I have been playing the drums since I was 16 years old. Just about 40 years ago. I’ve been teaching since my days in Paris in 1989. I started in Chicago in 91. I remember, at the time, in order to get a bit of advertisement going you had to put an ad in the Music section of The Reader and/or The Illinois Entertainer. Anyone remembers those days? Yes, it was before the dinosaurs, I know. I made a home in Chicago that way, had enough student to feed my family and I for 3 and half decades. Love this city.
Ok, Sol, where are you going with this? Huh? You want to go down memory lane and explore old dusty pictures that nobody cares for? Is that it? Come on! This blog is called “Fear”, so tell us why this title, please, instead of beating around the bush.
All right! No need to be so pushy, I’ll spill the beans. The fear, you ask, the fear is this one: that people stop calling, that I lose all my student and that I run my business to the ground. So there!
For the ones who think I am inventing some kind of fright, I’ll counter with this: I don’t do drugs, don’t drink, try to stay in good shape and watch my mood so that I can keep doing my job as a drum and piano teacher correctly. I am a one man army here, if I fail, the whole thing comes crashing down, no two ways about it. I need to keep up with my load of pupils.
My fear is that, after video lessons, Ai and God knows what else, people find a way to learn an instrument that doesn’t involve me. That’s my fear. And there is always a moment in the year when the calls slow down that triggers that fear and exacerbate it. We’re in one of those moment.
Luckily, I have a lot of people in my schedule. And my students are not quitting. We’re doing good, thank you very much. We’re learning, we’re having fun. Yes, as I am writing these lines, my fear recedes, slows down, goes to a simmer… but never dies. That keeps me on my toes.
