The Joys of Music...

Here comes another music post, this time dealing with how great music can make anyone feel.

As a teacher, I tend to get the typical 10am look on students faces, aka "why the fuck did I stay up till 4am when I had to get up at 9am?". They are tired and you need to give them a good jolt to wake them up enough to get the class started and having them sort of listen to what I have to say. It is not an easy task by any possible measure but an important one nonetheless.

Now you might be wondering, why does this have to do with music? Did you plug your mp3 player with some speakers in class? NO. Better. The classroom I teach in 3 times a week happens to have an actual piano in it. And I don't mean no synthesizer, I mean an actual long tail piano right at the back of the room.

So I got into class a bit earlier than usual today, walked to the back, asked the students if they wanted to do some singing to wake up, and somebody asked for "Bohemian Rhapsody" right as I was about to start playing it. It's a coincidence with odds raised based on the fact that it's one of the 3 songs I know on the piano, plus a really popular one to sing in groups, so the effect was doubled when I started the song the second they finished calling it out.

The students were a little shy, so I started the first verse, and they all started singing along, all the way till the end of the first solo. I stopped before the breakdown because I had to start teaching (and because I don't know how to play it) but the effect was done. The class was all smiles, with applause included, and at least for the first 15 minutes of class they were more awake than they usually are.

And that my friends, is the joys of music...