Death Wishes and Improvisation

Bill Cosby has famously associated teen boys with brain damage.

Living proof of this statement walked into my studio this afternoon when George arrived at his lesson with a sprained wrist.

A failed skateboard rail grind down a fourteen-stair had caused this wannabe Tony Hawk to Superman right into the sidewalk. Only Cosby’s maxim can explain the phenomenon that causes adolescent male humans to willfully defy well-established laws of physics over hard concrete.

In the best of times, it’s still like yanking the proverbial fingernails to motivate George to practice. Now that he’d crippled himself, what was I supposed to do for his lesson?

I tried everything: flashcards, music theory, right hand sight reading. Finally, I was just about to break out the “Music Symbol Bingo” game that I keep in reserve for those desperate moments with six-year-olds, when it occurred to me to show him some chord cadences. George seemed to find it interesting.

So interesting in fact, that right there, before my very eyes, he began to religiously repeat the improvised patterns over and over to get it just right. It looked dangerously close to (egad!) actual practice.

If, in fact, George wises up and stops trying to maim himself on a flying, wheeled platform over cement steps, we may have stumbled (so to speak) on a solution for his habitual lack of motivation. Perhaps spending some time in improv is the key to piquing his interest. If, however, he insists on pursuing self-destruction, I can only work with those limbs and digits that still function.