All Aboard

Woo Hoo! All aboard the Christmas anxiety train.

Whoever you are, it is likely that the prospect of Christmas makes you feel a little stressed. There are extra things to do and a deadline. If you are a bit anxious that extra stress will make you feel more anxious. If you are a musician then the ‘extra things’ can easily run to two extra A4 pages on your “let’s try to pretend to be a normal person without anxiety” list. If you are also an idiot you’ll keep adding things and make everyone join you on the ‘New Improved Christmas Sparkle Anxiety Train.’

I am an idiot.

As if the lead up to Christmas wasn’t busy enough, with normal music teacher/MD of a Youth Orchestra/member of a band stuff, I thought, “You know what would be fun? We should make a school Christmas CD.”

It will be fun. The children are already very excited. Every child in the school is involved with each class learning one song and what could be better than listening to the whole school singing Away in a Manger while you eat your Christmas Dinner? They have been given a chance to design the CD case cover and I hope I’ve created a buzz around the project.

Also, it should raise some much needed cash for the school. We have been surviving with an ever decreasing number of music stands that we haven’t got the money to replace. We even have one held together with sticky tape. Everyone’s budgets for music have been squeezed, so that things we used to get for free we now have to pay for. For example, Sing Up and Charanga are wonderful online resources that used to be free and now cost hundreds of pounds each a year. It’s true that if we had never had them then we would have to make do with books and talent but as each recorder book costs £7 (= class set £200 and it’s illeagal to photocopy), each school singing book with music in is over £10 and the cost of a pianist who can play well enough to accompany at concerts is phenomenal, these apps are still good value for a school that does music properly. Many schools opt not to do music properly and there are some people who think of it as a subject that should just be for a few. Music is such a fundamental human response to things that it would be great if we could teach all children how to do it well. Children singing in tune can heal a broken heart (trust me) and people not even being able to clap in time can break one.

I have found a company (My School CD) that will do the sound recording, engineering and production. All I have to do is find the music, rehearse, make a timetable for the day, send off the paperwork, write new words to a carol for a staff song, stay excited about the project and sell enough CDs so that we don’t lose any money. It’s not keeping me awake at night at all.

Woo Hoo. All aboard!

Surviving the C word (a music teacher's guide)

"Miss, Amy used the C word in her story!"

It's amazing how quiet a room full of breath-holding children can be.

"And it's only November."

The sigh of relief could be heard two miles away as the whole room relaxed and the teacher and the TA smiled at each other, knowingly.

"Oh, Christmas? No, you know the rules. Don't mention it."

An eruption of, "Oh, Miss, you used the C word!" followed.

This happened in a class of one of the best teacher's I've ever worked with and I would love to follow her rule but I'm a music teacher and Christmas has started.  There are concerts from now until the big day, where I probably have only one free evening.  Town lights need to be turned on, Churches need children for their Carol services, like some sacrificial rite, Schools have concerts, nativities and shopping events that couldn't run without a bit of singing. Charities raise all of their funds from the unpaid services of child and adult musicians and it all has to be done in the month before the big man squeezes himself down your chimney.

Tesco's advertising campaign has the strapline. "Right, let's do this," which seems a bit peculiar for a shop that is trying to sell things to make a happy family time happier but it is the perfect music teacher's motto.  "Right, let's do this," we cry, hoping we survive to do it all again next year.

If you are in a similar predicament then here are some survival tips from my many years of experience.

1. Sleep - Don't panic.  You can survive without sleep.  You will find it difficult to drop off after concerts (adrenaline will do that) and you will still be awake at 3am when the writing muse shows up or you are suddenly driven into anxious list making.  Make 'who needs sleep' by the Bare Naked Ladies your motto.  Sing it in your head at all times and you will know that there's a guy been awake since the Second World War.

2.  Caffeine - is your friend.  You have seen the pictures of the the kind of webs spiders make on caffeine and you are suspicious that it's not good for you.  You consider booking a brain scan but realise that you are just suffering from rebound withdrawal symptoms.  Just drink more.  It's temporary.  You can go cold turkey with the cold turkey.

3.  Eating - Forgetting to eat is fine. You don't need to worry.  Someone will always lob a mince pie or chocolate in your direction and an extra cookie from cookery club will accidentally fall into your mouth when you are not looking.  It's perfectly acceptable to eat yesterday's left over takeaway at 3am.  None of this will kill you.

4.  Chocolate - Choose the toffee if you want to keep your voice for the whole season but keep the wrappers.  Especially the orange ones.  There's not much that can't be improved by looking at life through clear orange cellophane.  Keep some in your handbag for extra challenging moments.

