Beautiful Learning

Tonight the Breakfast Club got back together after (according to our calendar) two years. That doesn’t sound right and maybe someday I’ll go back through my blog entries to see when the last practice really was, but whether it has been two years or one, it has been a long time.

Since that time I’ve added my free Behringer Ultracoustic ACX1000 and my Frenzel Champ Super Sportster with homemade 1×12 and jury rigged 2×12 speaker. We had a great meal and then played our one song we started all those years ago.

After that we decided we should try something new. The singer had previously mentioned Youngblood by The Naked and Famous. I had listened to it and found some tab that got me close enough that I figured we could do it. I mean the song is basically just F# and B.

What I should’ve started this blog entry with is what happened last this evening. After everyone left and the kids were in bed I started the dishes. I have still use the baby monitors because I don’t always here the kids when the water is running (too many rock shows? Who knows!). Anyway, my daughter is in bed and obviously looking through Green Eggs and Ham. It takes me a little while to focus on what she is saying, but then I realize she isn’t just retelling the story in her own words, she is reading it.

And she is struggling through it.

But she is reading it. I start to tear up as I listen to her read to herself. It is beautiful. She sounds out the words she doesn’t know. She giggles at the funny parts (for some reason, eating them with a goat is the most hilarious thing ever). She puts the sentences together, understands them, and then moves through the story page by page.

Now I don’t mean to sully this wonderful moment, but this is the same process I went through with my friends as we tried to figure out Youngblood. Not nearly as beautiful as a little girl reading Green Eggs and Ham with her night light after she’s gone to bed, but a very similar process. Working out the notes. Trying the phrasing. Figuring out the tempo and rhythm. Playing along with the original song and then trying it on our own. Not quite knowing what we’re doing, but putting it together piece by piece until we have an entire song. (Remember we’re all beginners).

But we played the song. And we had fun. But more importantly, I stopped doing the dishes, went upstairs and told my daughter how proud I was of her, how much I loved her, and how amazing she is.