A guitar teacher's diary during the Covid-19 outbreak

Guitar Teacher’s Diary – Log 14 (Current Date – 30/04/2020)

So it’s almost been a month since my last post. I realised that looking at the news and figures everyday had a negative impact on my mental health and drive as so I decided to stop looking each day. I didn’t intend to leave it this long however. I have built up the confidence to go for my first food shop and have to say Tesco was pretty good. Clear arrows on the floor and most customers sticking to them and socially distancing from each other, trolly handles being disinfected as they are passed to you, and most of the shelves had plenty of food on them. I have now started working hard on creating online, interactive guitar lessons and have a real drive and aim to get this up and running. and I have managed to leave the house 4 times now (in the last 7 weeks) as today I went for a walk with my brother after helping him move his office chair. I have a van and it wouldn’t fit in his car, and we kept to all social distancing rules. So with this I am feeling a bit more positive. Tomorrow is my birthday and as my way of celebrating while in lockdown I have decided to launch a new song I have written, recorded and mastered myself, along with its music video that I have film edited and produced myself and guitar tabs (sheet music for guitars) and backing tracks. I have asked everyone to share it an interact with it to help it grow as a birthday gift instead of getting me anything. On my shop I knew it would be the last shop before my birthday so I bought some melon and cake, so I have those waiting for tomorrow! I have also just started a workout challenge with my American friend Jenny. It is great, however I have realised how little working out I have actually done in the last 7/8 weeks. I’m glad I’ve started as I need to get back onto looking after my fitness. A lot of my friends have invited me to join in with lockdown things, daily tasks etc, however most of them are furlow (not at work but being paid) so have all the time they need to take part in these. I instead have had to say no to a lot of them and still struggle to keep up with the two I have said yes to. A work out challenge and an abundance mindset challenge. Both I see genuine benefit from so I have tried to keep fitting them in. Not sure what else to update on, though a lot has happened, as its mostly towards the website for myself and the rest of the world seems to be in stand by unless you’re an essential worker. The figures have grown a lot but it has been almost an entire month since my last update:

Latest figures (18:17 30/04/2020)

The Current figures world wide are 3,271,198 Cases 231,231 dead 1,031429 recovered The UK figures are now 171,253 Cases 26,771 Dead Recovered now just listed as N/a – not sure why.

Guitar Teacher’s Diary – Log 13 (Current Date – 02/04/2020)

Missed a couple of days, a couple of very down days, just breaking into tears for no real reason. Things have started to feel pointless, but I escaped the property for a walk on my own. It didn’t seem to help much, but today has been a little more on focus. I realised I now spend 15 hours or more a day looking at screens and it’s not me. I am a social, extrovert and It doesn’t feel good for me physically or emotionally. Today however I have made more progress and been productive once again and things are feeling a little better in my box of a house. I am starting to get low on food now so a shop trip will be required soon which I am still dreading. I have been listening to one of Richard Brandson’s audio books and reading High Performance Habit’s by Brendon Burchard to help keep me focused and positive as well. The figures have grown quite a bit in the last two days though:

Latest figures (22:00 02/04/2020)

The Current figures world wide are 1,007,793 Cases 52,611 dead 210,838 recovered The UK figures are now 33,718 Cases 2,921 Dead 135 Recovered

Guitar Teacher’s Diary – Log 12 (Current Date – 30/03/2020)

