Music Teacher

A dream last night. Actually I only remember dreams during the daytime, when I’m napping or about to get up.

I was in the MRT, and I bumped into my music teacher who taught me from when I was 8 to 11. She was this strict, no-nonsense kind which I respected more than I liked. (I can say the same for the other main music teacher but I respect him more as a pianist than as a person.)

We hadn’t met since I was 11. She asked me what’s going on in my life. I said that I am sitting on 20 songs that I think are good enough but I haven’t made demos of them. She said yah I know you can write music*. So what are you going to do? Time is running out, better get yourself together.

Later on I was talking to 2 of my classmates**. It was their 11 year old selves. Those were the ones who were always better with their hands than I was. They were mature for their age, but still kids nevertheless.

I was of the opinion, and still am, that among all my classmates, I had the best musical brain and the lousiest hand eye co-ordination. I am the Dr Dre who can’t rap, or the Burt Bacharach who can’t sing.

* my first compositions were written under her tutelage. Years later I bumped into a former classmate who met the teacher, and he said that the teacher told them I have music intelligence. My teacher’s Singaporean of course, which means they can only bear to praise you when your back is turned. So while I only dreamt that she said that, it is likely she does have that opinion in real life. Too bad I was lousy with my hands.

** No, Eunice wasn’t one of those 2. For some reason we hardly spoke in class.