His Childhood Is Different From Mine

Joshua likes to be included in my day-to-day routine. He enjoys domestic tasks such as doing dishes and sweeping, although his version of these chores often generates further domestic chores such as vacuuming up glass from broken dishes, mopping up puddles of soapy water, and removing crumbs from his stuffed dog which he claims is a broom. He likes to pretend he's paying bills while I struggle to balance our checkbook, and he always joins me for a cup of tea midmorning. In recent weeks, he has come to enjoy the time I spend practicing my musical instruments. He sits on the piano bench with a music stand set in front of him, and plays his "bass", his "violin", and sometimes the "cello". (He usually fashions his stringed instruments out of a plastic fife or tin whistle, using a pencil or small mallet for a bow. I am proud to say that at the age of two, he knows how to hold the instruments appropriately, either under his chin for violin, or leaning against his shoulder for bass and cello.) He vocalizes his most virtuosic imaginary sonatas, stopping occasionally to exclaim, "I like this note, mama!", or "That bass sounds goooood." When I finish a piece, sometimes he applauds.

He's gotten so comfortable with my practice routine lately, that yesterday he insisted on taking a nap in the music room while I worked. He made a little bed for himself out of decorative pillows, lay down right there in front of me, and drifted off to sleep while I played a Francaix sonata. He slumbered blithely through a piece by Leclair, although I probably would have dozed off too, since I found my reading of it to be rather uninspired. Unbelievably, he also slept through my rehearsal of Petrouchka, which is not remotely soothing. I stopped short of playing the piccolo part to The Firebird (another Stravinsky tour de force) since that would have been bad parenting. It occurred to me as I felt the first tiny flutters of movement in my belly, reminding me that I'm sharing my body with another human, that Joshua has probably been sleeping through my musical preparations since before his birth.

I think it's possible that when he heads to preschool, he may be the only kid in the class that knows who wrote Petrouchka ("Mr. Stravinsky", he says matter-of-factly), has changed the lyrics of Old MacDonald to "Old MacDowell wrote two piano concerti, ee i ee i oh", and can recognize the difference between Charlie Parker's alto and John Coltrane's tenor. It's eerie when he walks into my practice room and asks, "Is that Mendelssohn?", especially when that is indeed what I am working on. I'm thinking I may want to start showing him some episodes of Sesame Street, and soon. I have made it a house rule, however, that he can't begin violin lessons until he's potty trained.

It Takes All Kinds to Make a City, Part 2

My husband, a professional jazz musician of note here in Colorado, recently informed me about a local gentleman who calls himself The Jazz Whistler. Peter had the displeasure of witnessing this man's craft at a jam session a few weeks ago. The Jazz Whistler, a former employee of Hewlett Packard who quit his job to pursue his music career as presumably one of the world's foremost authorities of jazz whistling, maintains an email newsletter announcing his upcoming gigs so his fans will know where to find him. Somehow my husband ended up on this mailing list, and it is worth mentioning that the only event listed in the Jazz Whistler's newsletter was in fact the very informal community jam session which Peter decided to drop in on.

Mr. Whistler, as we'll affectionately call him, arrived on the scene a few hours early in order to painstakingly set up his elaborate amplification system. (Obviously, it's very difficult to project one's whistling over the piano, bass, and drums which comprise a standard rhythm section.) Once the evening officially began, he sat in on the first few tunes, warbling his way through "Autumn Leaves" and a few other standards, including "Round Midnight", in which his unaccompanied introduction proved to be in the wrong key entirely. The house band finally got him off the stage, and he didn't return until later in the evening, but only because the wife of one of the musicians showed up and couldn't believe there was such a thing as a jazz whistler, so they had him come up and play again just to prove it to her.

Now, clearly this man has a dream, and has thrown large sums of money at pursuing his dream. He has paid other musicians (real red-blooded, instrument-playing ones) handsomely to perform on his self-produced album. He has a mailing list, for crying out loud. However, the phrase "Don't quit your day job!" seems to be tailor-made for Mr. Whistler. On the one hand, I want to have respect for a dreamer who unhesitatingly follows his heart regardless of practicality. On the other hand, Peter's complimentary copy of Mr. Whistler's compact disc will remain shrink-wrapped in our basement where hopefully a cat will pee on it.