I’m writing this from the couch in the waiting area while my kids take their music lessons, thinking about how we got here, and what took us so long.
I’ve never really considered us the most musical of families, but the more I think of it, the more I realize how wrong I was. It’s true that I can’t carry a tune to save my life, but I did take piano lessons for 10 years, guitar for eight. Hubby Dave sings and does musical theatre around town, played the saxophone in school, and was the poster boy — on actual posters — for the Calgary Boys’ Choir as a kid. So what took us so long to introduce our boys to music as an extracurricular activity?
They tried all the sports É OK, some of the sports É plus art and dance in the hopes they’d find something that fit, but nothing did. Nothing. Not until the day Boy 1 was introduced to four guys from Liverpool who would changehis life forever. That’s not an exaggeration! From the first time he heard “Hey Jude,” it’s been all Beatles, all the time in our house; and, while we’d always liked them, Hubby Dave and I never really fully appreciated the Beatles until our kid opened our ears to their vast anthology of music nearly 60 years after they first came on the scene.
Seeing them through his eyes is like taking a trip back to 1964 and that famous appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. The screaming girls, the fresh new music unlike anything heard before or since, and the beginning of Beatlemania. There was so much excitement and hype over these four mop-topped kids, I’ve just always assumed they were actively recording and touring for decades before John Lennon was killed.
But no. The Beatles were only “the Beatles” for 10 years before they split up. Ten years! Yet they’re still influencing kids like mine to find their passion in music, which is what brings me to the comfy couch and the waiting area outside music lessons today. Listening to Boy 2 learning “Hey Jude” on his ukulele, while Boy 1 strums “Blackbird” on his guitar? No. Delicately picks out “Yesterday” on the piano? Not a chance. Beats the life out of “Come Together” on the drums? Of course he is.
My boy picked the loudest, most obnoxious instrument you can put in the hands of a sub-10-year-old as his passion at this point in his life — and I LOVE IT! Because, through that drum he’s found his creativity, his enthusiasm, his outlet for both frustration and joy, and a love for music that will help shape the person he’s going to be. The next Ringo Starr? Maybe not. Or maybe something greater! We’ll just have to drum along and see.
Chrissy Cruickshank is a creative writer at 105.3 ROCK. You may hear her from time to time with comments on Poncho and Cassie’s morning show. Listen at 105.3 ROCK.
