It’s a rare thing when you get a boy downplaying a significant accomplishment.
About a month ago Matthew was telling me that they were determining who would be the section leader for the basses (and, the section leaders for the rest of the sections in the orchestra). Matthew reports that he did ok, he thought another kid did better, and they would conclude the process the next day.
I forget to ask him the next day…..and forgot I think for about a week after that, but, finally remembered to ask, hey, “How did the orchestra chairs end up?”
Matthew: “Oh yeah. I’m the section leader.”
I kind of stop what I’m doing and look at him. Ask him why he didn’t tell us about this….he said, yeah, no big deal. It’s a big deal. Told Suzanne; she asks Matthew about it, tells him it’s a big deal. Tell Kevin, who is just amazed at this, and tells Matthew “This is a big deal”.
It’s really a bigger deal when you consider that a) we don’t ask Matthew to practice at all…..Suzanne and I have quit arguing about this with him and are just content that he seems willing to continue playing bass into high school. Matthew was adamant for many months that after 8th grade that was it for bass and b) the kids who sit 2nd and 3rd chair take private lessons. One of those kids played with the 8th grade orchestra last year!
So I go to parent teacher conferences for Matthew, and other than hearing he’s a good kid who should do his homework more often from other teachers (and one math related issue I will follow up on later) I talk with the orchestra teacher, and I mention that Matthew really downplayed becoming the section leader. She stops and goes into this ‘rave’ about how he totally earned it, how incredible it is because she knows he doesn’t take lessons and the others do, how quickly Matthew picks up things and how awesome it would be if we could ever get him into lessons.
We’ll never get him into lessons – I just can’t see a) Matthew wanting to do them and b) finding the time for them amongst his sports desire. We are happy enough that Matthew is having a ton of success even with the minimal effort he is putting into this away from school. And that we still have four years of orchestra to hopefully look forward to.
(taken before the auditions…or else he would have been the bass on the far right. They are just presented in a random order here)
