u/Advanced_Culture_670

Does a method-book series cap how far a student can eventually go, or does that depend more on the teacher's own goals for her studio?

My daughter (10) has been taking piano for three years with a lovely neighborhood teacher — nice rapport, low-pressure, recitals 2x a year. They use the Piano Adventures series and she's currently finishing Level 2A. From what I understand, a lot of kids finish that series (through 2B/3A) in about 2-3 years, so we're running a bit behind that pace, though I could be wrong about what's typical.

The teacher is early in building her own practice (this is a part time job for her), and I want to give her room to grow rather than second-guess her. But I'm trying to figure out how to think about this, and I'd love input on two separate things:

1. Is Faber/Piano Adventures itself a limiting track, or is it just as capable of leading to serious classical repertoire as any other method, provided the teacher takes a student there?
2. What's the right way to ask a teacher about her own trajectory for students — not "is my kid good enough" but something like "what level are you hoping to take students who stick with it, and does your studio tend to produce kids who go on to more advanced/classical work, or is it more common for students to move on after a few years?" Is that a fair/normal question to ask a teacher, and is there better language than "serious" for what I'm getting at?

For context on why I'm asking: in my own childhood, I started with Thompson books, lost my first teacher unexpectedly, and my path after that depended entirely on later teachers actively pushing me toward Czerny, then early Beethoven, then repertoire I asked to learn (Chopin etc). Looking back, it wasn't the method book that determined how far I went — it was whether a teacher had an appetite for taking a student further, and whether I asked. That's partly why I'm curious whether Piano Adventures is a similar "goes as far as the teacher wants to take it" tool, or whether it's more of a hobbyist-track method by design.

I don't want to dwell on comparisons, but I have friends in other cities whose children are already playing advanced pieces and even performing with chamber ensembles. So I'm wondering whether this is holding my daughter back in favor of sticking with what is easier in the short term.

To be clear — I'm not trying to hothouse a 10-year-old or chase "advanced" for its own sake. I just want to understand whether the current path leaves the door open for more later, and how to have that conversation with her teacher without it sounding like a complaint.

As I've been working with my 10yo ASD/PDA daughter, I've been wondering when — or if — she'll become self-aware about how she differs from her peers. It's had me reflecting on my own childhood, especially the moments my worldview got cracked open and I suddenly saw how different my behavior was from other kids my age. I'll give two examples, and I'm curious if others have had similar experiences, and how it shaped you.

I grew up being praised for my intelligence and leaning hard on that as my identity — the "smart kid." By 4th grade I'd developed a smug sense of superiority. If people didn't like me, obviously it was because they were stupid, or jealous. My father was emotionally distant, maybe embarrassed by me at times, I'm not sure. My mother tried to check my worst extremes but was otherwise proud of my grades and let it go.

There was also a broader family tendency to let kids be kids. We grew up moderately wealthy in Latin America, with maids, cooks, a gardener — no chores, no housecleaning. Not ostentatious, just normal for our culture and class. But I also don't remember ever being taught to say thank you. Adults took care of you; that was the deal. Few expectations of us beyond appearance, table manners, and grades.

Shock one came in sixth grade. My teacher finally hit her limit, took me aside, and got right in my face: "Nobody disagrees that you're smart. But you're insulting your classmates and me, and that ends now. You are not the smartest person in the room. Today you were flat-out wrong about [whatever I was on about]. Parents have been calling me about how you treat other students. This is a problem, and you need to turn it around." It was harsh, but it was also the first time anyone had been honest with me about how I was showing up in the world. I started rethinking my behavior.

Shock two came through a carpool. One of the other kids — American, well-spoken, my same age (11 or 12) — turned to my mom after his first ride and said, "Thank you for the ride, Mrs. H!" I'd been in carpools for years and it had never once occurred to me to say thank you, or even goodbye. Something cracked open. I became suddenly, acutely aware of the gap between my peer's ease and my own childishness — and unsure whether nobody had taught me basic consideration, or whether I'd simply resisted learning it.

******

Parenting has put all of this back in front of me. My daughter is bright in a lot of ways, but the PDA piece means she resists almost anything suggested to her — the gains we've made (hygiene, table manners, homework, piano) mostly came through brutal confrontations and outbursts before we got her diagnosed. She has friends, does OK at school, is seen as kooky and fun. But I've noticed some of her closer friends carry a level of emotional maturity she doesn't have yet — they can hold a dinner conversation with my wife and me in a way she can't — and I've started seeing early signs of those friends getting annoyed with her silliness.

My own awakenings came through confrontation and through quiet comparison to a peer — both fairly standard social-learning pathways. But PDA kids often have a nervous-system-level aversion to perceived demands or correction, which makes me wonder if the "sharp shock" model that worked on me would just backfire on her, or take a completely different shape.

Have any of you seen a moment like this land for themselves or their PDA kid — and what did it actually look like?

My friends gifted me a BSS ticket for my birthday in a week. I'm not familiar with them or their music, and the size of the band and collaborators over the years makes it hard for me to get a grasp on WHO they are, the personalities, key songs, etc.

Any suggestions on where to dive in with them so that I'm ready and prepared for the show? Any key albums, tracks? I prefer to be primed and ready for a listening experience. Thanks in advance!

Wondering if anyone else experienced going all-in on Rush — rightfully being blown away by the musicianship and the resonance of the words and music, say — to the point where you wrote off and dismissed any other bands/music else as inferior, and you had to go back and rediscover music that you'd missed out of because of that blind spot.

