Hey!

Have a look at this all you teachers. It is soooooooo funny!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyG2rt5WzKc

(Sorry if this link has been posted before)

Jo

BRILLIANT! I've just sent it to several of my piano pupils, who I hope will appreciate me more now.
ps Now I realize how lucky I was. My teacher only used a knitting needle to rap my knuckles. Honest!!!

Saw this today:

How many folk singers does it take to change a light bulb?

Three! One to change the bulb and the other two to sing a song about the old one.

Violinia

OMG!

I'd never do this to my students.

Excellent!!!

I thought it was the evil teacher trying to advertise his piano teaching in the video - thought it was a bit backward! But then realised it was 'don't let this happen to your child call ...'

Quite hilarious! Although it says it was based on real events - eek!

Actually, it didn't make me laugh. It made me feel panicky and a bit sick. OK it was staged, and was taken to extremes, but it was all too like what I endured in piano lessons when I was a child.

OK, a joke to cheer people up:

"Refrain" means don't do something. So in a song the refrain must be the bit you don't sing....

No, it didn't make me laugh, either . I didn't have the awful piano-learning experiences that katyjay had, but it was still enough to make me cringe inside and feel very, very uncomfortable - I couldn't watch it to the end...

It made me feel queasy too because I had a horrible piano teacher for a few months. Only watch through to the end if you've got an iron constitution - the teacher murders the boy in the end and is last seen digging his grave in the back garden. Based on real events?!?

Violinia

I thought it was mildly amusing to begin with but it did go a bit far right at the end. Quite a WROOONG thing to do.

That said, my mum recalls being rulered by her piano teacher for making a mistake, some 40 years ago now.

I thought I must have lost my sense of humour because I didn't find it funny either but see I am not the only one, and I haven't had any bad experiences with teachers.

I thought it was quite funny at first, but disturbing once the physical violence started. Though I have to say when the teacher bursts out of the front door near the end you can hear him trying to contain himself laughing - they both are.

I watched it last night with my son (17). We haven't got broadband yet so it was talking a while to download. The boy was sitting on the steps at the end and suddenly, in a little jerky movement because of the bit-by-bit dial-up downloading, the teacher burst out of the front door and we both jumped out of our skins. I actually screamed, my son yelled and we both ended up falling about laughing.

It probably should have ended just there.

Violinia

Like Melody, I didn't find it particularly amusing either, and haven't had any bad experiences to blame it on. From the sounds of the other posts, I'm glad that I saved a few minutes of my life by not bothering to watch until the end of the clip!

Funny stuff jorichards, especially were he advertises himself as a sensitive quality teacher!!! Totally OTT!

Yes - I'd go along with this. I had only good experiences with music teachers, especially as a child, and yet I found I was was more horrified than amused, even though it was clearly a send-up.

Um, if he's really the sensitive teacher he claims to be, it's a bit odd that he made such an OTT film.

Violinia

Because he's Australian!

I didn't find that funny at all, I know too many people who've had similar experiences.

A friend of mine who was a choirister in a very well known anglican cathedral in the late 60s reported experiences very similar to that. An elderly (but very senior) cleric used to stand over him with a cane when he was playing scales - they'd get a swat across the hand for every mistake!

No offence meant here, but maybe people are taking this a little seriously? Its only a skit! I'm sure its not intended to belittle or laugh at anyone's real life experiences or make anyone feel in anyway bad. Surely the fact that it IS so over the top makes it a bit ridiculous? And therefore to be laughed at and not offended by? Maybe we should just take it in the vein in which it was intended?

I feel a bit sorry for jorichards, this post was only intended to give people a laugh!

I know what you mean, but I found it a bit too close to the truth to be funny!

It made me feel uneasy and it made me laugh out loud. Comedy often does that.

I think it's good. A video of my piano lessons as a child, where a meek little old spinster would make me (a 9 year old on grade 3) play nothing but 2 or 3 scales for half an hour because the rhythm was somehow not even enough and my hands weren't togther, would be far more horrifying, at least to me.

I have to disagree Stumac. Nowadays any physical contact is strictly forbidden in lessons. This video was quite obviously meant to be OTT. Yes, even then it went over the line, but this can't be realistic at all in today's world, and was clearly done as a laugh. I'm sure nothing was meant either by the makers of the video or by jorichards for posting it.

I'm with you Neil.

Yeah, I thought it was pretty funny but went a bit ridiculously far!!! Also, because so many people have had bad, even traumatic experiences with piano teachers when they were little, it can bring back some queasy memories.

