MUSIC TEACHER BITTERLY RECALLS WATCHING STUDENT GROW INTO BETTER PLAYER THAN HER

A traditional Irish music teacher rather cynically recalled the experience of how her student grew into a much more accomplished player than she is, leaving her bitter and jealous.

The fiddle player told The Drone how she taught the girl from a young age, starting her on the whistle and then on to the fiddle, right up until she began to realise that her student was becoming a much better musician than her.

After a whole year of watching the student steam ahead of her in terms of ability and her struggling to find something new to teach, she told her pupil to leave and never come back.

"It was an awkward situation but one that I have very fond memories of...the little shit! She thought that it was great being able to leanr by herself and put in her own ornamentation and ignore the ones I had given her!"

"She kept coming back to class with all these tunes and versions of tunes. I was left with nothing to teach her. Then she started getting gigs! Feckin' gigs!! At that point I told her get out of my sight. Ahhhh...the memories."

The teacher told us how the girl went on to become one of the most respected players in the tradition as she got stuck into her fourth gin and tonic in an hour. Remembering how she watched on as the girl received a Gradam Ceoil, she said she became so filled with rage that she smashed the television set with her fiddle.

In order to make sure this never happens again, she told us that she does not praise any of her new students and instead discourages them from practising and criticising their mistakes as a result.

"I like to fuck with their heads. Tell them not to practise and then tell them they're shite when they make mistakes because of it. I like to keep them on their toes. At this rate there's no way they'll ever be as good as me! Brilliant!"