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I Don't Believe It!

Alan Coady

Wednesday 30 August 2006

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 it’s 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.

Comments

I dont believe it

Brian

Thursday 31 August 2006

And of course the change of marathon to snickers

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