My piano teacher once threatened to burst my birthday balloons (which were all over the room at the time) if I made a mistake. My first violin teacher was a very scary man who said my fingers would have to bleed before I could be a good violinist. Needless to say both these teachers were quickly dumped and I ended up with a lovely violin teacher for the next 10 years who is still a close friend (nearly 80 now).

It's weird how many instrument teachers are nasty though - it still goes on, though probably nothing like as much, because I keep hearong about a woman in my area who terrorises every child she goes near. Why she's allowed to keep teaching I have no idea, except that technically she's brilliant and the kids who manage to stay the course become very good. But at what cost?

Violinia

I know of a violin teacher who put one of my own children off the instrument for a period of about 2-3 years. She sounds just like the one you're describing except that she has now retired so I don't think she has much more scope to do much damage any longer. Exactly the same scenario though: she had some prodigious pupils who defended her against all the accusations of those who left her in droves. I agree with you Violinia: the cost is too great. What's wrong with kind and nice and broad-minded? This woman didn't even tolerate her pupils giving time to any "rival" instruments. Violin had to come first or not at all. She was yesterday's woman!

As to the subject of this thread, I was unable to access it on this (my laptop at work). In light of other responses, perhaps it's just as well.

LR

Glad it wasn't just me! Though I see many others have been amused so fair enough, we're all different.

Gosh! I never intended to provoke all this!!!!!

I found the link on another piano website, and they were finding it funny, and I just thought you might be as amused as they were. Quite clearly the person advertising as a piano teacher is showing how not to teach. I found it so funny that I watched it twice through, and a friend who I emailed the link to laughed so much it upset her dog!

So please lighten up a bit some of you!

I am going to watch it again before I teach this afternoon, to encourage me to have more fun with my pupils, and let them enjoy their lessons, even if they are totally useless or haven't done any practice whatsoever!


jo

I'm sorry, JoRichards, but I can't find any humour whatsoever in the depiction of a teacher using violence against a pupil.

Now, I'm prepared to accept that this is due to the fact that my first piano teacher was an extremely abusive and violent individual, and that to most people (I hope) such a situation is so unthinkable that they can't imagine themselves in it.

But that clip brought back all the memories of the fear and terror that I experienced - emotions that kept me away from playing the piano, or any other musical study, for a quarter of a century.

It just plain isn't funny.

Nowadays any physical contact is strictly forbidden in lessons. This video was quite obviously meant to be OTT. Yes, even then it went over the line, but this can't be realistic at all in today's world

But you have to accept that some people have experienced a world where some violence was not uncommon and it's not much use saying to them "oh but this can't happen now so you should find it funny".

You can not tell anyone else what they should feel. That's basic. I defend your right to find it funny if you wish but I do not have to do so myself.

I did not experience violence as a child, and yet I find the thought of it disturbing. Fine if you laughed - that's your response. But sorry, I don't think "lighten up" is an appropriate riposte in this case to those who didn't.

OK, point taken, and it wasn't me who said 'lighten up'. As I say, it started slightly funny, that was before the violence. That was over the line as I said.

Come to it, I'm not sure now what the makers did intend with it all. I still think and hope it meant nothing sinister, but I do sympathise with those who found it disturbing.

Quite a contrast to my 'relaxed as possible' approach.

and it wasn't me who said 'lighten up'.
no it wasn't, Neil, and I didn't intend to infer that you had - sorry !

I just looked this up on youtube and it was originally done as a joke-y advertisement for someone's piano teaching practice. (The idea being that the guy in the film is really awful and the person advertised at the end would save your child from such an experience).

On the humour front, I reckon its a combination of generational differences and plain old different senses of humour.

I think that's the long and short of it.

I just looked this up on youtube and it was originally done as a joke-y advertisement for someone's piano teaching practice. (The idea being that the guy in the film is really awful and the person advertised at the end would save your child from such an experience).

Yes - I think we had worked that out.

I've just finished my final client session for the day, having found it very intensive and heavy, as the client I was with was describing the horrendous physical abuse he suffered as a child. So I thought "I know, I'll go on the Forums, have a nice time and get work well and truly out of my head for the weekend." Then I saw this. Sorry people, but I cannot find this even remotely funny. It left me feeling sickened.

Reading this whole thread again, it does worry me slightly that some contributors found nothing wrong with this clip at all. I even wonder if some are genuine. I said earlier nothing was meant by making this clip. Now I'm not sure. And of course while it's easy for us to remember that the majority of teachers go out their way to care for every pupil, some may see this and not be so aware.

I guess there's not much more to be said about this clip, except though maybe intended to be funny, is just not.

I'm sure you meant well jorichards, but I have to agree with Amber, katyjay and others.