I have missed a few days. On Saturday I ran my guitar clubs online and then decided to start my weekend. I had some video chats with friends including those over seas and ended up drinking. Now I don’t usually drink. In fact I can normally count the amount of times I drink each year using the fingers on one hand. And for some reason I ended up going through more than two bottles of wine to myself. This made Sunday a complete write off. I got less than 5 hours out of bed between going to bed at around 6am Sunday morning and getting out of bed at 8am Monday morning. It reminded me why I don’t drink often! Today I woke up and did all my morning routine things, finally got the last of feeling sorry for myself out of the way and was welcomed with a surprise. A friend was going to the store and willing to drop some things off to me. I asked him to buy more long life milk and some fruit. He arrived and dropped them off, we kept distance apart from passing the items and money. The milk is currently staying in the porch for a few days and the bananas I washed along with my hands before putting them down in the kitchen. It was so nice to have fruit again. I have missed it this last two weeks. I then had my online clubs which seem to be going pretty well. and found time to both read and drum during my lunch break. I have completed my tick list of tasks except meditation which I plan to do between writing this and going to bed. I am as on top of house work as ever as well as this tends to be the main distraction from work. I don’t mean distraction as in I am cleaning to procrastinate, but distraction as I have planned specifically at certain times in the day to break up my screen time and give my eyes a rest as well as my mind. my mental and physical health are things I can keeping a close eye on during these times. in just missing a couple of days however, the numbers have gone crazy. we are now over 3/4 of a million cases and the death toll is rising, however I am not sure what top trust. I have heard that they are classing all deaths that show any signs of Covis-19 as a covid-19 death even if it wasn’t the cause. A lot of places aren’t testing and there seems to be more and more conspiracy theory’s coming to light and some with weird forms of evidence or unusual coincidence surrounding them.

Latest figures (20:50 30/03/2020)

The Current figures world wide are 771,984 Cases 37,016 dead 160,243 recovered The UK figures are now 22,141 Cases 1,408 Dead 135 Recovered

Guitar Teacher’s Diary – Log 11 (Current Date – 27/03/2020)

Today I was doing my admin tasks and I realised how lucky I have been so far, I have kept many of my students and due to my quick actions to adapt the entire business to online tuition has definitely paid off. I didn’t manage to complete all of the admin tasks I wanted to today, but I made good progress so still feel positive. Today one of my students confirmed that their boss (of a very small team) has has tested positive for covid-19. The Prime minister has also tested positive today. I have begun fitting in quick exercises between lesson calls to ensure I stay active and refreshed often throughout the day. So far I have had plenty of focus and drive on the business and haven’t really felt a personal impact on the situation, however I’m sure it will soon hit me. I am started to be aware of how low my food levels are starting to get. I have a enough food for another little while, but I don’t want to leave the house, or have new things in my house where I can possibly avoid it. it could be very easy to get swept into the madness and I am trying now to focus mostly on what I am doing for myself and my business and avoiding all the madness, as it could literally turn me mad. So here are the figures being posted, but I am not sure how reliable they are.

Latest figures (20:20 27/03/2020)

The Current figures world wide are 590,005 Cases 26,935 dead 132,440 recovered The UK figures are now 14,543 Cases 759 Dead 135 Recovered

Guitar Teacher’s Diary – Log 10 (Current Date – 26/03/2020)

Another great day of working hard and keeping the focus with some blue skies. I feel I’m getting into the routine of this new world with my workout routines, my work direction and clarity for what I’m doing now and what I’m working on for the future. I have managed to get some of this clarity posted to my students to help them feel grounded with what I am doing and what the time frames will be and I have managed to already get ahead of these time frame while feeling relaxed about how much work I am doing. Today we came together as a huge community as the nation all went to their doors and windows and clapped to show support to our health workers. It was a hugely emotional event, and I feel very proud to be a part of it. The NHS are working so hard through this. I am in talks with a friend in New Zealand now who is also in clock down but their country has done the same things we have done with just 10% of our cases. Another reason why I love their prime minister!

Latest figures (21:20 26/03/2020)

The Current figures world wide are 525,609 Cases 23,711 dead 123,329 recovered The UK figures are now 11,658 Cases 578 Dead 135 Recovered

Guitar Teacher’s Diary – Log 9 (Current Date – 25/03/2020)

