June 2, 2005 - Thursday
Very encouragingly, Harry has been practicing his drums by himself quite frequently later. His teacher, Abe, wrote out a little piece that Harry will presumably play at a recital later this month and there have been at least a few times when I or his mother and I have been downstairs and heard him truly working through the various sections of the piece. He's doing it. He's learning and he's getting to have a little bit of a rhythm. He doesn't quite have the idea about maintaining a consistent tempo between the sections, and regularly pauses when the music calls for him to switch, for example, from the snare and high-hat to the two toms. But he's on his way to being a drummer and I find it very exciting. The plan until now had been that Abe might play along with Harry on the marimba or something, but as Harry was leaving his lessons this evening Abe said, with some hint of surprise, "he can play this thing." Abe will probably still sit up on stage with him just to make sure that he starts and stops and everything, but Harry is doing very well.

There was a four or five day period about a week ago when Jeremy got out his cello all by himself several times and practiced, but with Jeremy things really go in spurts. At three, his progress is more subtle and I still feel we're walking a fine line between encouragement, being pushy, his having fun, and his being frustrated with the slow progress. And it's probably mostly because he's three and still really needing to stake out his own space in the world, flexing attitude, and trying to find places where he can be in control. He'll play in a recital this month, too, although specifically what is as yet undetermined.


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