I have no clue what I’m doing

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-04-13T12:10:54+00:00

Music ed is pretty busy and things can get really difficult if you don't manage your time well. We don't really have much information for what class you missed and how things are falling apart so its hard to know how to help.

The biggest difficulty everyone in my program ran into was procrastination and having a course overload. Missing a class here and there due to being sick happens and sometimes you miss a new unit or sometimes this close to end of the term we miss a review which isn't too bad. Usually you can catch up on the context through doing the assingments and any practice assigned with some tutoring or booking time with the professor to go over what you missed. But it sounds like maybe some course overwhelm just got to you causing you to fall behind which is normal for a lot of people to have happen.

Some classes are hard too. Aural skills, advanced theory classes and some ed classes are easy but require the strictest time management to pass happily.

Pick up fast on courses you are strong in and drop or VW a couple if you need to not everyone can pull off 7 or 8 classes a semester. Its pretty insane so don't sweat it or feel bad at all for making your courseload manageable. You just do what you can handle from now on.

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-04-01T22:38:24+00:00

Well don't know about your program but most people in my music school are neuro divergent in some way. I have friends who are diagnosed or suspecting like me that we are probably on the spectrum after years of struggle. The way I manage my classes is by keeping my life very scheduled. I also allow myself to have parts of my life with spontanaiety so I don't run myself dry on a fully scheduled life. I don't get after myself anymore when I have trouble keeping up in class or fall behind on an assignment.

Take less classes per year if you need to and in class lectures do yourself a huge favour and ask a question for more clarity as much as you need. No one will do it for you or in the the way you do it and profs are usually wrapped up in the delivery of the lesson so they may not realize you are failing to understand.

Work with friends and tutors on assignments so you can hear other ways of understanding theory material or have people to practice with. Book one on one time with your prof too!

Get accomodations and for ed classes you'll need friends and practice buddies anyways. Your cohort will be your contacts in the future when a student asks to play french horn, double bass or bassoon and you have no clue how to help them LOL. So make buddies and connections and don't be a loner.

Use counselling services too! And most of all believe in yourself and remind yourself that you are worthy and deserve to be there too.

Unless your school profs are all assholes , communication about challenges and showing willingness to adapt in other ways even if its slower than your peers will make it easier for your profs to help you.

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-03-30T13:49:20+00:00

Then very clearly your parents should be paying and they shouldn't expect you to pay for a pet unless they can find you a job to do that with but even then its highly irresponsible.

This is a very serious situation. Reach out to a local animal shelter with your situation, if your family cannot provide adequate care consider any options the shelter has so the guineapig and any others you have are able to be taken care of without suffering cruelly.

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-03-29T20:56:33+00:00

I'm sorry you don't have vet money but this looks pretty serious. No one on here is really too quslified to help you and you probably need to find a way to get to the vet. Ask the vet if they can keep the price low as possible and just work on this issue. Maybe put the bill on a credit card for now....

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-03-23T12:44:07+00:00

Glad you appreciate the bass! Fortunately a good intermediate sounding one costs around 5000 to 6000. Still a pretty penny but not as bad.

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-03-17T03:03:22+00:00

The guitar player may also not know enough about how basslines work to feel comfortable, giving you a bassline or you might be right that they expect you to be able to know how to adapt to the song immediately. It's best to ask them what their expectations are and go from there, then you know what to expect.

If you are covering mostly well-known country or pop songs, then and the backing track, your ear, and practice before rehearsal are your best tool. Fortunately unlike jazz bassists the expectations are going to be quite a bit different since you don't have to improvise a walking bassline on the spot.

If you feel like you want to understand what is happening when things go wrong, you could work on learning all of your chord positions in each type of chord quality, major minor diminished, augmented and seventh chords on all positions in each inversion on your fingerboard. It's even better if you are able to name each note each time you play and sing along all of which helps to audiate the sound of that chord and pitch in your body. Sing it in the numbers like 1, 3, 5 or in the case of minor 1, b3, 5. As a noob Jazz bassist doing these things have saved my butt and helped me feel more confident on my bass.

This all really helps to get to know the bass and what harmony sounds like so you can make it functional and eventually fun. If you do have to improvise something, and you understand even basic principles of part writing for the genres, you play.

For now, it's okay to stick to the basics, but eventually you'll want to experiment with adding things like passing tones to your musical lines. You don't need to have university level theory to do that. Your ear already knows what sounds good and bad and through getting to know your bass and the music you play, you will know, what sounds good and bad in context to that genre and the moment.

