On Surviving September

Ahhhhhh! Where did September go? The students and I are back into the swing of things. The days are long. I typically begin teaching at 3:30 and go till 9 pm. I do have a few day students on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. I've even managed to stay on top of reshelving the books used each day and getting some regular practicing in. My former teacher would be pleased that I've pulled out some senior repertoire to muck around with (mixed in with some jazz, improvising and JPop of course). With more intermediate and senior students this year, I need to stay on top of things.

Now if only I could get in the swing of things with my paperwork. I'm behind on my bookkeeping (surprise, surprise) and other admin related work.

I am so excited to have such a great bunch of students this year. Actually, I should say "families" since being able to have a good relationship with the family is fundamental to making the year go well. For the most part, the students are doing well with their practice journals, although a few haven't been keeping track as well as I'd like (or practicing as much as their parents and I would like them to). Overall though, the practice journals seem to be working. The kids are using the forms to ask insightful questions, share what they enjoyed most out of their homework and alert me to what they need help with.

Even Maestro is maturing into his role as "canine teaching assistant". He rests quietly in his "room" (his kennel) most of the time and hasn't tried to steal any stickers. Prizes though, are another story. He bonked his head on the prize drawer a couple of times while trying to steal a peek.

A few students have simply blown me away with their compositions. A few were inspired by a tune they heard, while others have come up with something unlike anything I've heard before.

Students, parents and fellow teachers, feel free to share your feelings on your year so far. As for me, I better go practice...

(c) 2006 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Musings at Musespeak's 100th post

Happy first birthday to Musings. I can't believe that I've made 100 posts since setting up this blog. Maestro is all set for the students. He's upstairs waiting to see if anyone is going to show up today. However, I'm not quite ready for them. I still have to go shopping for some new music (The Music Tree and My First Piano Adventure to name a few), prizes and supplies. I'm really excited about trying these two books. I've heard wonderful things about The Music Tree series and I think most teachers have been eagerly anticipating Faber & Faber's release of My First Piano Adventure for over a year. The CD accompaniment is very catchy.

Some students have been moving around to different time slots. I have to finish sorting that out. Then, I really need to book a church for the recitals, clean up my office again and my computer. That's not so bad.

As you can tell, it wasn't a complete week off - but I knew that going in. I've been good though - work a bit, play a bit, sleep a lot. It's all good.

(c) 2006 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Dancing to a Different Beat

Well, I'm nearly done my one week temping assignment. I will start the next one (same place, different department) tomorrow afternoon.

I have a love/hate relationship with temping. I miss my schedule of waking up later and staying up later. I miss Maestro "assisting" me with paperwork and forcing me to take a break. However, temping reminds me of my early career days, from the challenge of seeing how quickly you can "catch the beat" of a business to doing little things that I find basic, like scheduling meetings while using unfamiliar software, which people find impressive. I only had a two-hour training session but my early admin assistant experiences made it easy to slip back into "let's see if I can stay one step ahead of the boss" mode.

I used to come home from work, eat and practice. I've gone back to that routine. I feel...younger (must be the decreased responsibilities). Even though I'm working, I'm on a near-vacation from my business. I have just three more lesson days left for the month before I can call it a vacation. Believe me, I'm looking forward to it.

(c) 2006 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Four Weddings, Two Filing Cabinets and One QuickBooks

July is nearly halfway over already? Where has this month gone? The office temp work isn't going so well. So far, I've only had one one-day assignment. I did register with a second temping agency (Mark Staffing), which sounded extremely promising and cast my resume off to a few community businesses. Someone has got to bite.

Oh I typed that in too soon. I just got a couple of phone calls - one from another temping agency that wants to see me and another from temp agency number one with a one week assignment next week. Things are starting to pick up.

In the meantime, Maestro and I have been keeping busy. We're having a lot of fun with our summer students, who are enjoying improvising, exploring popular and world music, and composing. I have completely caught up on the bookkeeping, including the adjusting entries for depreciation. Perhaps the biggest project that I finished was the filing cabinet merge/purge/clean-up.

I've got four wedding gigs slated for the summer so far, with two on the same day. Last night's rehearsal went all right. Unfortunately, the church doesn't have a piano, so the couple had to rent me a digital piano. Thankfully, I've got over a week to play with the sound settings.

This one is a unique gig because the bride is a friend and former co-worker. In the span of two hours, I wore four hats last night - hired musician, friend, kitchen helper and anime otaku. I'm looking forward to the wedding, which will be in English and Spanish. Of course, that's not the only reason why I'm looking forward to it. I'm always glad to see a friend marry a good guy.

Well, it's back to the grind. I promised Maestro an adventure as soon as I complete this afternoon's tasks.

(c) 2006 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

So you want to be a consultant...

There are all sorts of consultants in the world - from accountants to lawyers and from corporate writers to artists. Yes, even music teachers and freelance musicians can fit into this category.

This month, my marketing friend Andrea set up a new consulting blog - Consultant Journal. I peeked at some of the articles, which are pretty useful. There's an article on Work from Home Scams and one on what steps to take when you begin consulting. I liked the article on gadgets consultants can't live without.

Check it out when you have a chance.

(c) 2006 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.