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I'm revisiting this topic, now that teachers have had a chance to get "reacquainted" with students. Perhaps some of you who had students attend camps/workshops or whatever they're calling them these days, could offer up some comments. Thanks.

I am lucky if I can get my students to continue lessons with me in the summer, John. If I can even manage to get that, I feel like I am ahead.

This gets back to "disposable income".

My clientele has shifted dramatically over the past 15 years. I didn't realize it, and hadn't been focused on it. Of course, I live in a guberment town, where most of the money coming in is due to taxes. I guess they only stop when people are dead broke. That may be sooner than we realize! None-the-less, I still like to give students who come from families with disposable income, every benefit I can, including places where they grow and blossom. Every depression has an end and we'll need good teachers when it happens. I'm wondering now (way OT) how teachers managed during the Great Depression. Most have passed now, so we really can't ask them. Too bad.

John, perhaps the changes did not hit as soon and as hard as they did where I live.

Remember, when the "Great Recession" started, it slammed us immediately in South Florida. As I remember your area is much more rural.

There are huge differences between more rural areas and very metropolitan areas.

There is also the sad fact that in my area we have many of the worst problems you have AND that people have in major cities, but without the culture.

This, quite obviously, is not NYC.

Is it all getting worse? I'm not sure. Right now it surely FEELS like it.

Just an aside here, bu there are adult summer music camps too. The one I am familiar with is Summerkeys in Maine, but there are others. I've been three times, and had great fun and learned a lot each time. I do prepare some pieces to work on before I go, with the help of my teacher. I only go for a week, so I don't make a lot of progress in that time. I think the benefits are performing and sharing experiences with the other adults, and the motivation to keep working and improving the rest of the year. I look forward to going again, which gives me a goal to work toward.

I don't think my teacher is bothered or intimidated that I go, quite the opposite. She helps me prepare, and we go over my week at "camp" when I see her after I get back. Of course, being an adult, I can appreciate that there are different ways to do things and differing opinions on how things should be done, something that might confuse a young student. I guess it's good when my at-home teacher and the music camp teacher both tell me I have the same problems!

Sam

Sam, thank you for your comment and insight. I was thinking that more teachers get their students involved in other musical activities, such as camps/workshops, then apparently is the case.