Might Have Been Bob

In one of the elementary piano method books I teach, there is a piece called “The Answering Machine.” This book is a fairly recent and valuable addition to the piano teaching canon, but this title is already painfully dated. Teaching this piece always involves a long conversation explaining what an answering machine was to a confused eight-year-old. “It’s like voice mail, kind of,” I say, “only it’s a machine with a light that blinks when you have a message.”  

Kids love the blinking light concept. Back in the days of answering machines, I loved the idea that the device bought me some distance from work, gave me the illusion that I was not endlessly available and even that “Someone Else” (i.e. The Answering Machine) was handling my calls. The voice mail function on a cellphone that I carry with me at all times is simply more invasive, and has none of the charms of the blinking light.

But there were other less helpful aspects of that old device. Case in point: once upon a time I received this phone message on our home answering machine:

“Hello. I am looking for information about piano lessons for young children. Please call me.”

I get a lot of inquiring phone calls about lessons, and while I often have a waiting list, I think it good business to return every phone call. I refer students to my colleagues. I counsel parents about starting ages for piano lessons. I discuss the advantages of the piano versus the violin. Part of being a music educator is a certain amount of PR work.

However, phone messages like the one above made me roll my eyes. There was no phone number, no name, no helpful information. Good grief. But on the other hand, without any identifying information whatsoever I was off the hook.

There was a time in my early career when I had Someone Else to handle things like this. When we lived in Boston, instead of managing my own studio, I worked for several community music schools where I was simply a contracted teacher, not responsible for any administrative duties. This, I found, had its own price, however. Just because someone else was managing the business and administrative tasks of my schedule doesn’t mean this was being done well. One day I arrived at school on a Friday afternoon and the secretary Rita said cheerfully, "Hi Amy! Did you get that phone message?" 

"What phone message?"

"Well...a mother called and there is a sick child."

A sick child. I waited patiently to see if this sick child had anything to do with me.

"This child had a high fever. The mother did not sound concerned about it, but I am."

I continued to wait to see if this sick child would affect my life, or at the very least, my afternoon.

"This is one of my students?" I prompted her.

"Yes. The mother was cancelling the lesson. I don't think it was for today."

This was becoming more and more dubious. Parents do not call and cancel lessons for days or weeks ahead if their child is sick.

"What is this child's name?"

"Hmmm . . . seems like it could have been a name for either a girl or a boy." 

Rita was surprisingly unflustered by all of this. I wanted her apologetic and groveling at my feet for not taking this phone message correctly.

I wracked my brain for potential students with androgynous names. I came up blank. I could see my time with Rita was rather pointless, so I left and waited for a student to miss his or her lesson. The sick child's name? Annabel.

Later, replaying this incident for Matt, he reminded me a Dilbert cartoon. Dilbert's secretary has been given a poor job evaluation. She asks Dilbert for an explanation and Dilbert says, "Because I got 345 phone messages last year with the note, 'Might have been Bob.'"

Of course, taking Someone Else out of the equation doesn’t solve the problem either. Teaching pre-college lessons means dealing with parents. Many of these parents I adore; some become lifelong friends. Some do not.

Years ago, I taught a student named Mandy who came from a particularly clue-free family. It didn't seem to matter if I talked to the mother, the father, or the kid (or all three), they didn't seem to remember anything—not what time her lesson was, or what day, or what she was supposed to practice. Mandy missed multiple lessons (always without a phone call to explain why) because no one could remember to bring her. After a few months of this nonsense, I called her mother to tell her that I was dropping Mandy from my studio. She wasn't home, so I left a message asking her call me back. A few days later (on the day of Mandy's next lesson, as it happens), she returned my call. Now, I am no parent, but if my child had missed a lesson the previous week (which Mandy had) then the first words out of my mouth would be an apology. But no, not in this case. In fact, it was debatable if she even remembered that her daughter had missed another lesson. After waiting several seconds for the apology that didn't follow, I began my explanation about how I was no longer going to keep Mandy in my studio. "Oh," the mother finally said, "how about we just start up again in the fall?" What did you not understand here? I thought to myself and began once again. This time she interrupted me, "That's OK. How about we just start up again in the fall?" It took three tries to get her to understand what I had been saying for the last five minutes. Just when I thought she might have finally comprehended the situation, she said, "Well, we leave for Denver today so I guess Mandy won't be at her lesson tonight." Hearing this, I began to suspect that she not so much telling me this, as she was simply thinking out loud and I happened to overhear.  Suddenly, in the middle of her next sentence her phone cut off and the line went dead. Did she call me back? No.

No elementary piano ditty will ever capture the joys and frustrations of those old answering machines, the messages piling up, the light blinking frantically. "What are all these messages about?" I would ask at the end of a long day of teaching and rehearsing.

"I bet, now I could be wrong,” Matt would say, “but I bet they have something to do with the piano: either someone wants you to teach the piano or play the piano.” Often, these messages seemed to go on forever. Sometimes they went on so long I needed to pour myself a glass of wine just to get through them. Sometimes I could finish the entire bottle before I reached the end.

"We have got to set a time limit for these people," Matt often said.

Indeed, no song will ever fully capture scenarios like the time when a mother in the studio called and left a lengthy message. Afterwards she did not hang up the phone, but rather simply set it on the counter where we were then privy to five minutes of the family’s kitchen life. "This has got to stop," said Matt.

"Might have been Bob," I answered.