Play Time

 Well, it was a momentous day for Freestone, who had his Suzuki Book 2 graduation recital.  You could tell how vitally important it was to him by the comments he kept making:  "Why didn't you tell me this was today?"..."What is this?"..."Where are we going?"..."What recital?  What am I playing?"  Yep, he could hardly contain his enthusiasm.  Nonetheless, when it was time to go, he dutifully set down his book and his dog and pulled on a sweater and some penny loafers.  He even brought his fiddle.

 These Suzuki things are always a mixture of pride and humiliation.  It's cool to see your kid up there and know all the practicing is paying off.  But it's demoralizing when he's standing next to that inevitable three-year-old in the bowtie graduating from Book 5.  You SO can't compare yourself to other parents, or your kids to other kids.  So what if I have one of the tall kids and not the child prodigy with a binkie in her mouth, playing the Tchaikovsky Concerto.

Contrary to what Freestone would tell you, he HAS been working hard on the Boccherini, playing it all the way through with repeats, with me, 2 to 4 times a day.  It's been fun.  Well, fun...I don't know if I'll go that far.  Freestone likes to take his time practicing, and I like to zip through it.  So my choices are:  let him practice alone slowly, or be really, really patient and practice with him.  I want to practice with Freestone because I love it, but patience isn't a luxury I can afford when Tziporah sees my being occupied as an opportunity to empty out my wallet and throw all the contents in the sink.  Add to that the fact that, while I'm practicing with Freestone, I can also hear that Ari is playing flat on her cello in her room, and in the basement, Xanthe is playing her piece at the speed of light, and Ruby's students are ringing the doorbell because even though I tell them week after week to just walk in, they won't, and Golda is calling for a ride home from Dance Company and Don Carlos just might need to go out and Ptolemy wants me to turn on his computer game and I'm not entirely sure that I'm not supposed to be meeting someone at the violin shop at that very moment and something is boiling on the stove.  There is a level of tension with 7 kids that never really goes away.  It's like living under those massive power lines that buzz, and you just hope and pray that they're not giving you radiation poisoning.  Lucky for me, I like having a buzz.  Who knew my drug of choice would be raising a big family?

But with all that noise, nothing about our life is conducive to musical success, other than the fact that we're not quitting.  The quote I live by, from Shinichi Suzuki, is:  "It was a result of circumstance that he learned to play the violin.  Whether he liked it or disliked it is not the question."

In other words, in our family, you play an instrument.  You just do.  Quitting it isn't a thing.  I wish we all played better, I wish we all practiced longer and more effectively, but at least it's there.  This goes back to the lesson I learned at the Baptist church in Harlem.  At that church, music wasn't some laborious task the kids had to learn.  It was just part of the fabric of life.  Nobody held up posters with cues about the lyrics.  Everybody just sang because that's what you did.  There was really no notion of "not knowing the song" or "not being a good singer."  Dr. Suzuki would have fit right in at that church in Harlem with his mantra, "Every child can."  Of course they can.  Nobody told them otherwise.  It's about loving the music.

Even if I can't create the perfect hothouse in which to grow child prodigies, at least I can insist that every day, there is some sort of crazy cacophony, out of which may come, one fine Saturday, a concert where I sit on the front row and beam.  And cringe.  But mostly beam.  And it's enough.

And, icing on the cake, we got to visit Grandma after the recital, proving that Freestone looks miserable in pictures even when he's happy, and that Marlene looks beautiful even when she's recovering from surgery!

Beat the Clock

Freestone says I'm the worst mom in the world.  Like, the WORST.  It's because I make him practice.  Well, if he would just do it cheerfully, it would take 20 minutes of his day, tops.  But since he complains about it, it takes his WHOLE day.  That's the problem, not the fact that I could get a job as the Wicked Witch's private tutor.

I like practicing with Freestone, except when he tries to break his violin.  I tell him, "I can fix that, and then you'll have to pay me for the repair and still have to practice."  It's sad that something I like so much is such torture for my son.  In my book, it's not IF you practice.  You're going to practice.  I just want it to be a good experience, or what's the point?  If it's a miserable experience, Freestone is probably right to some extent.  It's my fault.  So I came up with another new plan.  It's called Beat the Clock.  The way it works is, at the same time as I say, "It's time to practice," I set the timer for 20 minutes.  If Freestone gets through his whole list before the timer goes off, he gets a point.  If not, he still has to finish the list but doesn't get a point.  If he gets five points in a week, I take him to get ice cream.  The key here is that the time it takes to start practicing is included in the 20 minutes, since the hardest part is actually getting the thing under your chin.

When I proposed this plan to Freestone, he said, "I don't believe you."  Ouch.  He's right, I have reneged on practicing promises before, by not paying up.  Bribery gets expensive!  I think I owe Freestone about a thousand dollars at this point.  Due to my word being worthless, we both signed a contract.  Freestone's signature has drops of something falling on it.  I was afraid they represented practicing tears, but he told me they are raindrops and the letter F is an umbrella.

So far, beat the clock has worked brilliantly.  Freestone is realizing how little time his practicing actually takes, and it's more fun when I don't get mad about all the dilly-dallying.  The glitch came this morning on the way to lessons.  Free said, "I'm going to forfeit all my ice cream and save my points to buy a Minecraft game."  See, this is how I go broke.  It's going to take him a long time to get that many points, and then we won't have time to go to the Minecraft store and it will be another failed experiment.  It's Freestone's fault!  Why can't the kid be happy with an ice cream cone?  He drives a hard bargain, this kid!  If an 89 cent ice cream cone takes five points to earn, how many points do we need to buy a Minecraft game?  Scott?  Anyone?  How much do they cost?  What are they?  He already plays Minecraft on his Kindle, but he says he needs it for another device.

Oh Freestone, why can't you speak my language?  This morning when I asked Free is he had any more homework, he uttered a phrase I have never considered: "I just have one really easy math worksheet."  In my world, the words "really easy" have never even met the words "math worksheet."  Yeah, there is definitely a language barrier between us.  That's part of the reason our violin relationship is so precious to me.  It's common ground, and I don't want to scorch the earth it's built on.  Someday, if we get this thing right, Freestone will play his violin for fun, and I will understand the difference between a PS3 and a playstation.  Oh, wait.  Aren't they the same thing?  Then what's the other thing?  Free and I both still have things to learn.  Good thing there's still time on the clock.