When we saw Stephen making paper airplanes out of his Christmas sheet music last Saturday at the Christmas recital, we knew it was time to end it.

He didn’t really want to come back to piano this fall, but Chris really felt he should.  Chris’ family did not pursue musical interests at all.  Chris discovered a real pleasure in learning music these last 4.5 years and has reaped the benefits in his “left” brain with the challenge of musical creativity, rather than engineering problem solving.  It’s been a great stress buster for Chris, too.  Focusing on music pushes everything else out of your mind for a while.

 So Chris wanted to make sure that Stephen wasn’t being too hasty so he talked him into another 4 months.   Although I was pretty sure Stephen was done with piano, I agreed to supporting 4 more months because Stephen has a history of bowing out of things and then regretting it.  However, in this case he was correct!  He has really enjoyed his 3.5 years of lessons and he is as fond of his piano teacher as an 11-year-old boy can be to an unrelated woman of his mother’s age (to be fair, Lorraine, his teacher, is several years younger than me!) 

Over the last three years Stephen’s musical abilities really improved  and Lorraine learned as time went by, exactly what motivated him and what didn’t.  Recently, it was becoming more difficult for her to keep him motivated, and I think if it had been up to the two of them they would have agreed to call the relationship off a bit sooner.  But there won’t be any long-term damage to either of them; the split is amicable!

Stephen is now going to take up guitar.  I play a little and own a guitar, plus I have all the “books”. I have a guitar tuner (tuning is one of my musical weaknesses) and a few other things.  I’m a little doubtful of my ability to teach Stephen as he doesn’t always regard me with the same respect he would a stranger.  I don’t mean that he is disrespectful but he does like to joke and goof off a bit with his closest family and as much fun as it is sometimes, I wonder how I will hold up in a teaching situation. It’s a lot easier to rein it in with other peoples’ kids!

My involvement will be introductory.  There’s only so far I could go with him if he takes to it.  If this doesn’t hold I’ve heard a rumour about drums being next on the list…oh no!