#58786 by Crip2Nite
Tue Mar 03, 2009 10:31 am
Tue Mar 03, 2009 10:31 am
That's awesome, Sans.... About the only instrument I can get my kids to pick up would be the freakin' "Guitar Hero" guitar! 
Congrats to the kid, a 1 is as good as it gets. Just make sure he doesn't see it as a contest, those events are not intended to be contests. Our band director in high school stressed that constantly. We always got 1 ratings, or almost always, ad the entire band would be PO'd at themselves if we got even a 2. A 3? no way...
I played in jazz band, loved it, only sax player in my state who even tried solos on baritone sax, and got pretty good at it before it was all over. Our band director is the one I've always credited for making a musician out of me instead of just a guitar player.He never said a word when he walked in the band room and saw me playing yet another instrument, and I picked up and learned them all. Even the really expensive ones he just caught me in private sometime and asked me to please handle them carefully. Even let me play his antique silver soprano sax one day. Only 2 people in the band I know of ever touched it...
Some advice though if you don't mind...My parents, mainly my mother, almost ended my musical endeavors, my first year playing sax, 7th grade, she insisted i practice 2 hours a day. Impossible...until you build up some lip muscles, 10 minutes is about all you can handle. She refused to accept that, and demanded I practice 2 hours, period.
Don't demand practice, don't belittle their musical taste, let them take it at their own pace and play what they want to play, not what YOU insist they play...that was my father's game, he screamed and cussed at me for 35 years because I didn't listen to country, insulted me constantly, fortunately I had the determination to stick with it for some strange reason, most kids would have just stopped playing. I guess I couldn't, it's in my blood. I was still fighting with him about what I listened to and played when I was 40 years old...and he was still screaming at me about it. It made us hate each other...try not to do that, believe me it's not fun learning to hate your father...that was only part of it, there were other things he did that you should never ever do to your kids, but music was our number one problem. He refused to admit that what I wanted to listen to was MY choice not his.
Accept their musical side, whatever direction it takes, and you may not like that direction. My niece's kids are all into rap and I hate it, but the only time I say anything about it is when they want to play loud rap in my vehicle. Or when I can hear it booming in my living room next door...it's not easy, but I don't want to create the same situation my father did, they would hate me for it. And trust me, on this end of the deal, it's been miserable...
