I was trying to chop an onion with a blunt knife. The onion escaped unscathed but I sliced across the pad of the fourth finger on my left hand. Now this is a crucial finger to a bassoonist as it has to stop an open hole. Not a major injury but I cancelled my lesson.

Ouch, that sounds painful. Hope your finger heals soon!

It's not at all sore but it just stops me from playing.

When I was a clarinettist I used those plasticky sticking plasters if I had a finger injury - they 'stop' holes on wind instruments quite well. Use a couple on top of each other to build up a pad.

Not ideal I suppose - but useful in an emergency.

I think I've only ever (in the past 5 years) missed 2 lessons! The first was for a wedding of a very good friend, and the second was a couple of weeks ago when I was playing sax on a float in the Lord Mayor's Show. Since I'd a) warned my teacher in advance this might happen b) texted her a couple of hours before the lesson was due to confirm c) I'm her last student of the day so she got to go home early and d) she still gets paid because there are no refunds for lessons missed, there was no great problem on either side.

I have an Oboe lesson today which I should really cancel...I am up to my neck in builders and the past two weeks have been arduos to say the least, I haven't got half the practice done I needed to...what to do? what to do?...well it's too late to cancel now so I am going to go and do my best and sight read what I have to, if nothing else it will be a challenge....but I am cross that I am so unprepared...there simply hasn't been the time, the two weeks have flown by and I am feeling pretty ticked off with myself...I have to be more ordered and set time aside but when you are dealing with builders, electricians, plumbers, architects etc and hunting down materials from floor boards to lighting, tiles, carpets and curtain makers...it doesnt leave much time for anything else like working and practicing......

Oh well hey ho, almost time to literally go and face the music...

Kindest if somehwhat disheartened regards,

Andrew

If you explain, I am sure your teacher will understand . There will always be times when we are less able to practise than others...

I'm a surgeon. I have a clinic before my piano lesson. If the clinic over-runs (not often, honest!) then my piano teacher knows my priorities.

I can only imagine you have beautiful hands !

I work shifts so I miss a lot of lessons. Wish I didn't have to.

I missed one once because my Hamster died. I know it seems lame, but I was really upset and I needed the time to bury him properly.

AN UPDATE...

Well as I suspected it was Hideous...I got through the studies ok having only really given them a cursory glance over ten days ago, I fluffed my scales...and got water in my octave key which helped immensely, some ghastlty whining on the forked f which was a new problem and not something that had happened before, then as I had "Come Clean" about my practice levels I was given two sonatas to sight read "Just Like That". Well I had managed to hold it togther albiet not entirely musically for the best part of an hour but at that point the wheels fell off...LORD I WANTED THE FLOOR TO OPEN UP AND SWALLOW ME...I fell apart...couldnt count or feel a pulse, missed countless accidentals, got terribly confused as to what key I was playing in and all in all felt a total twit...I never apologise if I get things wrong but today I turned into a gibbering fool...I was unprepared, I knew it..my Teacher knew it and my inability to cope was all to obvious...GOD I WAS AWFUL, totally unmusical and felt like a fish out of water...

I then got to the end of my alloted time and was gently reminded that I would really need to do a lot more work once I was settled into my new home...this was entirely fair, but I still felt a fool...

Oh well panic not I will nail the work this fortnight and get it done by hook or by crook,...lesson learned, and strangely my sight reading wasn't too bad...I will try never to go unprepared again, it wasnt so much that I wasn't ready, it was the fact that I worried about being unprepared that got me in the end...

Never mind I will go and drown my sorrows in a mug of cocoa and call it a day..

Regards

Andrew

Did you explain your situation to your teacher before you started? As a teacher, if a student of mine presented (as a one off) a situtation like yours I would say okay, and try new things that lesson on the basis that next lesson we go back to the work set - no excuses (not that i am suggesting that yours was an excuse)

This thread ties in interestingly with the one in the teachers forum! great to read a different perspective

Actually my teacher was sweet and very understanding when I explained my situation, she didn't give me a hard time about it..it was ME who gave me a hard time about it...I hated being so under prepared, I knew I was and it got the better of me...but it did one thing for me, it strengthened my resolve to never be in this posistion again...I don't think I have ever sight read so much in a hour...it probably did my sight reading a power of good but wreaked havoc with my nerves...

Regards

Andrew

to both of you





I don't miss many music lessons, but when I do, it's because I'm too forgetful to tell my teacher about that dentist appointment...

I have exactly the same experience. So different as an adult, isn't it! I'm paying for the lessons, I have to drive in the evening usually after being a cook/taxi driver/fight referee etc for the kids, making such an effort to do something I really love, rather than collapsing in a chair. If I haven't prepared for the lesson I feel that not only am I wasting money, but I'm wasting my time and the teacher's time too.

Thankfully for me, although the teacher's quite ambitious, he always seems pleasantly surprised that I've done any practice at all!

Steve

My pupils have always told me I should write a book

"Excuses I have been Given" (for not turning up for a lesson or for not practising)

including A.U.K's "I'm up to my neck in builders" (he should be so lucky! ) ............and at this time of year, I'm waiting for the "I had a Christmas Cake in the oven and it wasn't cooked in time"I can recall various phone calls from pupils or parents excusing themselves at the last minute.....

