The Music Teacher

Ever since I arrived one of the only teachers who approaches me with ideas to utilize my being here is the music teacher. First she got me to perform some jazz with two other students, she had me give notes to the brass band on how the "Star Spangled Banner" should be performed for the American exchange students, she had me teacher guitar during music class (which was hilarious.) She is also just truly hilarious, she was the one who let the students know that I know Japanese (it was supposed to be a well kept secret... but I was glad to get it out.) She always complains about some students never do what she says so she says "I must..." then puts her fingers on her head to make horns. She says "Devil devil devil." Then she covers her mouth laughing in disbelief that she had just said something so crazy (when in fact, it wasn't that crazy to begin with.)

This week she invited me to give a class on the history of jazz in America. It'd be brief, but it'd likely be the most accurate and most in depth understanding of Jazz/Blues the students would ever have.

I went in and explained pre-jazz music like ragtime, marching band music and so on which became the whole dixieland movement in New Orleans. Eventually I got to describing improvisation and a basic intro to improvisation. I then played this old recording of Earl Hines and Louis Armstrong. The teacher goes, in Japanese, "These men were likely drunk and high on drugs while they were improvising. That's why it's so good."

I swore that I'd misheard her and thought maybe she said "People listening were often drunk" as in "people listened to this music at bars." which we had talked about, how this music was performed at clubs and bars. Then she looked at me and said "Right?" I asked her to repeat. My ears hadn't fooled me. She HAD said that these men were all on drugs and drunk. Now, I may be totally wrong but I was like "no no no no no no no no." The students burst out laughing, the teacher broke out laughing and covered her face, got really serious and turned to the students and said "Never tell anyone I told you that."

After class, she explained that her friend had told her that in order to improvise properly you had to be drunk or on drugs. While there's plenty of cases alcohol and drug use all over jazz's history, it's by no means REQUIRED. I had to explain that that would be on par with running through an obstacle course while drunk or on drugs... while I'm sure some people would have a blast, the result wouldn't be as graceful as the one participating might expect... although I'm sure there are exceptions.

After class she let me play the schools piano for the rest of the day which was wonderful because I hadn't touched a real piano in almost 10 months... she definitely redeemed herself for likely spreading the word around rural Japan that all people who improvise are on intoxicated. Also, she's still one of my favorite teachers at school.