5.  Doors - are dangerous.  This is not normally something you would have to be reminded of but in your sleep deprived state you need to be extra vigilant. Doors open! Don't stand by the staffroom door waiting for your photocopying. It will open, suddenly.  If you walk down the corridor, singing your sleep song, mentally ticking off the instruments you need to take to that evening's concert the toilet door could suddenly open and you will walk straight into it knocking yourself and the school visitor out.  I've never heard of anyone being killed by a door but I'm sure it's possible.

6. Laughing - will keep you sane.  Laugh frequently. Laugh heartily. Tell children all your best/worst Christmas jokes. Small excited children often sing very badly but do not despair.  It's funny. Words get mumbled.  Sing  'A Wayne in a manger no crisps for his ted," with them.  Let them sing the wrong words but remind them that they must never wash their socks in church.  No matter how busy and stressed it all gets never be grumpy. If you are going to die from anything this Christmas season make it laughter.

7. Swimming - Just keep swimming. Never think you are too busy to swim.  Your waistline needs it to counteract the mince pies and toffee. Also, if you don't keep swimming you'll drown.

8.. Jingle Bells - Your car will resemble an instrument shop.  You will have loaded it with stands, music and various percussion instruments.  It can be quite soothing to have all your driving accompanied by a gentle jingle but make sure you strap them in.  An emergency stop could have a set of sleigh bells whistling towards the back of your head.  Imagine the headline in the local paper:

POPULAR LOCAL MUSIC TEACHER SLEIGHED BY BELLS

Follow this guide and say to yourself, "Right, lets do this," and you will survive to repeat it all again next year.

A Whole Chapter

I've often said that I should write a sitcom based on an adult amateur choir or orchestra. I think this makes people around me in these situations feel quite nervous. I see them taking a sneaky peek in my direction every time they say something that is quite funny.

I have lots of material from concerts in old people's homes and will probably try to include the reaction to my Dad's joke from a concert this weekend. He was the compere, which in an old people's home is a tough gig. We were about to play Frosty the Snowman so he told the, 'two snowman in a field joke'. This always makes me laugh nervously because I know a rude version but luckily he stuck to the, 'can you smell carrots?' joke. 

Silence.

 Complete silence. 

So he thought he'd try to explain it.

"What do snowmen have as noses?"

"I don't know, what do snowmen have as noses?" said the lady who was awake. 

"Carrots. They have carrots. That's why they can smell carrots."

"Oh, really?" said the lady, picking up her jingle bells that we'd given her to play and examining them carefully before trying to eat them. 

It's a tough gig, so by the time we'd got to playing, 'I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,' he was so flustered that he announced that he'd once kissed Mummy under Santa Claus.  

The Christmas episode will be my favourite to write and over the years I have collected about five notebooks worth of material. I might have to write all the episodes as the lead up to Christmas. Then maybe I could have a pregnant floozie, as a French Horn player.

Maybe it should be a film. It could be the next Love Actually (I hope you saw Emma Freud's tweets this weekend.https://storify.com/Dante_Banks/story-of-the-midnight-showing)

I will have to include a Santa Fun Run. There is nothing quite like standing in a freezing cold park on the edge of an estuary, with rain dripping off your nose an arctic wind blowing soggy music off your stand despite the thirty pegs and piece of knicker elastic you thought you'd secured it with, playing music that nobody is actually listening to (luckily) while a thousand Father Christmases run around you. 

The Santas gather and you play a few Christmas songs to get them in the mood. It appears to have the opposite effect and when you finish an announcement is made. 

"Now the band has finished, we'll go back to listening to some Christmas tunes."

There is a mascot race, with Ellie and Eddie the Eagle, Lenny the Lion, a dolphin, an unidentifiable creature and Fells Ted, who can't see out of his costume and always looks very sad, which is handy as he comes in last. The winner is one of the eagles, who have run hand in hand until the final few yards, giving the announcer the opportunity to say, "Will Eddie finish before his Mrs?," which sounds surprisingly dirty in a Yorkshire accent.

Then you watch the Santa warm up, led by the local PE teacher. A thousand Santas doing the oaky cokey and making a huge conga line keeps you entertained while you drink gluwein from a flask and watch the euphonium fill up with an inch of icy rainwater.

The announcer says that he will start the race and then there will be more from the band (you notice that he didn't specify what the band was going to do more of) so you get into position, adjusting the music, that is now so damp it tears. The conductor has taken the earlier comment about Christmas music personally, so she announces that we will play the Twelve Days of Christmas followed by carols.  The hooter sounds, a blur of red and white flashes before your eyes, the conductor raises her arms, you are ready, just as she brings her arms down the announcer says something else so no one plays. This happens a few more times. You discuss with the band that you've got two bars rest at the beginning, the oboe has three bars rest. You discover that the person with the opening notes hasn't turned up and agree to start at bar three. You struggle to the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas, noting that the swans, geese, and partridges have all decided that Sunday mornings should be spent in the warm listening to the Archers. The ducks on the pond laugh hysterically.