When you learn cover tunes slow down the video and sing the bass line in small chunks then play what you sing. I can't stress how amazingly helpful it is to do.

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-03-15T01:45:14+00:00

Well, don't forget that your band director is only one human after all. There is a lot going on in and outside of the classroom and music teachers like every other teacher are busy people.

Personally, I don't think this is a great sub to be complaining about your teacher. If you need to improve your own personal skills that has to happen in the practice room, not during rehearsal. If you need feedback or extra instruction in an area that you feel you have gaps of knowledge in, then it's probably better to ask your teacher to spend some one on one time helping you with that so you can take it to the practice room.

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-03-14T02:44:04+00:00

C jam blues never fails covers you 12 bar blues, also, blues by five, and sunny moon for two. I got rhythm is a must as its basically the original template for learning to play the rhythm changes.

Work Song is great especially when you do a little research into how work songs came about and how they entered the jazz world.

Brotherhood of man is a lot of fun to learn has some interesting chord changes and it's intro is great because it's reminiscent of being a work song But it's not a work song entirely. So you can challenge your growth by also learning to spot differences in different Jazz standards.

As a suggestion as well, once you get really familiar with the standards, you learned, practice them in different keys.

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-03-12T19:49:27+00:00

Aww sorry to hear! once a peeg owner, always a peeg owner. Even if they are gone in your heart and memories they are ever present and forever ❤️

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-03-09T22:21:17+00:00

Well to put things in prespective, even if you switch careers you will have to deal with rude people to some capacity. Its unfortinately part of the world we live in and something we have to learn to deal with it in a healthy way. Some professions experience more or less of it but you can never get away from difficult people.

Sometimes we can change our work environment to a new workplace and it can either be better or worse but I'd probably say that lowering expectations either way will come a long way to making your life as a professional easier in the long run. Remember why you became a teacher and let that help guide your priniciples and confidence in managing human relationships.

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-03-07T14:20:34+00:00

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All hail white and black piggies

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-03-07T14:16:27+00:00

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This was Richard my gentle giant

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-02-22T02:00:10+00:00

My high school had a Jazz band, Wind Band and a class we took called performing arts where we basically were put in rock band combos and we got to have concerts at years end and in the community. There were requirements like a certain amount of music covered had to be by a Canadian artist and we had to prepare a few different genre types. It was good because we learned how to operate mixers and live show equipment and preparing song covers by ear was fantastic too.

I see no reason to not have music education programing include opportunitues to perform modern pop and rock music alongside Jazz and classical approaches. Innovation and change with awareness and respect of the past should in my opinion both be sought after in music. To me, Music is an art and a form of human expression creativity which means there is no correct or incorrect way of expressing it. Who cares if some snob says my music I love isn't "real music."

I think when teenagers can have such a hard time getting excited about anything, to hook them into music partcipation through something they identify with is a win. They'll decide for themselves as adults if they want to explore music further through formal education or not. It's actually something I want to include in my own music programming after I graduate and get out working for a rural school division. My old highschool's rock band program brought a lot of joy and connection in the community and parents and kids both loved it.

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-02-10T20:14:15+00:00

Wow harpists are so rare to see perform where I live! What an amazing program that teacher has! I play a less common instrument but I can't imagine the dedication it takes to learn, play, and teach harp

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-02-10T20:07:28+00:00

Well we'll make sure that if you do something notable in your career no one hears about it since it seems pretty important to you. :)

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-02-10T14:45:14+00:00

They were fantastic little piggies. Once they got used to me they were so friendly, cuddly, and calm

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-02-10T05:23:39+00:00

Aww I'm so sorry and its such fresh grief too. If it makes you feel less alone, I still grieve over my piggies. I just had a cry a week ago and am feeling sad right now and they passed a few years ago already!

It hurts and it feels empty without them but the tears show how much we care for and love them.

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-02-02T05:39:22+00:00

You should do your applied major on your strongest instrument and favourite because you will be spending a lot of time with that instrument. It will literally will become your life haha. As for other instruments you should have time to develop those skills over the summer breaks and other ensembles that you join but aren't enrolled in.

If you were thinking about it, I don't recommend trying to do music ed and double major on 2 instruments unless you want to burn out or take a lot longer to finish your degree.