"We can't come this afternoon - he's being rescued from a rock face!"

"I can't make it this evening - I'm in Sydney" (this one, famously, 30 minutes before the lesson time)

"Do you mind if I give it a miss tonight - just found out I'm pregnant"

and the best of the lot from a particularly musically challenged/everything challenged child (I'm sorry but there is no other way to describe it without a medical expert on hand) who wandered into the room, open-mouthed as usual, grunted the appropriate-to-the-time-of-day greeting, as usual, and put the simple piano music on the music rack - photocopied pages 1 and 2 and then whined that it was too difficult and hadn't practised. The pages had been put, at my request/insistence into one of these plastic folders with clear plastic sleeves.
Not only were the pages in the wrong order, but they were upside-down

ps Allow me to justify the photocopies. Any music BOOK that the child was given would be chewed up by the dog, pee-ed on by the dog, or scribbled on by the baby within the first week.

It's not cocoa that soothes me A.U.K (Andrew) - join me in a large bowl of G & T

Eeeeeeeeeeee, it's a laff, boys 'n girls

Oh Lordy what fantastic excuses...."I'm in Sydney" how could they forget they were going to Australia...

For the record I really am up to my neck in builders, plumbers, electricians and designers who are collectively driving me slowly NUTS and let me tell you this debacl'e has been going on for nearly three years, from Planning consent to the final push which is where we are now...I've seen every stunt pulled by one builder who did a bunk with £40,000 ( seriously) and is now being pursued through the courts...The replacement builders are doing very well and playing ball and fingers crossed they will be done by Christmas and the decorators can start by the end of January/February...

I have however had a good practice today and got a ton of things done as well...it was all about time management...

Seriously though, the excuses that teachers must get defy belief...can people be that thoughtless...I must add that had I cancelled yesterday, I would fully expect to, and would insist on paying for the time alloted, it was my error not my teachers, who is lovely.

Kindest regards and thanks Diapason for a good giggle, I would join you in a G and T but I don't drink so it's Cocoa for me...

And here's an excuse for having done loads more practice than I anticipated:
My university has been occupied by protesting students for the past two weeks and not only have I been unable to teach but we have been explicitely told to stay at home.

I have felt obliged to use this unexpected free time usefully by getting to know my new cor anglais .

ooooOOOOOOooooh what a goody two shoes good for you Keri hows the new Cor Anglais coming along...are you enjoying it...

Hope all is well with you...

Andrew

Thanks to the unexpected extra time I have got my head round the different fingering for the thumbplate up to (and including) top D and am enjoying it very much. I ordered the Browne book you recommended which came yesterday together with "Solos for the English Horn player" so I now have some specifically cor anglais music.

I presume you are still playing yours in?

You presume right, I am still blowing in both the Oboe and the Cor Anglais, the Oboe is a joy and the Cor is great but I suspect the Cor will really come into its own when it has been well and truely blown in and I have experimented with different crooks...the two that it came with are Gold which are very nice but a bit "BLING" for me and I suspect that a good Howarths or Hiniker Crook in sliver will really let it sing out. I must say that the Cor really helps my Oboe tone, It really lets you open up and blow freely which in turn increases the diaphragm support and strength and relaxes the embochure, as Oboists the temptation to tighten the lip and not breathe correctly is an easy trap to fall into, the Cor Anglais seems to help us stop doing that...add to that, the gorgeous sound, that rich resonant and melancholic sound...really its quite foxy...

Glad that you like the Browne book, it has all the major repetoire and lots of thoughts on playing the Cor Anglais. Let us know how you get on and get some airline tube for fishtanks to put on your Cor staples so they dont slip off the crook or leak air, many a good solo has not happpened because the reed has come of the crook when stuck to a dry lip, you only need about 2 and half centimetres pop in on the staple and then slide that onto the crook securing the staple in place on the crook itself, a useful tip from two pro players I know who have "Been there and Done That"...

Bon Chance

Regards

Andrew

as long as i could remember, i've only missed one lesson (i was about 9 and was very ill).

Excuses I have had as a teacher ....

Today ... one chap had to rescue his friend in Birmingham as the chap decided he didn't want to drive any further.

The other guy I teach on Thursdays couldn't come as he was in the process of liquidating his company - oh dear oh dear...

From parents about kids - (it has just snowed) - sorry, he doesn't want to come to piano he would rather play in the snow!!

She can't come today she wants to have her hair cut.

Can't come today my Alpha Romeo has broken down.(shouldn't have such a posh car then !)

Sprained wrists due to Rugby; severe vertigo; imminent childbirth.... the things people will do to get out of a lesson !!!

I would never try to get out of a lesson, but I know some people who would.

I'm so keen I turned up a day early recently!!!

Only last week I had one of the parents from Chess club say "We won't be able to come next week; we're emigrating to Australia on Saturday"! I can't imagine that this was a last minute decision. A little notice would have been nice, I think.

But why only next week? Shouldn't they have said "we won't be able to come back.... ever!" Unless they plan to commute

I once had to phone my piano teacher off my violin teacher's phone to cancel my lesson because I got the exam date for my violin exam wrong.

Funny now but at the time, it scared me to death. I thought I had two days left to perfect my scales and then I found out it was actually four hours. Needless to say, I spend lunchtime in the practise room.