I have been in my house and garden without even leaving the front lawn for 8 days now, I am aware that I will get getting low on food soon, but I am still with enough food for another week as long as I don’t over eat. Another day of sunshine, but I spent eh majority of my time creating guitar lesson videos. Being shut inside means I have no excuse, It’s time to get on with my guitar video courses, for my current students and my future ones. I have not had anyone round or been out to see anyone, so unless my neighbour managed to pass anything on to me when fixing his fence, I have now been in Isolation long enough without symptoms to be clear that I don’t have the virus. This is a good thing, but also means I haven’t had it, so I haven’t built up any anti-bodies to it either. They are working on tests to look for the anti-bodies, and on tests that can be done at home to see if you have the virus. Both of these will make a huge difference to how we manage during the time between now and a vaccine being available on a mass scale. They have also announced a new testing centre only 30 minutes drive from my home, so I assume that means easy access when things do become available nationally. I chose to use some downtime today to make my first swiss-roll cake, and it actually went really well. I had to stop myself before over eating. Another good, productive day. Not yet feeling any really issues with Isolation emotionally, but nervous that I will start to do so soon. Guess all the video calls are helping.

Latest figures (22:00 25/03/2020)

The Current figures world wide are 466,633 Cases 21,145 dead 113,802 recovered The UK figures are now 9,529 Cases 465 Dead 135 Recovered

Log 8 (Current Date – 24/03/2020)

What a day. I had a bit of a lay in this morning, which makes a change. I had been waking up earlier than my alarm almost everyday for god knows how long (even if I do stay in bed awake afterwards) The Sun was out and I knew exactly what I needed to get on with. I did my morning video posts to social media sites and then set up my office in the garden. I ran power out and worked on my lesson plans and teaching documents in the sun. Soaking in the Vitamin D while working. By midday I was done with my important tasks for the business, but hadn’t done any of my personal to do list so I made myself some food, sat in the sun eating, followed by reading my book while the food settled, followed by exercise on the trampoline, stretches and then light meditation all in the sun. It was then time for my students, and Tuesday students are all great students for me, plus I had clear plans in place for what they were going to learn today, so an easy sailing day. Planning is worth it! The only thing I didn’t plan for, was getting sun burnt in England, in March! it’s light enough that I’m sure the skin will go brown instead of flaking off, but only If I’m careful not to get too much more sun before it heals. With such clear tasks, done with focus, great time in my garden and then a smooth run of students I have barely even noticed the world beyond my property so lock-down has been easy today. Although this may change as I am now about to look at the current news/status of everything. Back in a second… ..Not much new to report on luckily, Just crazy numbers now breaking 400,000 cases.

Latest figures (22:44 24/03/2020)

The Current figures world wide are 418,099 Cases 18,608 dead 108,323 recovered The UK figures are now 8,077 Cases 422 Dead 135 Recovered

Log 7 (Current Date – 23/03/2020)

Today I have been focused on getting the business ready for this new world. After working on the Website and lesson plans I ran today’s classes online. It has clearly effected business already as less than half the numbers logged in compared to what I would usually see face to face at the clubs. I have felt good today. Like I’m finally getting on top of my own mind. The panic has started to settle and I know have a good Idea on what action to take or what actions to think about in more detail for the next few weeks. After the stupidity of a large number of people yesterday, the Prime minister has now enforced a lock down. We are not to leave the home apart from a very small number of reasons with enforcement by the police. Boris is trying so hard not to be as strict as other countries bless him, but he has been forced to do this by our own stupid choices. I’ve already been in lock-down myself for a week now and I am proud to have not been a part of any of the stupidity. Mass gatherings, going to crowded beaches, shops, markets, parks etc, Panic buying and over stocking. Though I must admit I wish I had bought more food when I last shopped so I could go even longer without having to go to the shops again. The shops are where everyone is going, where the crowd of people are and the stupid ones go mad, they are probably now the main place to get the virus. Possibly second to hospitals. It was only 3 days ago we broke 1/4 of a Million infected. Now we are clearly passed the 1/3 mark, but we do have over 100,000 recovered now as well which is awesome. They keep saying it has a death rate of only 3.4% and we should be able to get that lower. But I’m not sure of these numbers: Cases = 378,394 Deaths = 16,491 That is already 4.358% Or a scarier, but possibly less accurate way to look at it, is to just compare those that no longer have it. Then it’s 101,584 recovered and 16,491 dead That’s a death rate of 13.98% Now more accurately, there are 12,211 in critical states let’s say 1/3 recover (which is generous based on the figures I’ve seen) that’s still 8,00 more to die from the current infected if we add this to current figures we get: Cases = 378,394 Deaths = 24,491 That’s 6.472% I like to be optimistic yet realistic so I would guess the real rate is about 7-8%

Latest figures (23:00 23/03/2020)

The Current figures world wide are 378,394 Cases 16,491 dead 101,584 recovered The UK figures are now 6,650 Cases 335 Dead 135 Recovered

So many Countries including the UK, are not testing everyone, Just those in Hospitals showing sever conditions, there is also conspiracies around China’s figures being compressed/covered up, so this could be higher, but these are the confirmed cases.

