So there I am, standing in the kitchen trying to clear off some counter space so I will have room to prepare the lasagne that I've been planning on making now for about a week. It's that after school time, when I make sure the boys have had a snack, and then Grant buries his nose in a book and Bennett wanders outside with a pocketknife and a stick.I knew Grant was having his first band practice that day, and I also knew that he was all set on playing the flute. Or so he told me. But on this particular afternoon, Grant wandered into the kitchen, and the conversation went something like this:
Me: Hey kiddo. Did you have band today? How'd the flute playing go?
Grant: Oh no Mom, I'm not playing the flute; I'm playing the trombone!
I just started laughing... poor kid, he thought I was laughing at him. It was just so unexpected, and the instant visual of my firstborn in the living room with a slide trombone in his hand just cracked me up! Parenting is an adventure, and you just never really know where it is going to take you.
After I calmed down, he explained to me that the band teacher had pulled out the instruments and let the kids try them all. (Thank god the piggy flu hasn't hit quite yet, I suppose, but still... eewww). Grant said he couldn't make a single sound come out of the flute, but "I can do this really well!" and he puckered his lips and made that raspberry sound we use on babies' bellies. I'm sure there's a more technical term for it.
Yeah, upon hearing him, I laughed again, realizing that the trombone really is the perfect instrument for him. I just wonder how he's going to get it to and from school on his bicycle.
4 comments:
I too played the trombone. I still have a tape of me playing Amazing Grace. It is really really bad, but also hilarious. You should hear it sometime.
Can it be any harder than the bass? Which Emmett, by the way, says he wants to play (Grant worship, I think).
For some reason, my dad saw fit to sing the song "76 trombones led the big parade" to us with appropriate gusto when we were toddlers (might have had smething to do with his being the conductor for one of the marching bands in the Rose Bowl parade when he was a teeenager. The trombone is the most life affirming - and yes, funny - and earthy - instrument there is. Excellent choie! I believe that "raspberry blowing" is indeed the correct musical term for it!
My younger son played Frenchhorn hi sfirst year of band but switched to trombone two years ago. He likes it, although you're right - it's a cumbersome instrument. Not as big and heavy as the baritone tuba I lugged around, however!
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