I had this idea about 4 hours into my day yesterday to do a blog post about what I do in a day. I really do feel very fortunate to be able to set my own work hours and work from home (mostly). This flexibility means my husband and I can go to school and further our education and support ourselves in that endeavor. I also love teaching and after working in many different fields and jobs, I can tell you that if you find something you love and can support your family doing it, that's the dream. Anyway, so here is a glimpse at a day in the life of a private music teacher... I'm not gonna lie, I sleep in during the summer. More accurately, I try to stay in my bed until around 8:30 am. We don't have kids, so I realize this is a luxury most don't get to enjoy. And I really enjoy my morning downtime during the summer because I know that when school starts again, I have a 7:30 am class, which I am not particularly enthused about, but that's how the cookie crumbles. I get out of bed and start my morning routine by making the bed. I can usually hear my husband out in the living room suffering through his morning exercise routine. I don't like to suffer, so I pound out a few push ups and crunches and call it good. I'm a night time shower-er so I don't worry about that in the morning. I get ready and head to the kitchen to make breakfast. My husband has gotten on a healthy kick recently, so I made us a smoothie for breakfast while he got cleaned up after he was done with his exercising. If I'm smart, I immediately start on a to do list. Otherwise, I end up bonding with my recliner and Netflix. Yesterday was a good day and I started early with some practice time. Not only am I a student, but I am an active performer, so I have practicing to do. Part of practicing for me includes IPA and translation of texts in foreign languages. I spent a couple of hours doing that yesterday. I do this for all of my foreign language pieces. I count this as part of my practice time because it helps me with my memorization and interpretation of the pieces. It is definitely one of the more tedious things I do during practice time. By the time I was done with this project, it was lunch time. So I fixed myself some lunch and treated myself to an episode of The West Wing on Netflix. Next up on the schedule was teaching time. During the summer, with everyone being so busy with traveling and summer fun, I don't always have a full teaching schedule. Yesterday, I only had 3 lessons to teach. One piano lesson and two voice lessons later, and I was left to tidy up after my teaching adventures. I use a lot of props and such for teaching. And since our teaching space is also our living space, I always make sure to clean up right after finishing lessons. I love using the exercise ball when teaching students about support. Truth be told, it's one of my favorite things to use when I'm practicing too. And last summer's stroke of genius to write up warm ups to keep at the piano and hand out to all the students has saved my sanity. Sometimes my brain just can't come up with warm ups on the fly. We decided to take in a movie yesterday afternoon. So we headed off to the movie theater and enjoyed the new Star Trek movie. And because we're music nerds, I have to mention how much we love Michael Giacchino's movie music. Then we picked up a little dinner on our way back to the house and I introduced a new show to my husband. My friend and I have recently started watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on Netflix. It's quirky and hilarious. And its' characters randomly burst into song. Hilarious songs. So I watched an episode with my husband and then watched an episode with my friend. Actually, she lives across the country. So we both watch and text each other during it. Because we're cool like that. This summer, my husband and I have tried to take nightly walks. It gets pretty toasty during the day in Utah so we wait until the sun goes down and it starts to cool off. We go out and walk around a bit and now that Pokemon Go has come out, we catch Pokemon too. Because we're cool like that. Then we come home and wind down for bed. My husband has been working on a puzzle. Well, that's pretty much it. A day in the life of a Private Music Teacher. The routine varies a bit. On days when I don't teach, I spend time working on lesson plans or reading books about pedagogy. I spent 3 hours the other day planning for the Fall Group Music Classes for young kids. And sometimes we have performances in the evening. Right now, we are performing at Desert Star Playhouse in it's production of "Perfect Pitch", which is a spoof on Pitch Perfect. I am so grateful that my husband and I are able to continue to work to help us get through school. Our programs are very involved and we spend a lot of time at the school, so a regular job isn't as feasible for us. We take our job as teachers very seriously and work to make sure our students are getting a thorough music education.
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The GriffithsAdam and Wendi have extensive music experience, as teachers and performers. Archives
February 2023
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