We are only two weeks behind Italy and they’re currently on: 63,927 Cases 6,077 Dead 7,432 Recovered

Log 6 (Current Date – 22/03/2020)

Today is Sunday. Mothering Sunday. I decided to go into a family group chat on a social media site and ring the entire family. Everyone answered and we spent a fair bit of time just talking as a family over 6 different screens before my brother left and then we continued as 5 for even longer. It was a great laugh, just playing with filters to make us look silly. For the first day since I have been stuck at home, the sun came out. I decided to take this time to sort my garden out and to continue to treat the weekend as though it was, indeed, a weekend. My neighbour came out and was frustrated at how slowly I reacted to my broken fence. He got very angry over something so small. I stayed calm and said I was working on the garden all day so it would be covered and he eventually calmed down. HE also continued to fix the fence himself which I was very grateful for as this gave me time to work on everything else I wanted to do. Once I finished the garden I felt a bit better than I had for a few days. The last few days I had achieved a lot so I don’t think it was that. I think it was him being angry at me that helped. It was just some form of true human emotion near me and interactive. Although I wish he would have kept a bit more of a distance. He didn’t seem to understand the call by the prime minister to keep at least 2 meters away.

Nation of Idiots

After settling down to look at what I could do for the business, I found myself on social media again and there was post upon post of people on the beach or at parks in huge numbers. Here I am Isolating and staying home to ensure I don’t end up being a carrier and end up passing this disease on to other people, and hundreds of people are still packing themselves into huge gatherings. Even with the guidance of so many other countries, we still are not in lock down, but I feel we should be as we are a direct 2 weeks behind Italy on the death rates right now and they cannot cope at all with the numbers. I want to look back on myself in this time and feel I have done the right thing so I am staying as Isolated as Physically possible. Another mad thing that our population hasn’t thought out is panic buying! supermarkets packed with people trying to get in and buy everything. They are buying because they’re scared, yet going to the most crowded places possible, which is the most likely place to catch the virus. I am going to wait until everything is controlled or until I am literally out of food entirely before I brave the shops myself.

Latest figures (21:40 22/03/2020)

The Current figures world wide are 335,403 Cases 14,611 dead 97,636 recovered The UK figures are now 5,683 Cases 281 Dead 93 Recovered

We are only two weeks behind Italy and they’re currently on: 59,138 Cases 5476 Dead 7024 Recovered

Guitar Teacher’s Diary – Log 5 (Current Date – 21/03/2020)

From good day to difficult day. To was the first day trying out my guitar clubs over video call. It didn’t go as smooth as I was hoping but it was a great learning curve for next week. I know that I now need to prepare the material in advance and then send the information across for them to try out before the session, ,and then use the session as a chance to answer questions and explain the theory side of things. At least that’s the next thing to try. they weren’t as smooth as the one to one sessions anyway. After realising the amount of work required to keep on top of the daily tick list, the lesson preparation, the video editing and trying to get things available online so I can expand I crashed. This was as soon as the clubs finished. Today I finished students and then just cleaned the house so that I didn’t shut down completely. When I say clean, I mean from top to bottom, including the attic, dusting, hoovering, wiping down the radiators and doors and doing another load of clothes washing. I couldn’t face work but wanted to be productive. Once every task was complete, I stopped and processed why I was overwhelmed. I had just turned my entire business structure over in a couple of days, with over 60 students and tried to keep everything smooth, give value and maintain students and none of it was planned. It was also straight after being ill, that was straight after the biggest day of my business year, which had been over 2 solid months of planning, all without a rest, unplanned and not my own fault. I realised I need a holiday, but I’m in Isolation and the country will soon be on lock down, so I did the next best thing. I got my acoustic guitar and did a live stream video, just playing songs and singing (sometimes okay, sometimes badly). I ended up on the video for over an hour and a half! I want to be social and I want to go out for a walk but I want to stay as one of the good people, who takes the action we should to stay distance and Isolated where possible. I will soon be going to bed, and I haven’t completed half of my tick list but it will just have to stay that way for one day.

