Yesterday I had a phonecall at 3am, seriously no kidding! from a dad saying it was his son's birthday that day and he couldn't come to his lesson. Luckily the ansaphone took the message, but had i picked up i would have had some not very polite words to say! Can anyone beat that for inconsiderate parents??? Other examples I've experienced are an entire family who came with their son and proceeded to lay out and noisily consume a picnic tea throughout the lesson while their 4 year old ran up and down the stairs and into the bedrooms, (thank god they have now stopped coming), and a couple of instances of parents answering mobiles in the lesson and not even having the courtesy to leave the room. Needless to say, ALL these children have made little progress at the piano - with parents like that, what hope have they???

Not quite so bad, but try it from the other side.

I took an early evening call asking me to play the piano in a performance of Carmina Burana ( forgive any incorrect spelling). I knew a pianist who had played it, so after teaching and enjoying an evening meal, I gave her a call to find out how difficult and worthwhile it was. Her reply was somewhat terse and unhelpful. I wondered why, until I happened to glance at the clock.

Oops. When I 'phoned the following day, to apologise for phoning at 1.45 am, she was magnanimous.

Then again, I wasn't eating a picnic in her music room

QUOTE (Madge Woollard @ May 9 2005, 06:51 PM)

and a couple of instances of parents answering mobiles in the lesson and not even having the courtesy to leave the room.

I find it amazing that they actually have to ASK people nowadays to check they've switched their phones off in cinemas and at *concerts* for pete's sake...!!!

Reminds me of that story from Liberetto about the candidate who answered their mobile in the middle of their sight-reading test....

Carmina Burana is right I think...

Moral of that story is, always look at the phone before ringing someone up. I learned that while at university...

QUOTE (sarah-flute @ May 9 2005, 10:43 PM)

I find it amazing that they actually have to ASK people nowadays to check they've switched their phones off in cinemas and at *concerts* for pete's sake...!!!

Hem hem hem hem.

I am 53 and so belong to the generation that uses mobile phones purely in an emergency. They are still a novelty.

I was sat in a finals recital at the Birmingham conservatoire recently and realised that I had made a rare call on mine only an hour or so earlier and couldn't remember turning it off. The student concerned was just starting a 23 minute Mozart piano sonata.

The phone was in a jacket pocket, stuffed under a seat and well out of easy range. There followed a very uncomfortable 23 minutes.

Come a break in performance and a frantic scrabble to find the phone still switched on. Thank Heavans for belonging to An Older Generation, for once - no calls.

Phew

QUOTE (SteveHopwood @ May 9 2005, 10:55 PM)

I am 53 and so belong to the generation that uses mobile phones purely in an emergency. They are still a novelty.

My mum's 56 and had one before I did we've always been a weird family...

I can but imagine your relief... Oops!

I almost always keep mine on either very quiet (it only beeps if someone calls) or silent for precisely the reason that I am absent minded and don't want to ever land in that situation...

Said student would probably have had you hung drawn and quartered.

QUOTE (sarah-flute @ May 9 2005, 10:58 PM)

Said student would probably have had you hung drawn and quartered.

Oh boy she would.

And how, she would.

Now, I thought you were going to bed ("What to do after grade 8?"). I was too, until I thought, "Let's just see what is hapening elsewhere."

OK, so now I really am going to bed. Promise.

'Night all.

Once again apologies for gatecrashing~ but

I'm 17, and my phone is never switched on. I use it in emergancies, or for contact my friends who have niether landlines or the internet. I never have it on anything but silent when it is on.

It isn't just the older generation y'know!

(And I'm also absent minded about switching it off; I keep having to re-enter everything that's lost when the battery run down entirely.) <feels old>

Switching off mobiles tends not to be an age thing. I spend far too much time in the summer at the Proms, and the younger set are usually OK at switching off mobiles - the worst offenders are the boxes, some of which are probably corporate entertainment, particularly in the second half of a concert (messages picked up in the interval and phone left on). It happens nearly EVERY evening, usually during the quietest passages. A friend of mine actually witnessed someone who answered the call having their phone removed and broken in half!!!

Another friend sang at a wedding where one of the bridesmaids took a call on her mobile during the service. Where WAS she storing the phone?

The only 3am calls we tend to get are wrong numbers; Pupil's parents are more considerate when phoning, and go to the pub down the road during his lessons (where I don't care how many calls they make).

Well I'm a chronic insomniac, and also insanely busy, so I have the twist that I'm a teacher who tends to leave messages on his pupils phones at 3 or 4am.

I.e. I just rang a sax pupil of mine to tell him that our lesson on monday wil be from 2:30-5pm (I know, it's long). He's a lecturer, I'm directing or writing every second of every day (when not preparing for a very terrifying solo performance of mine in 3 weeks on the Sax) so he's used to getting phone calls at nasty times just so we can arrange lessons at short notice.

BUT in the case of all pupils, I tell them that I will only leave messages on their mobiles and I never ring landlines at that time, as I know it'll wake people. If people are stupid enough to leave mobiles on loud at 3am, it's their own fault - I do it myself but only because I don't have a landline and am prepared for emergencies, they happen (such as my last leading actor's father dying) surprisingly often in the theatre!