He needs the Teacher

Previously, I said that “There is only so long that a kid can go around telling people that he wants to be a musician and a conductor when he grows up before you have to consider putting him in lessons of some kind. I mean real lessons, not just buying him a recorder and trying to teach him fingerings.”

When we started talking seriously about having lessons, one of our concerns was how he would adapt to having a teacher rein in his style. The boy has spent so much energy watching artists play that he has very clear ideas of how things should be done. When playing a wooden spoon “cello” he likes to shake his head like Yo-Yo, and when he plays a “double bass” he slaps it, and twirls it around like he’s a Beatnik. He puffs his cheeks like Dizzy, and makes faces like Zubin. He’s learned from the Masters.

Unfortunately, most of what he has learned from the Masters is what a stylish performance looks like to a three-year-old. He doesn’t know yet what goes into making it sound like that. Unless a teacher can rein him in, he’ll be like the novice singer who shakes their jaw to get some “vibratto”. It’s an approximation, but it isn’t the real thing.

Now he has the Teacher telling him how to sit, what to do with his body, where and how to play notes. We talked to him over and over before his first lesson Saturday, about the Teacher taking his bow. He knew it would happen, but I don’t think he really BELIEVED it would happen. It was almost lunchtime when he got home, so his blood-sugar was low, which makes it hard for him to deal with adversity. In this case, he bawled all the way home, and half-way through a cup of juice. After he was calmed down, he mused about it most of the day. “WHY did she have to take my bow?” He sure seemed broken hearted. Of course, that hasn't stopped him from wanting to practice twice as often as his teacher recommended.

By Sunday, he had come to terms with it. His favourite way to practice is to give us lessons. He shows us how to bow to start and finish a lesson, the various rest positions, how to sit. There is a song he is working on, “I love my cello” that ends with him plucking the strings. He doesn’t like to sing it, but he sure enjoys the Pizzacado ending. He even explained to me why he had to take away my cello bow, so I would be able learn the things I need to learn before I can play “Twinkle, Twinkle…”.

If he is going to become the musician that he wants to become, shaking his head like Yo-Yo, he needs to start with the components that allow that intensity. He needs to hold the cello between his knees so it is solid as he starts to use the bow on it. He needs someone who will enforce the step-by-step aspect of learning, in a way that I can’t do. I’m not removed from him enough to be able to stick wax in the end of a recorder so it won’t play, and make him finger through three blind mice when he wants to turn it sideways and make it a piccolo.

It’s the third day since his lesson, and Riley, who is the one who practices with him, already has questions about how to keep the balance between allowing him to move on so he doesn’t get bored, and holding him back so he gets the basics more solid. He has started to embellish the bowing that he could do perfectly the day before. Yesterday he was bowing all the way to the floor, with wide hand waving. He can do it the right way, but it isn’t as much fun. “I am ready to learn”, indeed. Good thing she can ask the Teacher. If he was learning to play a recorder from the dollar store, who could we ask? The clerk there doesn’t know.