Latest figures (21:00 21/03/2020)

The Current figures world wide are 304,328 Cases 12,983 dead 94,677 recovered The UK figures are now 5,018 Cases 233 Dead 93 Recovered

Log 4 (Current Date – 20/03/2020)

Today has been good for me considering the situation. I completed my tick list (or completing now as I type this) I managed to teach my students over video call and they all seemed very happy with the service I have. I started some grow pots with seeds from the bell peppers and the tops of some carrots. I have no idea if they’ll grow but I know that growing plants and food can be a great source of relaxation and give a sense of achievement so thought it was worth a go. I saw my neighbour, and keeping a safe distance of 2 meters as guided by the government, we spoke for a couple of minutes. This was my first social interaction that wasn’t through a camera and screen since I left my sisters on the day I started this log. I also managed to get some eggs delivered so I have some food for breakfast for the next couple of weeks as well. I have spoken to my friend Nikki who is currently travelling in Australia and she has accommodation and food still covered and seems to be in a safe place, also in far nicer weather than us! After my students and my planting I went into super clean mode so my kitchen is spotless, every cupboard door was scrubbed inside and out, you might think this is through boredom with isolation, but actually, I haven’t had much time to stop with my tick list, working on the business growth and student video calls. Instead it was just an urge I had to do it. It’s now gone midnight and I need to be up and on form for tomorrows Video style club session so today’s is just a short one, however I’m sure there will be more to report tomorrow, and as always I will add current figures before I save and go to bed.

Latest figures (00:30 21/03/2020)

The Current figures world wide are 275,276 Cases 11,384 dead 91,533 recovered The UK figures are now 3983 Cases 177 Dead 65 Recovered

Log 3 (Current Date – 19/03/2020)

I have now had 10 student lessons over video call and things are going well on those lessons. I have found a way to type up their music and send it to them quickly and easily just as I used to write in their exercise books. A few students have already dropped out, a few people i know have already been made redundant and the government has announced that all schools will be closing tomorrow for at least a few months. There is rumours going around from a few sources, that they are going to force us into complete shutdown with the military being involved to keep people inside (though this has not been confirmed).

Positive News

While things are getting harder and the worse is yet to come, there is a lot of good news as well.

China had their first day with a lower number of new cases than recovered cases since this started, although they have been in lock-down so this isn’t necessarily as good as it may sound.
China and Italy have been in lockdown so much that our air and water ways are substantially less polluted and wildlife are returning to canals and the outskirts of towns
Four countries have independently made huge progress in medical care and believe they have a cure. These will need months of testing and then mass production and distribution so maybe months away yet but that is still huge progress on both cures and vaccines
The world is being more collective and connected than ever before. We are all in this together and working together. China and Italy have shared resources among many other countries

On a personal level, I am also using this time to ensure I come of this a better stronger person than I have gone into this. I have a daily task list and have started to implement things already for developing my physical fitness, mental fitness, general well-being and business strength. Almost all of my students have shown great support and community amongst this and I feel so thankful and proud of the community I have started.

The routine

This was a post I put up on a social media site today:

I am in isolation now, though I believe it just to be a common cold. To keep myself and my business going I have created a daily to do tick list to keep on top of through this stage and through further lock-downs etc that may come into place.
If you are in Isolation or about to, I would advise you think about the personal tasks you can be doing as it could be easy to fall into a routine that is unhealthy. I plan to come out of this in a healthier position than I am in right now. At least in my personal health both physical and mental. I have less control over how well the business does, all I can do there is continue to work hard, give the best value I can, and hope all my student themselves can maintain their income so that I can maintain mine.

