Weather woes and being stood up...

Many teachers will be able to sympathize with the following scenario.

Say you have 4 hours of teaching to do between 3:30 and 7:30pm. Ok, a familiar enough schedule. Then from nowhere, old man winter drops a ton of snow on your city. Traffic is snarled schools close and most sane people are home sipping on hot chocolate. Then there is you. Sitting and waiting for your students who have not called to let you know if they are coming to their lessons. So you sit in your studio waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting... You make calls to remind them all and, of course, you get apologies and sympathy, but no students. Meanwhile you are sitting there bored. Moreover, you have your awful teaching guitar with 6 month old strings on it, and we all know practicing on that thing is not too much fun... How then do you cope...? Here are some simple ideas...

1. If you realize the weather is coming, call your students ahead of time. This will accomplish three things. First, it will let you know whether or not they are coming. Secondly, you may guilt them into showing up. Lastly, you may be able to have later students come earlier.

2. Change the strings on that old gimp-fiddle so you can at least produce a modicum of good tone. This will take some time and make practicing while waiting a little easier.

3. If you have a computer handy shoot some emails or add a new post on your blog. (This one I am actually doing right now.)

4. Persevere and just practice scales and slurs for a couple of hours, like you always tell yourself you need to do anyway.

5. Remember, unless you have awful studio policies you are getting paid to sit there... That's really not so bad when you think about it. Even better, if you manage to practice for a while you are actually being paid to practice. Now that is a pretty nice thought...

Michel Chatara-Morse