June 3, 2011

It was a beautiful day in New York City today.  What's more, I made my first splash into the professional piano scene--and for once did something that contributes to my bank account!

I substitute taught a number of lessons to some of my friend Pokie's students at a music center in Queens.  They were all very talented kids who brought prepared pieces for their upcoming NYSSMA festival--ironically, a festival I'll be judging next week.  I'd like to publicly announce on this blog that David Worth's piano pedagogy class is, in fact, useful!  While my previous students in Moorhead were all at a beginners level, these students presented me with a more complicated teaching opportunity.  Although I lacked a cup of coffee--perhaps my 20th of the day--and the thoughtful demeanor of the aforementioned Worth, I found myself regurgitating a number of the "tips and tricks" he passed on to us.  There were times were we focused on "down-ups," "up-touches," weak phrase endings, etc.  This afternoon turned out to be a post-Baccalaureate final in Worthian piano pedagogy.  In the end, it was a very fun musical and teaching experience for me.

Piano lessons, being one-on-one, are most effective when a relationship between the student and teacher exist; despite my inherent handicap with this--being a substitute teacher--I felt that these students enjoyed my enthusiastic behavior, and, most of all, the moments where my ridiculous singing or dancing gave them an opportunity to look and laugh at me.  I sensed a comfortable, albeit restrained, connection with an especially shy young girl playing Schumann's Sicilienne when, explaining to her that the sicilienne was a classical dance, she began to sway back and forth with her music, creating a new and buoyant sound.  An interesting aspect of my teaching today was a lack, or avoidance, of eye contact from all of these students.  It was probably the result of the somewhat uncomfortable relationship that every substitute teacher presents as well as the cultural student/teacher expectations that each of these Asian students were most likely brought up in.

...........

I felt my first pangs of loneliness today--don't be alarmed though!  Of course at the most inopportune moment, my phone began to experience technological infarctions the moment I got off the train in Queens as I attempted to open an email with the address of the teaching school.  Thankfully, my memory rivals my dependence on technology and I found my way easily to where I "remembered" I was going.  After a series of resets, followed by another cellular atrophy (ha, get it?), it appeared to make a full recovery until: "battery insufficient for start-up."  Oh well, I can go without a phone.  On my return trip to uptown Manhattan, I found myself--after a number of lucky express-to-local transfers--caught on the 125th St. station being held because a stalled train ahead.  What now?  How about a beer!  The god Bacchus himself must have stopped my train at the block of my favorite bar and hangout place, Toast.  Being among the other few table-for-one people at the bar, the lack of a conversation buddy finally hit me with some force.  With only one beer in me, I didn't have quite enough liquid courage for this mid-Westerner to strike up a conversation with a random New Yorker, so I left and made my way back to the train station where the familiar rumble of steel and concrete meant the train was running again.  In the end, the combination of a lack of physical or technological companionship gave me a fleeting feeling of loneliness.  I lived through it without any damage, no worries--a situation only possible for my generation I suppose.

...........

Finally, I want to write about a New York City gem that is entirely overlooked or completely inconceivable by anyone who hasn't experienced this firsthand.  In my own rendition of the amusing Budweiser--I think--radio commercials: here's to you pointless-subway-station-elevator-button-pusher.  At the 168th St. station, a couple blocks from my apartment, sits an incredibly bored MTA worker whose job requires them to sit, barricaded from the public by a plastic makeshift cubicle replete with a fan and small stereo, and press the only possible button the dirty, stuffy elevator will respond to.  The choices are essentially "this floor" or "that floor."  With great amusement, I always hope to board this particular elevator--because of the four elevators that commuters have to take to get to the train, only one is staffed--and watch as this person performs a task for me that any person tall enough to reach the button is capable of doing.  So, if you're ever in need of a subject to give a toast to, let me propose you make a toast to the pointless-subway-station-elevator-button-pusher!