My current daily tick list is:
Personal: 1) Exercises 2) Stretches 3) Meditation 4) Reading educational litterateur 5) Written blog/log (some personal outlet) 6) Eat healthy food and healthy quantities 7) Talk to someone non-business related Business: 1) Post a short micro guitar lesson on TikTok, Insta and FB 2) Create content for private and club lessons 3) Work on maintaining the awesome guitar ninja community by working on collaboration products, and other things 4) Create content for online courses to continue to grow the business or at least have things in place for when life starts getting back to normal The business tasks are quite big, but as long as I make progress in each section every day that is all that matters. I hope seeing this will help some of you think about positive use of the isolation time, and if you think I have missed anything important please let me know.

Latest figures (21:30 19/03/2020)

The Current figures world wide are 244,176 Cases 10,006 dead 86,714 recovered The UK figures are now 3269 Cases 144 Dead 65 Recovered

Log 2 (Current Date – 18/03/2020)

Today started with me recording a video over 12 minutes long as a clear announcement to all of my students on what my plans are going forward to keep them learning, engaged and myself above water. The main points are: I have 66 students I see every week, most from different places and different social environments. many still active like the younger students in schools with over 1000 other kids and older more vulnerable students. I don’t want to be the place where the virus crosses from one area to another so I am now stopping face to face lessons. instead I will be doing the following:

Private lessons are now on a video call (Skype)
Group sessions are now on video conference (Zoom)
I will do Daily things to work on as short micro lesson videos on social media accounts
I will create a group just for students to be social and keep the community feel going
I will work on a way to do collab videos where they can send in some footage of them playing, and I will edit it into a video to keep us working together as a team on projects

I also have all the photos and videos to edit from the performance so I have a lot of plans to be staring at screens over the next few weeks. in response to the video I have had another student mention they may need to stop. They don’t plan to, but work will possibly dry up for them with the shut down and like myself they are self employed so need to keep on top of their overheads. I want to give the best service I can and show support for all my students and don’t want to come across as selfish at all but I do also fear for my own income levels as this virus continues to spread. I have seen reports of vaccines/cures being tested already which is great, however even if these work in trials the requirement for testing etc and then distribution means we are still months if not a year away from this reaching the general population.

Family Gathering cancelled

Today is my brothers birthday. We were meant to be gathering as a family to have dinner together to celebrate, however my mum is recovering from operations and my dad has a few health issues. As I am seeing very light symptoms of the Corona virus I have deiced to play it safe and say that I w0n’t be joining them. I feel the symptoms are that light, they could just be after symptoms of my sickness or a complete placebo through over exposure to the news and social media coverage of the virus, however I would rather play it safe than potentially infect others. After letting them know, my parents also decided not to join as I had been with my sister and her family over the weekend, so my brothers birthday has been a bit disappointing. I feel sorry for him, though I am sure that this will effect most of our birthdays as this doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

Latest figures (15:30 18/03/2020)

The Current figures world wide are 208,185 Cases 8,272 dead 82,902 recovered The UK figures are now 2626 Cases 71 Dead (105 dead reported before 5pm) 65 Recovered

Guitar Teacher’s Diary – Log 1 (Current Date – 17/03/2020)