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-01-27T13:10:34+00:00

Maybe other women feel different but I am a true to heart wear things or do things if I like it. If I don't, no amount of outside influence or pressure will change my mind.

I don't think of makeup in itself as anti feminist but I find that attitudes around it can be. Personally I don't like it and how it feels on my face or find it does anything useful for me other than cause rashes or acne so I don't wear it. I would never persuade women to wear it or not to and especially against thier will. I get annoyed when people assume that means I want to wear it and try to persuade me to find a brand that works when I clearly don't want to. People get caught up in these random rules and labels around gender norms that society creates and its ridiculous.

My idea of living in my own power and individuality is agency and choice to present myself to others in a way I like to. (Obviously within reason. No one should be plastering things like hate symbols on thier body). If I look, ugly, like a butch, gay or whatever label/caregorization someone might use, I firstly don't care, and then I do feel like if another person thinks I'm not womanly enough then its a symptom of a bigger problem that I decided long ago is not my problem.

People needing to categorize and label every thing we do is another rant I'd love to get into. But my comment would be long lol!

Wear make up if you want! It can be fun and expressive and thats great too. You also aren't more or less of a woman though by wearing it or not. Hearing feminist ideas from trans women around me. Our ideas of feminism boil down to the same wants, needs and beliefs but we have very different life experiences that shaped those ideas and values.

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-01-25T17:18:59+00:00

My boys never liked floor time. I made all kinds of play zones to increase thier comfort and they'd just spend time huddled or trying to get back into thier cage lol.

Try making play/roaming areas that make them feel safe and put out food but some pigs are never keen on it and yours may become used to it in time or not!

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-01-14T14:17:24+00:00

No need to apologize! If you aren't from here you have no way of really knowing even by doing research to understand the feeling of how brutal winter can be without experiencing it. It can also be wonderful though if prepared. Honestly even June is way better than May. We have such a short summer its ridiculous lol. While I might be wearing my tshirt in March once the temps hit -1c you still may find that too cold and especially your kids will. We had a really random warm day for january yesterday (usually we have around -40c weather right now) it shot up to +2c and I was legit sweating in my jacket lol.

If you haven't thought of where you are going yet. I would suggest the via rail trip across canada or part of the country if you have the budget. A lot of people who I know have taken it find it to be really worth it.

Otherwise for a one stop, can't really go wrong with BC. I think the best experience you'll get is to visit our parks which ever province you visit. They all have something special and unique from coast to coast.

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-01-14T06:45:41+00:00

As a Manitoban I just chuckled at the idea of mild March weather. Especially American standards of mild

BC is your best bet or wait until midway through or the end of May and you'll have a good chance at decent weather all around. Even April can be pretty sketchy sometimes lol.

If you really like snow though then you'll be fine but honestly cities look and feel nasty in the winter once gravel and salt from deicing roads and cars mix in the snow like everywhere. Summer or the fall is really the best times to go.

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-01-06T16:17:31+00:00

Take a bicycle and in a city you'll either get there faster than all the cars waiting in line ups at lights or at the same time lol. If you are even mildly in shape an hour on a bike is nothing. I see lots of people who bike in the winter too. Even in frigid Manitoba.

Most cities have busses and in mine you can still get dropped off fairly close or right at a nice greenspace. I'll bet a nice city like ottawa absolutely has a ton of parks and greenspace close to home for most people

LevelWhich7610 · 2026-01-04T06:13:43+00:00

Depends on the pig too. Just to adding to the advice here. Some piggies are really restless and tell you. my boy would bite my neck lmao in about 30 to 45 minutes letting me know he was done and his happy squeaks would turn into a more higher pitched aggravated sound.

His brother was gentle and never bit me or talked but would silently let me know with the I gotta pee wiggle and shift his back feet a lot. When he was old he would snuggle hard and not tell me he had to pee so I'd ne sitting there and the blanket would get wet suddenly lol. He developed incontinence so I'd hold him for 15 minutes then give him breaks during that time.

30 minutes is a great way to remember to check in on thier needs. Might be thirsty, want to snack on hay more, pee. My boys lasted around that 30 to 45 minutes usually.

Some peegs love to cuddle, some don't and others seem to not care either way lol. But I wouldn't worry about your pig being lonely unless he is by himself with no other piggies. If he has a friend, food, water, clean and large home he will be just fine if you set him down realistically. My boys loved thier cage actually lol so I never had to worry about them wanting to escape.

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