I remember the conversation vividly. We had just met the child on a trip to the children’s zoo, and when he was told he could choose something from the gift shop, he excitedly, but carefully walked the entire place. Would it be a toy, a stuffed animal, a mask? No, he decided – it would be – wait for it. A recorder. Or at least something that resembled a recorder. He decided he wanted to ride back to the house in my car (the convertible) and play his recorder from the back seat with the top down, entertaining everyone around us. “Listen to the song I made up!” and the improvisation began. The fingers were in the wrong places, the air was all wrong, but the enthusiasm was there. “Do you know what? I’m going to be in band when I get to 5thgrade”. Well, that’s wonderful! What do you want to play? “Saxophone!”. Oh.
For the next year and a half or so, he continually spoke of playing the saxophone. Oh, his future grandfather, the trumpet player, tried to talk him into playing a brass instrument. “The trumpet is God’s instrument” he would say, but the boy insisted on saxophone. When he was able to get a huge sound out of the didgeridoo, grandpa and I thought low brass, but he insisted on saxophone. Until the end of 4th grade, where his future band director said, “you know, you should play the trombone!” Well, so much for the sax, the boy was now a trombonist.
By this time, the boy was now our grandson and grandpa was SO excited to help him out. A trombone – here, you hold it like this. You need a new mouthpiece – I’ll get one for you. Oh, and you need a gig bag (in 5thgrade). Nothing was too good for his new trombone playing grandson.
The first sounds were honestly – well – painful, as all beginning sounds are. Periodically he would FaceTime with grandpa and show him what he was practicing. You could usually tell what tune he was trying to play, between the “oh, that’s wrong”, and “sorry that’s the wrong note”, despite the fact that there seemed to be nothing but quarter notes in whatever piece he was playing. After all, he was just learning. The hope is that he’ll stick with it long enough to get to where he is more comfortable and wants to play. The holiday concert was fun, with all of 3 months of playing under his belt and he was so proud of himself. I’m sure we annoyed everyone attending as we saved an entire row for his new family, and everyone showed up.
Then in the spring, school stopped. He practiced a little bit, but it’s so hard when you’re a beginner and your teacher can’t be there in person to help you be accountable. I just hoped that when he was able to back to school with all of the other kids, that he would want to continue playing. He might be the greatest player, but band is just so good for kids, regardless of whether you’re the next Bill Waltrous or not. Of course, school did begin in the fall, but with so many rules and protocols and kids were dropping out of band as well as orchestra and choir. Would he even want to stay involved?
There’s more to being involved in music then just learning to play your instrument by yourself and then within an ensemble. It’s learning how to work together as a family of musicians, and you learn that the family is larger than you might imagine. You see, grandpa is friends with the teachers of our budding trombonist. The first time we saw him after school began, he was so excited because “Grandpa! My band directors know you! You must be famous!”. Well, of course he is – he’s “The Pride of all Nebraska” as one of my students once labeled him. But what it really is, is that this is a family of musicians. Grandpa works side by side with the husband of one of our grandson’s directors and he and I are friends/colleagues with the others as well. We know we can trust our grandson with these people as great educators who will not only teach him and keep him accountable, but who will CARE for him as well.
As with other school districts, there was no live holiday concert this month for the kids but we were surprised last night when we walked in and saw he had his trombone out with music on his stand and after dinner, we were treated to a private solo performance of holiday music. Now, I don’t know if you understand trombone at all, but it’s not like the saxophone, where if you push down the correct key, the correct note comes out. I know this to be true, because I played sax for a little while. With trombone however, there are positions and the player has to know just where to move the slide to the correct spot while using the correct embouchure to get the correct note to sound. Anyway, with very few mistakes, we were able to identify every song he played for us. He did have to ask grandpa about one note (which I’m sure grandpa was excited to help with) but then he nailed it and proceeded to entertain us.
After first marveling at how much he had improved, despite the school year being totally wonky and with shortened rehearsals and such, the second thing that hit was how grateful I am for his teachers. I know exactly what they’re having to deal with in the classroom, and yet they are willing to do whatever it takes to give the same quality instruction to all of their students as they’ve always done. I was almost as proud of them as I was my grandson!
But of all the instruments, it had to be the trombone…
A Music Teacher's Mid-Life Musings 