Here they are, six 12yos (the keyboardist didn’t make it into the picture), with their teacher introducing them. They played one song: “You Really Got Me” by The Kinks. And they rocked! Joey broke a drumstick halfway through but managed to keep playing and did an impressive fill (yeah, I know all the drummer jargon now; just ask me what a paradiddle is!) at the very end.

Here’s a close up of our rock star.

A lot of our friends and family showed up, and even those who are not exactly die-hard rock ‘n roll fans (hi, Dad!) seemed to enjoy themselves. It was extremely gratifying!

The younger set had a great time, too. Here are Daniel and Lena with our pals Simon (blue shirt) and Basil (curly hair). Who doesn’t love a fountain? On a warm June evening?

The group lessons were hard for Lena. Her teacher at home does “modified” Suzuki — no group lessons — and Lena really had to struggle to keep up with the kids who review all the songs every week and play them twice as fast. But by the end of the session, if nothing else, she got really good at faking it. And if you’ve never played in an orchestra or band before, trust me: “faking it” is a valuable skill. :-P

I had to put two arrows in this picture because the group teacher, lo and behold, turned out to be good ole Mr. Villasurda, who was my conductor thirty years ago in elementary school and also at Interlochen. He even pretended (?) to remember me. What a trip!

Lena also got to play in her very first orchestra. In fact, this was the very first orchestra experience for about half the kids in it, and considering that they had a grand total of four rehearsals, they did a great job. I admit I felt a wee bit emotional during the performance.

Best of all was getting to spend some time, just the two of us.

The results are a bit odd sometimes — how on earth did Judy Blume end up on the page for Robert Graves? — and the myriad typos (James Mitchner) don’t inspire confidence. Still, it’s a great way to fritter away half an hour when you should be washing the dishes or helping the kids with their homework.

Or perhaps you’re wondering what music to listen to next?

Pandora.com is a neat website I just learned about. It’s based on the same idea as the Literature Map. You tell it your favorite song or musician, and it creates a “radio station” just for you.

The first one I did was “When I Paint My Masterpiece” by The Band — and the result was song after song that I’d never heard of, by groups I’d never heard of, and it was all great. Then I tried Leon Redbone, and got great results also. And you can come back the next day and it continues where it left off. How cool is that?

Joey has a drum kit and he started taking private lessons through the school last fall. Just this week he started Rock Band 101 along with four other 12yos (2 guitar, 1 keyboard, 1 bass). He was soooo excited, and, I must confess, so was I. In fact, I think all the moms were pretty excited. Can you picture it? Five moms sitting in the lobby, getting all misty over the opening riff of “You Really Got Me.”

Wait a second…

Rock ‘n roll isn’t supposed to involve moms driving their kids to class, paying for lessons, checking with the teacher to see how well they practiced this week, waiting proudly in the lobby. I mean, isn’t the glamour & romance of rock ‘n roll all about defying parents and learning it the hard way?

On the other hand, those mommy moments don’t come so often when they’re 12. I’ll take ‘em any way I can get ‘em.

Yesterday afternoon I went up to my kids’ elementary school for an assembly. One by one, each grade took the stage and sang a couple of numbers, starting with the first graders and ending with the about-to-graduate fifth graders.

What is it about children singing? They could be singing, oh, I don’t know, “Fat Bottomed Girls,” and I’d probably cry. And when it’s “The Happy Wanderer,” sung by second graders (including my daughter), who chose that song themselves, well, I’m a goner. Mush ain’t in it.

If the pure innocent sound of seven-year-old voices rising up in song isn’t enough for you, add this to the picture: they sang well. The music teacher at our school is amazing, a jewel in the crown of the Ann Arbor Public Schools. By the time these kids graduate they know the difference between their head voice and their chest voice, they can read music, they can sing in four-part harmony. Yeah, the fifth graders sang a round in four parts, a capella, in a minor key, with large intervals and some dissonance. Sang it beautifully.

But I’m not done, oh no. The assembly finished off with a slide show compiled of the baby pictures and current pictures of the graduating fifth graders (among them, my son). And while the slide show played, the fifth graders sang a medley of tear jerkers that included “School Days” and “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby.” The only thing that saved me at all during this was the peals of laughter from the kids as each drooling toothless infant was revealed to be Eddie or Lizzie or, ha ha, the school principal.

All this by way of explanation for why, when my fifth-grader Joey arrived home with two of his buddies in tow and a request that they stay for dinner, all I could say was yes.

Voices: Part Two

Joey eats, sleeps, and breathes Dungeons & Dragons. It’s been a major source of frustration to him that none of his friends at school are into it. After about a year of failed attempts he finally managed to get his two buddies, Drew and Cedric, reasonably proficient at the game, and yesterday afternoon they had their first real dungeon-crawl. They played at the kitchen table, and I made a point of keeping myself busy in the kitchen too, so I could listen in. Oh, you couldn’t buy that kind of entertainment!

Drew was playing a paladin, which, by the way, he insisted on pronouncing with the accent on the second syllable. At one point they captured an orc. They tried to interrogate him (I wish you could have heard Dungeon Master Joey’s fake cockney accent as he played the orc) but the orc prevaricated. Drew then declared he was going to kill it, and I could not resist stirring things up a bit.

“What?” I interjected. “You’re a lawful good paladin and you’re just going to kill a poor helpless tied-up creature? That’s not right!”

Drew looked crestfallen for a moment, but then he brightened. “Ok, I won’t kill it. Cedric, you kill it.”

“But that’s just as bad,” I sputtered. Joey agreed, and Drew soon bowed under the joint force of our righteous indignation.

“I shoulda been a church inquisitor,” I heard Drew mutter in disgust.