I was raised on classical music in Latin America, and would hear all the international hits on the radio ... Queen, B52s, ABBA ... alongside cumbia and merengue and salsa. We got cable TV and MTV in the early 80s, and one night I caught the Exit Stage Left concert, and it blew my mind wide open. I became obsessed with everything Rush because their virtuosity was undeniable, and they spoke to my need to express myself and reach for excellence despite all of the outside pressure to settle for mediocrity or a quiet, comfortable life.

Which is all fine and good. Except that being a stubborn 14-year-old, my tendency was to dig my heels in, and shut everything else out without giving it a fair shake. There was a lot of music that I got pleasure from hearing — J Geils, Van Halen, Journey, Cat Stevens. But I would file it away under "inferior" to Rush because it was "party music" or didn't have the complexity that I thought denoted superior musicianship. (I cringe as I recall this)

It took a couple of years for me to open my mind. I finally saw a live concert of Tears for Fears on cable ... a band I had written off as pretty boys with pretty hair and synthethizers. The musicianship was on point and the arrangements so tight and exciting. Everything that I loved about Rush.

I used to dismiss Duran Duran in the same way, basically because I thought of them as an extension of the popular "trendy" kids at my school. Truth be told, the bass player is every bit as distinctive and innovative as Geddy. I had to eat a lot of humble pie, and make an effort to really LISTEN.

Heck ... I needed to evolve at some point. Neil and Alex embracing The Police and other New Wave bands was an example to me to broaden my horizons.

I'm sad to say that in overcorrecting to fix my blind spot, I drifted away from Rush in the 90s. It was good to embrace other musics ... alternative, indie, alt-country, back to classical, hip-hop, soul. About 10 years ago I returned to the Rush fold like a prodigal son, found that I had been missing it too. And it was good to be home and embraced.

(Cue up Headlong flight...)

Seeing the shows in Chicago brought back all kinds of memories. My friends and I were "Lil' Rush" long before Sourth Park!

I had a garage band in Jr high school where I had to teach my two best friends how to play bass and drums so I could play guitar with them. We were kind of lousy and "In The End" was the only Rush song we could even begin to try to play at first. (This was the early 80s, long before Youtube for learning songs). I thought I was pretty hot stuff because I could play the solo on this, and would open my shirt up to my bellybutton and try to mimic Alex and Jimmy Page.

For almost a year we played it into the ground to the point where I was pretty sick of it. We went on to write a bunch of our own songs, inspired by Rush and Iron Maiden mostly. Our friend Danny was an awesome DJ and would spin Run-DMC and Madonna and DeBarge etc, for house parties and then we'd trade sets. So if the rest of our friends group wanted to dance, they had to put up with us in between. I'd often sneak "Broon's Bane" and "Discovery" from 2112 into our sets. I'm cringing right now thinking about all the high school parties that I ruined by doing that! At least our friends were good sports about indulging me.

We had the jankiest versions of YYZ and Limelight. We weren't ready for prime time by any means, and now on YouTube I see 9-year-olds killing the songs perfectly. Good for the kids!

All these years later, in our 50s, I mostly play bluegrass and Irish music after being in bands for years; the bassist is in a Motley Crue tribute band in his spare time; the drummer got quite good and still plays in a nu-metal band. We're all in different parts of the country. Maybe a 50th anniversary tour and dance party is in order for us!

I just wrapped a full rebuild for a client (sheet metal fabrication company, ~30 pages, Divi, low traffic, no e-commerce) and they're asking for an ongoing maintenance plan. I'm somewhat new to maintenance plans.

Thinking about structuring it as:

• Monthly retainer covering core/plugin/theme updates, backups, and basic uptime checks
• A small bucket of "on-call" minor edits included — think text corrections, swapping out a photo, small copy tweaks — capped at something like 30 min/month
• Anything bigger (new pages, design changes, new functionality) gets quoted separately

I'm not handling hosting. I was going to price this around $95/month but now I'm second-guessing myself — feels high for what's genuinely light, boring maintenance work on a small static-ish site, but also I don't want to undercut what this is actually worth long-term.

For those of you running maintenance plans for small business clients (especially smaller/rural markets, not big metro pricing):

• What's your monthly price for something similar?
• How much "free" edit time do you include before it becomes a separate charge?
• Anyone regret pricing too low on these and having to renegotiate later?

Appreciate any insight and thanks!

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"I can't pretend a stranger is a long-awaited friend." I've been thinking a lot over the past few years about Neil's standoffishness and awkwardness at excessive praise and fans that try to get too close. It took me a long time to truly appreciate how he was holding space for himself, and what a beautiful dignity that modeled. "Ghost Rider" was such an intimate and generous gift for us who wanted to get to know more about him, and a window into how he preferred to interact with the world. I respect that so much.

What a contrast to current pop culture and cults of personality and the fakeness of it all. We all develop some sort of parasocial relationship with the artists and musicians we admire ... but it's on us to keep it sane and not go overboard. I say this as someone who grew up in the early 80s thinking of Alex and Geddy as sort of my dream older brothers, wondering what I'd say to them if we crossed paths. And seeing Neil as a godlike man of words, ideas, and rhythmic virtuosity. (which is really weird in itself, but when I was 14 I FELT the big feelings. These days I can appreciate the artists, and be in awe, without being weird. I hope).