (so, a real New Yorker!), who had direct questions for everything we did, and is learning to play the cello at 71 for better aging.  It's a great group of people.  I'm so excited to be working with them.

And the same for my young ones in Harlem.  I look at them and see them growing.  Such wonderful people.

It is challenging to think of what a person needs, whether it's enforcing discipline or encouraging freedom, whether it is a specific technical challenge or a mental block.  There are so many ways to see and interact with another person.  So many resources to offer them and directions that can be taken.  And in the midst of it, despite these challenges and maybe because of them, I can feel my voice for teaching starting to grow again.