The end of the Festival brings to a close a period of the year where meeting many new people in a short time is unusually common (for Edinburgh). As ever, conversations get round to, what do you do? and when I disclose that I am a guitar teacher in schools, one response crops up more than any other, we never had guitar when I was at school. If its semantically possible, I find the incredulity unbelievable. In the time since many such purveyors of astonishment left school, we have:
- Moved from the Cold War into the post 9/11 era
- Woken to news of the revival of religious wars, slavery and colonialism
- Seen one government after another topple in the former Eastern Europe
- Witnessed an unimaginable enlargement of the EU
- Moved from vinyl, through cassettes to digital and downloadable music
- Witnessed a telecommunications revolution mobile phones, broadband, internet, cable/satellite, podcasting
- Followed the migration of the word cloning from the pages of sci-fi to those of newspapers
- Watched industry turned into history and heritage turned into industry
Yet the thing which seems to register most loudly with some people, is that pupils are learning instruments in school time. In future years I may, in an effort to evoke less amazement, pass myself off as a Quantum IT Consultant or perhaps a Shaman.