Mr5 has a new drum kit

Mr5 has a new drum kit. It is red, and flashy, and loud. It has a bass drum with a foot pedal to make it go boom, boom, boom. There's a snare, and a tom-tom, and cymbals that crash together with a satisfying, clashing ring. Particularly when hit with the actual, timber drumsticks.

Mr5 is in raptures over his drum kit. He is giving Mr8 lessons. Thwack, boom, thwack, ting, thwack, bang, bang, bang. (Twirl drumsticks.)

Repeat.

Thank you Gran and Pops. He really is thrilled.

And thank heavens school starts next week.

YouTube must wait: my music career has stalled

The band has split up. Mr7 has decided to trade me and my guitar in for bright lights and black and whites. He is not a string man anymore. Keys all the way, Baby. He has discovered the piano and he loves it. No more guitar lessons together.

It's always the talent that makes the decisions, isn't it? Everyone else is left to muddle along, trying to work out whether a drummer can write music and whether three years as a rhythm guitarist qualifies you to be a lead singer. I've lost the impetus to learn.

My guitar lies idle in the corner. Resentful. Pouting. Fretting.* I must find some lessons of my very own. Even B, our beautiful 17-year-old teacher, has abandoned me. Something about an HSC. Really.

In the meantime, I am reduced to roadie. Driving Mr7 to his lessons at the big, old, once-grand house in town. Waiting out the front, watching the cars drive in and out of the bottle shop driveway opposite, or the trucks reverse precisely into the supermarket loading dock.

The music industry is all glamour. I'm just hoping I'm never called upon to lug the piano to a gig.

*sorry, couldn't resist

[image: I think I will get Mr7 one of these key rings from riskybeads/etsy]

Keeping the band together

After two weeks' holidays, Mr6 and I are back at guitar lessons. We have scaled the lofty heights of Book 2 of our course, as far as 'I'm a Little Teapot' and 'Michael Finnigan' (begin again). We are also working on the theme from Inspector Gadget (you're welcome for the ear worm).

Despite my best efforts, Mr6 would not practise over the holidays. He noodled about with a few chords, making up a song or two, but he would not play notes, and definitely not in any recognisable order. I, on the other hand, put in two or three good sessions with Michael, The Teapot and the good Inspector.

I discussed tactics with my Mum. I remember being a kid and being, um, encouraged to practise the piano or organ or recorder or whatever the instrument du jour was. It didn't work. But setting an example wasn't working either. She pointed out that he's only six and it's more important that he be introduced to the instrument than that he be committed to it. Dating rather than marriage, so to speak. So I didn't nag. Besides, on other occasions when he's refused to practise, he's rolled up to our lesson and, in the face of my dire predictions, pulled out a reasonably good effort.

Not this time. For starters, he insisted on wearing full piratical garb and attempted to play in his eye patch. That lasted all of three minutes. He couldn't remember what the notes were, let alone where they were. (Being unable to see them with one eye, didn't help.) I didn't say anything. Just played through my pieces and then sat there quietly while he struggled through his. The Inspector Gadget theme, in particular, seemed to take days.

When he'd finally played the last note, our teacher, the lovely B, laughed at him (as only a gorgeous 17 year old could get away with) and said, "See what happens when you don't practice? It's just hard work."

After we'd zipped our guitars back into their cases (we're very rock star) and were walking back to the car, he turned to me. "I think we'd better schedule in some practice this week," he said.

I was relieved. It could have gone the other way, with a refusal to ever return. I'm not ready to go solo just yet.

Do your kids play instruments? How do you deal with the practice problem?


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