Battle in the street!

This year Jacob played the violin in school. We had a hard time getting him to practice and half way through the year he was ready to quit. But he persevered (or maybe it was just that we wouldn't sign the paper allowing him to quit) and finished the rest of the year. About a week and a half ago he had his final concert and had decided that he would practice a little. Much to my delight. And he told me that he was going to do this practicing outside on the front porch. I said that was fine and he asked me if I knew why he was going to practice outside. He told me that he was playing outside so that "when the people came out of their houses to get the mail, they would hear me playing and think,"He's good" and give me a thumbs up." Cute, right? It gets better.

I went into my room and since we have been having beautiful weather I had the window open. Keep in mind Jacob doesn't like to practice and I hadn't heard him play in awhile. But with the window open I could hear him quite clearly. I was pretty impressed. He really improved a lot over the course of the school year. I was listening to him and noticed that the playing had gotten a lot quicker and much better. I was really impressed. Then I realized that I was hearing two separate instruments.

I went to the front door to see what was going on and when I opened it Jacob was setting down his violin and I asked him if someone else was playing an instrument too. He said,"Yeah, the guy across the street is playing a clarinet. We're battling in the street." He ran past me into the house and told me, "I gotta get my book. This guys hardcore!" I went back to my room and he went back out to play.

I listened for awhile longer and heard Jacob shout across the street to the clarinet player if he new a specific song. (I would tell you exactly which song, but I don't know how to spell it.) They then played "together" for awhile. Turns out Lorri knows the clarinet player from school. He even came over a few days later and played music with Jacob for about an hour. I thought that was cool that a high school student would be nice enough to spend time with a fifth grader. I wish we had discovered him sooner. Jacob may have practiced a lot more.