Maugorn

I meant to post this on Wed but you know? Somehow, I think this is a better post for today.

One of the nice things about teaching something, is that issues inevitably arise that are not YOUR issues. Overcoming those issues then teaches you something you may not know or have realised- it gets you out of your own box. And that magickally gives back to *you* more than you put in.

I'm teaching my bass student "Hotel California". To play it and sing it along with her I needed to be in the key of D- it's original key. When I first learned the song, I couldn't sing it that high, so, since I tune my guitar down a whole step, I used the same fingerings and have sung it in C instead.
But it's never really been a strong song for me, because it still lives way up at the top of my range. I don't know why I didn't just sing it an octave lower in D before- maybe it just didn't project (in the King St days I needed that), or maybe I didn't have the command of the lower part of my range that I do now (Thanks to Cindy's help). Or maybe for 20 years I just never thought of doing it that way. But last Wednsday, I found myself playing it in D again, and singing it an octave lower than Don Henley- and LOVING IT! I had control- I stayed on pitch and I had a really full tone. For 20 years, this song has been in my repertoire, received well when I've done it, but I've never really hit it the way I've wished I could. And all I had to do to find the path to fix it was to teach the bass line to a teenager.
Also, her dad (my guitar student) keeps wanting to learn to play songs I don't know yet, but should. So thanks to him, some other holes in my repertoire keep being filled.
Thursday was a GOOD day!

This is why, even tho my primary professional goal is to find gigs, that I always hope that I have time to have at least one student.
1) It lets me share my gifts and keep the music going and spreading
2) I ALWAYS seem to learn as much as my student does, even when I'm teaching the barest, greenest beginners how to just make the instrument work at all. Nothing has advanced my knowledge or improved my technique as much as teaching.

And when I apply this lesson to the macrocosm, it seems to hold true too- that *sharing* has an intangible way of amplifying that which is shared. I truly believe that That Lesson is the Truth behind the parable of the "Loaves & Fishes" miracle, which IMHO makes it far more important (and useful) than a bit of holy legerdemaine to prove some prophet's street cred.

*This* is what I think the greedy don't understand.

And is my answer to why Universal Healthcare is not a drain on the economy (or an *unfair* burden to support some who might be deemed unworthy), but a boost in prosperity that we will ALL benefit from.
It's a collective act of sharing that will come back to us all manifold.
It's NOT idealistic to believe in it.
I for one, experience it every week.

Try it and see. And think on this when you hear the voices who speak saying that the path to meet our collective needs is the path that enables selfishness and greed. That a path that emphasises "Looking out for OUR interests" means that we eschew the needs of others, and instead become a culture of ME/US first, because there just isn't enough (the budget) to share.

We're coming up on an important election.
Who speaks for a future of sharing, and who speaks of somehow saving our culture thru selfishness and avarice?
Dickens wrote:
"Business? Humanity is our business! MANKIND is our business!"