Bless me, Bill (Lester, Earl, Jimmy, Ralph, Carter) for I have sinned (and keep sinning for that matter.)
My grandson is just over two years old and every time I see him I give him a musical instrument. I don’t see him nearly often enough but in his two years, I given him a uke, harmonica, drum, bugle, and xylophone. Given the aforementioned mix of instruments, you can see why I’m petitioning for forgiveness. Linda should be too, as she is complicit in this as well. At this rate, it will be a Martin by the time he is five unless he turns to the one of the less enlightened sides of music we’re exposing him to but that’s not my plan.
It’s hard to start a two year old with a Martin guitar or a Gibson mandolin and as much as it chagrins me, even an upright bass is too much for him at this point. Although, if he would just stand still on the stool next to the bass and play, I’m sure I could get him a gig in a week or two.
The truth is I just want to expose him to music and playing music. It doesn’t matter now what it is but rather that it is in his environment at home and that he associates his grandparents with music. He lives a few hundred miles away so we make time to see him as often as we can and we when we do we always try to include some singing and playing music. Our son and his wife are not musicians (although our son should be). So the mantle of bringing music to our grandson and the other grandchildren that will follow falls on Linda and me. As they say, it is a dirty job…..but someone has to do it.
Talking about this reminds me of one of my childhood musical experiences. I was in class in about 5th grade, I guess, and we were having a guest speak to us while handing out a slip of paper to everyone. He spoke eloquently about playing music and playing different instruments in a band and hinted that with enough participation we could have a band in our school. We were then instructed to write on the slip of paper the name instrument we wanted to play. My classmates were writing of pianos, violins, horns, drums and I wrote guitar. We also had to write our parents contact information on the paper so they could get permission for us to play our favorite instrument.
About a week later, the musical guest contacted us with a rehearsed spiel that says while it was special the David (me) wanted to play guitar, it was thought best to start all students on the accordion. Then he presented a price list for accordions that included a rent to buy option and also the cost of lessons at their storefront school. Although a couple of polish kids from the neighborhood took them up on their offer (and are still touring with a polka band), the majority of the class did not start their musical career that year. The accordion incident, as I call it, scarred me enough to keep me from picking up the bass for another decade.
My mother reads this column every month so just a small disclaimer. The above story may be embellished some but to the best of my memory of 60 some years ago, it is true.
Anyway back to my grandson. While he was here over the holidays, he would frequently call me over to my bass and ask me to play as he pounded on the piano keys next to it. We jammed like that quite a few times.
As he gets older we hope to do more playing and singing with him and of course invite him to tag along with us to Grass Valley where he can see and hear for himself the music his grandparents are playing.
I’ll keep you informed going forward of where we are in our grandson’s musical immersion. Maybe you can hook me up on a pre-war Martin when he is 5 or 6.
Speaking of talented youth playing music of the right kind, this Sunday January 7 the Santa Clara Valley Fiddlers Association is hosting their monthly jam at Hoover Middle School in San Jose and is featuring a mini-concert by AJ Lee and Blue Summit. The regular slow jam and tune builder jam will be happening as usual, as well, with plenty of open jamming. Don’t miss it. Check the website at fiddlers.org for details.