You and your desk partner don't have the carols. "Sing, then," says the 

conductor. As neither of you knows both verses of Silent Night, you sing one in German, causing her to raise an eyebrow, as she thinks you are singing rude words in public. Like you would. You are saving that for We Three Kings.

Polar Express goes quite well but no one has managed to agree on what key to play Sleigh Ride in. You notice a key of your instrument has permanently stuck down. The children dressed as Santa, wearing wellies finish before any of the adults and by the time most are across the line it is agreed that you will play two more pieces, ending with Les Miserables. 

The conductor looks at you. You both try not to laugh.

"You couldn't write it," she says.

"Oh, I could. I will," I say

"I mean, you couldn't make it up."

"Who needs to,"

"It's a whole chapter."

Can I help you madam?

Christmas can be a trial if, like me, you are shoppingly challenged.

Luckily, I have a very patient Long Suffering Husband who enjoys the sport. He forces me on a joint shopping trip to a mall on a Monday in early December by booking a day off work and we get everything before 2.30, when I have to get back to teach. Anything we don't get is bought online or by further short trips out at weekends between concerts, instigated by him. Without the LSH, no one would have any presents.

The real challenge, for me, comes when I have to go it alone. Although I laugh heartily at the stories my female friends tell me of the present disasters they have received from their husbands I know that I am a whisper away from that myself. I chuckle at the story of the husband who bought his wife a car tyre because she needed one and delight in the story of the man who bought his size 8 wife a size 22 dressing gown because that was all that was left. I have no doubt that these men love their wives and are terribly disappointed at their present buying failure. I feel their pain but I still laugh.

Concerts, parties, teaching done and it's time to buy the LSH a Christmas present. Knowing my hatred of shopping he is always very helpful and writes me a detailed list, which he gives to me in my busiest week. Often the list contains things that I really don't understand; things from golf shops or specialist DIY stores. Occasionally I have deviated from the list with disastrous results. "What do you mean, you wanted screwdrivers? Aren't chisels the same thing?" The disappointment on his sad little face, as he unwraps the beautifully packaged parcel (I may be terrible at shopping but I can do wrapping) is unbearable. Last year I went totally tonto and told him I didn't need a list. It worked reasonably well. I went for a theme of small presents. 'On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me.....'but he still has a drawer full of things he hasn't used. 

This year, I'm a bit more tired and feeling much less creative. I started with the Internet and discovered that almost everything on the list was out of stock. That wasn't a particular issue because I had missed Christmas delivery dates anyway. It did give me some help as to which shops to visit. Without an Internet search I would never have discovered that "tory set draper 29117 (9 piece)" would be found in a DIY shop and was in fact torx not tory. 

I cannot fault the enthusiasm and helpfulness of the shop assistants that helped me yesterday. The man in the golf shop was so excited that there was only one of the item on my list in the right size and colour left in stock, "I think you should go out and buy a lottery ticket straight away, madam. It's a Christmas miracle!" I think I exuded the air of the defeated, though when the very helpful lady in the Chelmsford branch of Debenhams said, "Oh, they've got item 4 on your list in John Lewis in Bluewater." She looked at my face, saw a wateriness in my eyes and said, "I think you need to stop for coffee. You shouldn't do shopping without caffeine!"

The man in the DIY shop was particularly

, apologetically helpful. I love to go into a proper hardwear shop, staffed with little old men in brown overcoats, where you could ask for "O's or fork 'andles and they would know exactly what you wanted. He shuffled up to me with his tablet in his hand (I love how technology has crept into the unlikeliest of places) and proceeded to help me with my list. "Torx sets? Oh look my spell check has changed it to Tory too! Well, we wouldn't have them in a set. What does he want them for?"

"I don't know, what are they for?"

"Lectricals, cars, that sort of thing. Some screws are coming with this type of head now."

"That doesn't sound right. 

"Does it have to be Draper? We've got some individual Stanley ones."

"I don't know. I probably had better stick to the list. I don't think I could bear the puppy dog face if I got the wrong size"

He shuddered, "Oh, I know that one. I bought my wife some underwear one year as a surprise......never again! Let me see. You might be able to get it from our rival store but they are usually quite a bit more expensive."

"I thought it was just going to be a little present. Maybe I won't bother."

"Look! I've found one in a store the other side of Colchester." He sucked air in through his teeth, "£48, though!" He wished me a happy Christmas and I hoped his wife would love her footspa. I suspect, though, that she and the LSH may be pulling the same face on Christmas morning. The, "I love that you tried but I can't hide my disappointment" smile.