Guitar Lesson

Tonight was a first for us.  Riley began guitar lessons.  Santa brought him a 'real' electric guitar for Christmas.  We really thought it would be an interest for a week or so after Christmas and then become more or less a toy.  We were wrong.  He is very into it and has been begging for lessons and says he plans to ask Santa this year for an acoustic guitar.  For his birthday we told him we'd get him signed up for lessons, so tonight was his first one.  

It's only a 30 minute lesson.  His teacher is the minister of music at a nearby church.  He was recommended from a friend and is very reasonable as far as cost.  We are sort-of trying this out for a month and we'll see how it goes and how serious he really is about it.  His teacher seemed great, very patient and talked on his level but also was very informative.  He started with the first and second string and with the first and third fret.  Riley was all grins and has been anticipating this for a week or more.  The last thing they did was play Mary Had a Little Lamb.  Granted the notes had 5-10 second pauses between them, but he did hit them all.  I think we'll be hearing that song all week since that is his homework for 10-15 minutes a day.  His teacher warned him that his fingers would be sore but he'd have to work through that to make them tough if he wanted to learn to play.

As soon as we got home, he had his guitar back out of it's case and was practicing.  He tried a few of the exercises the teacher taught him and then proceeded to find a spiral notebook.  I had no idea what he was about to do, but he drew the 6 lines for the 6 strings and proceeded to start writing his own song.  His music looked exactly like the music his teacher had given him, only in his 1st grade handwriting.  It was complete with 'o' for open string notes and '1' and '3' for fret's 1 and 3, each drawn on the appropriate strings.  It looks like we'll be into this for more than this first trial month.  

I'm so excited that he is genuinely interested in music and his guitar.  It's not anything we ever pushed on him or even encouraged, yet he has completely requested all this and persued it on his own.  I love seeing him grow and getting glimpses of what the grown up Riley might be like.  Who knows, we might see him up on a stage someday with that guitar around his neck.