It is now the 17th March and things feel serious enough to start this log. As events have been happening for some time I should start with a quick backstory. The corona virus called Covid-19 appeared in China in December 2019. Due to the nature of my business and my personal feeling about the media, I was pretty unaware of the situation for a long time. The virus had reached 6 continents before I was even aware that it existed (I was behind the main curve as I avoided news, social media or talk that wasn’t related to my business) The first day I became truly aware of the disease was on March 8th 2020. only 9 days before starting this log, so as you can imagine, things changed drastically in this time. On March 8th 2020 my sister, my brother and I went to Cadbury world for a sibling, joint birthday outing. It was only during this day that I saw hand sanitiser on every corner of the site, and posts online about people panic buying toilet paper and pasta among other things. After our trip we stopped for food and read reports about the virus. During the meal we saw people outside with face marks which simply added to the discomfort of realising we had just been to a very crowded place among people from all kinds of areas and backgrounds. This was the day Corona Virus Covid-19 would go from something I had heard about, but didn’t really think about, to the main thing on my mind for at least the following 9 days leading up to this log. Since the 8th of March the news has been coming in of more and more cases, Italy is on complete lock-down, cities in Spain are on lock-down, china has almost reached 100,000 cases it’self and England’s numbers are growing fast. For me personally my biggest fear was England going into lock-down before March 14th. March the 14th was the big day my students and I had been working towards for over 2 solid months. A hug performance with over 30 students on stage and over 100 people watching. The students had been practising really hard, some of the had written their own guitar solos for this performance, some were using this performance for their grading and I had invested a lot of time and money into ensuring it was a success for the students and for marketing with video cameras and photographers booked. The few days leading up to the event had put me into high anxiety, but luckily no ban had come in for social events and the numbers were still great. A few people decided not to come in fear of the virus, but not many and the day went really well. The performance was then followed by a meal with some of the helpers in a very busy pub, and then I went to a family engagement party. This means in the one day, I had been in 3 different crowded areas. If I was destined to get the virus early in it’s spread that was the day it would happen. Now the symptoms can take a while to show so I still could have caught them on that day but I wouldn’t know yet as that was only 3 days ago as of the time I write this.

The scare

Monday 16th and I wake up around 5am feeling very unwell. I was staying at my sisters as I was meant to be running a series of guitar clubs in Leighton Buzzard that evening as I did every Monday. I ended up with both sickness and diarrhoea which left me feeling weak and horrible. My nephew had also woken up with sickness, but neither of these are symptoms of the corona virus as far as we are aware. Either way, this lead to a day of being ill and scrolling through social media feeds and news feeds. I was so glad that the performance was able to happen that I had forgotten to think passed it. The virus situation has grown and the English government is being criticised but other countries for their lack of efforts in containing the outbreak. with a day to reading and hearing scary things I went to bed (still at my sisters). In the morning both my nephew and I felt okay except hungry so it seems we had a 24hour bug that we were able to fight off together.

Back to business

It is now Tuesday 17th March 2020 and after spending the morning at my sisters I realised it was time to head home and continue to work out what I was going to do with my business to keep me afloat. I have already had two students drop out this week as they are older and/or have health issues. I have decided to use online meeting software to do live stream lessons for my private and club students with chat areas so they can ask questions. I have also decided to create online courses as I was planning on doing anyway, just now with more haste to ensure I keep the income about what is required to pay my bills and keep me fed. Luckily for me, I have built up a great community with my students who are very understanding and supportive, I just need to ensure that I continue to give them the best service I possibly can over the internet. I plan to do more things to keep the community feel going even when we can’t meet up at clubs. Collaboration projects and video meetings are at least a start. Due to the country being in a very similar situation to Italy just a couple of weeks behind, I am expecting a long time of uncertainty and self isolation with a huge strain on our emergency services and I fear for what is to come. I just hope I can do my part in keeping people focused on something positive and giving them something to do while in isolation. This is the end of my first Log. I haven’t gone into a huge amount of detail as I have just arrived at home and wanted to get this down before I tidied up the house. I have a plan for my physical, mental and financial health but it all starts with a clear and tidy home to work from.

A Guitar Teacher’s diary during the Covid-19 outbreak

With the effects that Covid-19 is having on the world now in 2020, I realised that some personal documentation could be really interesting for future generations. This is a world wide pandemic on a scale never seen before and I believe that personal diaries can be the best way to really know what the situation was like for individuals during times of history. Personal diaries during the black death and other big historical events have been an interesting read for many.

Personal Background

My name is Rory Price and in August 2018 I launched my own guitar teaching business called The Guitar Ninja. For the past year and a half I have dedicated my life to this business so much that I have ended relationships and quit my band to have pure focus on my dream of owning the biggest and best guitar teaching company in the world. I live alone in my shared ownership property in Northampton England and have a brother living about a 15-20 minute drive away. I have a sister, brother in law, niece and nephew living about an hours drive south in Leighton Buzzard and my parents living only a couple of minutes away from them, also in Leighton Buzzard.