Answering Machine

Megan was playing a piece called “Answering Machine.” “Do you know what an answering machine is?” I asked her.

“Well, I think I have a good idea,” she responded. “It’s like a machine where you ask a question, and it gives you the answer.”

Hmmm, I thought, that would be the Internet. “Not quite,” I told her. “Do you know what voice mail is?”

“Yes!” she was quick on this one. “It’s where there is a beep, and you leave a message.”

“Yep,” I said, “So an answering machine is like voice mail but it’s an actual machine that sits on your desk at home and connects to your phone. Wait!” I suddenly realized we might have another knowledge gap. “Do you know what a land line is?”

“Kinda. Like my grandpa has one on his wall.” She starts to demonstrate an old-fashioned phone with a crank handle. Somehow we have jumped back decades in phone technology here.

“Sort of,” I responded, thinking it was time to get back to actual piano playing. “So an answering machine is voice mail that connects to a phone that lives at your home. Make sense?”

She looked at me. “Wow. I thought this would be a lot more interesting.”

So did I, honestly.

But recently somebody asked me an interesting question. “How has your teaching changed since the pandemic? Do you teach differently in person after the deter into online lessons?”

The answer is yes.

The truth is that while I will never love online lessons, and think that they should generally be avoided except in extreme circumstances, or as an occasional save for a sick kid, online lessons made me a better teacher.

There. I said it. Online lessons made me a better teacher. Quite simply, I work deeper and slower these days. And that’s good for all of us.

For a teacher who took pride in maintaining a fast, efficient pace during lessons, Zoom was handicapping. Zoom skipped and lurched and stopped. It did not tolerate interruptions or talking while students were playing. Zoom wasn’t energetic or fun. Zoom was a stern disciplinarian, quick to put me in time out when I misbehaved. I could not burst in with my humorous comments. I couldn’t jump up and out of my chair and point to the offending place in the music. I couldn’t play duets with students to help control tempo or style. We couldn’t sit on the floor and tap rhythms while singing new rote songs. We couldn’t sing together at all. All my studio toys like magnetic boards and note flashcards and colorful felted balls for passing beats during Dalcroze activities got dusty during the months of the pandemic. Zoom was my worst enemy.

And my best teacher. Because Zoom forced me to slow down and formulate really clear instructions (Page two. Third line. Fourth measure. Right hand second beat, what is that note?). Zoom made me wait before jumping in with my brilliant directions or half what I said would get lost in the dark underworld of the internet connection (Stop Miss Amy! I can’t understand you.). Zoom taught me to go deep with less material instead of skimming superficially across multiple ideas, to work with what I had instead of relying on my many extraneous tools and toys, and to ask questions based on what was in front of us instead of drawing on outside examples. How many measures in the first line? I  ask a Little One who is still trying to define musical concepts like “line” and “measures.” What is the first note of the last measure? How many half-notes in this piece? How many beats does a half-note get? Spell me a B Major Five-Finger Position. D-flat is the same as?

What are the three sharps in the key signature? I ask an early intermediate pianist who is just learning to decipher key signatures. Who is the composer? Spell a IV chord in D major. Spell an E-flat Major Scale. What is the form of this sonatina? What is a minuet? What do you think the practice steps should be for this piece?

Debussy represents what kind of musical style? I ask a junior working on “Children’s Corner.” Can you name another Impressionist composer? What is the relative minor of F-sharp major? How did you practice this?

Do you know what an answering machine is?

It’s been four years since Covid turned our worlds upside down. For decades, folks will be studying and analyzing the effect the pandemic had both on our society at large and our individual lives. I think often about the question, what changes stuck? How did the forced isolation shift our behaviors and habits? How did the lockdown change how we work and play? What did we learn? How are we different now?

I think about this last question all the time, trying to find meaning in a world that is strangely both more complicated and more simple than it’s ever been. But when I’m listening closely, clarity comes. The act of sitting still seems very important these days. Even though we are no longer trapped and climbing the walls of our houses, evening walks remain a lifeline. Time spent with friends is precious. Soul-supporting work and practices feel essential. And it turns out, after years of propping up my teaching with gimmicks and games, I need very little to work deeply. The answers were there all along.