Posted by octopusprime on October 27, 2005, at 4:30:46
In reply to male/female friendships are hard, posted by happyflower on October 26, 2005, at 21:58:20
i'm going to ramble on about the relationship i had with my drum teacher last year when i was 25 (outside of school/college) and let you draw your own parallels. i wonder if his wife is jealous because of things that had happened before with his students.
if you are not interested in my ramble please feel free to scroll.
<begin ramble>
i had warm and cool periods in my relationship with my drum teacher. we were friends, saw each other outside of a teaching setting, etc. he was 18 years older than me. he had a girlfriend who was also a very good friend of mine, and was also a student in the class i was taking.
i never started out wanting to be attracted to him, neither did he. but undeniably the attraction happened over the course of the teaching relationship. this put me in the awkward position of being friends with the girlfriend (who was also in my class!) so i had to go talk to the both of them about setting appropriate boundaries so that i could continue the classes, the outside "band" that did some community events, and the friendships. that caused a cooling off period with my teacher, frankly for the better.
<side note - the drum teacher had a girlfriend in the past the same age as me (relative to him) with my same first name, and even looked somewhat like me ... cue creepy music>
in our classes and ensembles, we were working on intertwining five different drum parts (with soloing on top) together on four different types of drums to form a piece. this involved a lot of non-verbal communication, listening, and coordination to get the timing and the sound right.
my teacher attributed some of attraction to the nature of drumming - powerful and tribal with the symbolism of the hand drum with having a big hairy goat skin between the legs. also we studied in the african tradition - where drumming is very much still a virile man's game. it's meant to be a come-on for women in some ways.
i wonder though reading your story if it's not a MUSIC thing instead of a drumming thing. going back to my point about required skills for musicians being non-verbal communication, listening, and coordination -- the only other place adults tend to non-verbally coordinate actions is in the bedroom.
so it's a dangerous game to play in some ways. there are a very limited number of people with your skills and interest (playing the trumpet). your teacher is highly interested in the trumpet, and his wife feels excluded from that interest. you, as a skilled musician, demonstrate certain attributes that might indicate that you would be a good lover.
on the other hand, there is nothing wrong with taking music lessons for personal enrichment. music makes me feel alive.
and personally, i never touched my drum teacher aside from giving him hugs. it never went further than that.
i wound up leaving town and my drum teacher after we had played together for about a year and a half. i left town to further my career. ostensibly, when i looked for work in other towns, it was due to career enrichment. (i did get a big boost - a huge raise, working with lots of smart people, etc etc). but drumming was my life outside of work.
happyflower, i don't know if you are single, but i was at the time. the time i spent drumming, and the emotional energy i invested in my relationship with my teacher, i used as a substitute for having/seeking relationships with men. i think one reason i looked for work in other towns was because my personal life was not going as i intended/imagined. and continuing, week after week, to play drums while not really getting the closeness i wanted out of a relationship with a man got frustrating in some ways, no matter how much i wanted to deny it to myself. (we could also talk about a married co-worker i was emotionally close to at that time, and having that situation partially prompt a job search, but that's another kettle of fish ...)
i last took lessons from my teacher december of last year. i still see him from time to time (i live only 3 hours away) but i have not had a lot of time to visit with him/his girlfriend. i feel a bit badly about what happened, i suppose - especially the leaving abruptly part. but i have since got married and working at my new job means spending more mental energy at work (that i was previously using on my drumming). there are drum teachers in my new town but i only play informally in drum circles and with my husband (he is learning how to play as well).
compared to my emotional state this time last year, i feel much better now.
<end ramble>
poster:octopusprime
thread:572247
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/relate/20051002/msgs/572302.html