My oldest son Michael is what I call a bonafide music geek. He has been learning to play the guitar for a little over a year now. His taste in music is quite eclectic, and I definitely know he gets his musical interests from my husband and me. He does occasionally listen to popular music, but his heart lies with classic rock and even some of the tunes I listened to at his age, so it makes me immensely glad that we rarely fight over the radio when riding in the car. He loves Rush, Led Zepplin, Bob Marley, Nirvana, The Beatles, Jethro Tull, The Beastie Boys, and much more awesome music.
Last year, he asked for a guitar for Christmas. He had been taking lessons once a week at an after school art and education center, that he and his brother attend twice weekly, called the Renzi Center. His skills were really starting to bud, but he needed something to practice on at home. Since my husband was still deployed to Iraq when it was time to hunt down a guitar, I enlisted my brother-in-law Sean, the guitar player in the family, to help me find a decent one at a reasonable price. We got lucky and found an acoustic Sigma at a local pawn shop. Sean took it for a few days, replaced and tuned a few chords, cleaned it up and donated one of his old guitar cases for his nephew's Christmas morning surprise. One of the best gifts we got last year was my husband coming home from his one-year deployment only two days before Christmas, but I digress. The guitar was the second-best gift for Michael, and watching him open it was second-best gift for me. I wrapped the guitar up, in the case, and got really creative with the gift wrap. I left the handle loose and even covered it separately. It was obviously a guitar case, which made it really funny. I couldn't just put it under the tree though; my parents always tricked me and my sisters on Christmas morning, so I carry on the tradition.
I found a really cheap, small kids guitar at a local drug store. That is the one I wrapped up and put under the tree for Michael. The real guitar I stealthily placed in his closet on Christmas morning while he was still asleep. It was quite funny to see him open that little guitar and give me the “Are you kidding me?” look, then later put his new clothes up and find the real thing in his closet.
Since then, Michael has come a very long way in his playing. He recently turned fourteen, and received a few books of tabbed rock music, which he loved, as gifts. A gift to him from me for his birthday is that he is getting more guitar lessons from Danny Wilder, who happens to be the father of my cousin's step-daughter (I hope that makes sense). Danny also gave lessons to a famous guitar player from Shreveport named Kenny Wayne Shepard. Michael played a song at the Shreveport Zombie Walk with the band The Moulin Dudes, and he played a few sets at the Texas Avenue Makers Fair. I am very proud of him and love listening to him practicing in his room every night.
How did he get so good so fast? Well...let me tell you. During the school year, my sons aren't allowed to play video games or get on the computer on school nights, unless it is for homework. They cherish weekends and breaks from school, so they can catch up on gaming. Last year, right after school was out, Michael did something that I can't even remember, something that got him grounded from all video and computer games for the entire three-month summer break. He spent the whole summer of 2011 learning to play his guitar. I will never forget the joy he felt when he came to me, showing me the newest song he had learned to play. I asked him if he regretted being grounded from all of those games, since had he not been, he wouldn't have spent so much time practicing his guitar. He actually said that no, he didn't regret it. Yep, he is a music geek, but I know that deep down, he is still a gamer on the weekends.
