I gave my grandson Nick his second weekly lesson in a row on clarinet. He hates clarinet. You might remember he played sax with me for a couple of years but the elementary band had twenty+ saxes and three clarinetists. I talked to him about the benefit of playing clarinet early in his life and he in decided it was worth a try. That was two years ago.

Nick is twelve and already has that teen sullen thang down pat. During this lesson yesterday he was really blue and it was hard to get him motivated. I talked to him about pretending to be attentive and interested; anything else was a slap in my face. And I drew parallels to doing the sullen thang with teachers at school and the potential effect on his grades. I even talked about how he would feel about a friend doing that to him. 

You know what? He tried it. He appeared interested, sat up straight, worked hard. We had a great lesson. He has a lot of unrealized potential. His carrot? The ten minutes of sax at the end of the lesson. We have agreed he will be playing alto sax in 7^th grade next year. So we have a lot of work this summer. Oh, and there are only two alto sax players left from all four elementary schools that play together.

Then I got to thinking, I wonder if they have a tenor sax player in the band? Nick doesn’t think they do. I should talk to his band teacher and see which sax they’d prefer he play next year. I really hope my grandson sticks with music; it is a fun thing that we can do together. And his grandmother and uncle also play sax. :o)