HARP-Violin-Cello-HARP-Viola-Cello-HARP--Isthatyourfinalanswer???

So the way they do things in our school system, in grades 3 & 5 the Symphony School sends a not-so-qualified musician to the elementary schools, where they force ALL students to pretend to learn how to play the violin, in a series of torturous "lessons" during which they herd the entire class into the cafeteria, where there is a garden of "loaner" violins laid out graveyard-style, and the teacher, who apparently assumes all people under 60 are mentally addled, proceeds to pretend to use the Suzuki method while speaking to the kids as if they are all 3-years-old and slow for their age. The students follow along good-naturedly, working hard not to roll their eyes, and screeching out various "popular tunes" ("We Will We Will Rock You!" - oh yes, the violin is a hip instrument almost exactly like an electric guitar, kids)

Anyway, any student who survives this farce is invited to join the music program in middle school. They have their choice: choir, orchestra or band. Ok, invited is not the right word. They are required to be in the sixth grade choir, orchestra or band. What they don't tell you until after you're signed up is, if you sign up for band, your child will have to attend lessons for his/her instrument every Monday/Wednesday/Friday through the month of July. What they also don't tell you until after you're signed up is that orchestra kids have to come 5 days a week starting the first Monday after school is out (for us, June 15) and continuing through July.

What they also don't tell you, is if your kid wants to play harp, he also has to play another instrument because there aren't enough harps to go around. Then, after you pay for the lessons (a very good deal, so I would have done it anyway - $30 for two months of daily 30 minute lessons) they tell you that harp lessons are free and don't start until August, and if you're willing to bring the harp to school every day that there is orchestra practice, your kid doesn't have to learn another instrument.

So anyway, Harrison plans to play harp next year, and after learning that their harps would be the STUDENT size and not the kind I usually imagine (see picture at beginning of this post to note the difference in sizes) I decided I'd be willing to deliver the harp to the Middle School on orchestra days so he could focus on learning the harp and not have to swap back and forth with another instrument (you have to rent a harp to practice on at home, then share the ones at the school during orchestra rehearsal, and bring another instrument back and forth in the meantime - so we'd be lugging some other instrument to the school on orchestra days anyway).

By the time this was all decided, they already had my check for lessons, so we decided to have HD go ahead and attend lessons on another instrument (one of those "it'll be good for him and anyway, it's paid for" parental decisions). So...which one to learn? We paid $70 to fix up my old violin when we thought he was getting real lessons through the elementary program...but after that debacle he was so NOT about the violin. Mom and Dad had an old cello in the basement that they borrowed from the junior high when John played cello and had never returned, and he decided that would be a good option.

The orchestra director said he'd be happy to fix up the old cello for us, so we hauled it in right after school was out, and he spent 40 minutes convincing Harrison he should play the viola instead. I told him no way, when we were already going to be shelling out big bucks to rent a harp, were we going to rent another instrument when we have on hand a violin, a cello, a flute, a sax and a trumpet. He said he could make our full size violin work as a viola simply by changing the strings. Harrison liked the idea of NOT lugging a cello back and forth, so ok. I agreed to send the violin with him on the first day, and the cello rejoined its long lost compatriots in the Franklin storehouses. So we lost a cello and a violin to gain...a viola. Whatever.

The thing is, the orchestra director has an assistant teaching the actual lessons this summer, so when HD arrived for his first viola lesson, violin in hand, ready to be restrung, he was persuaded to play cello instead. I was busy with daycare kids, and Dad drove him to his lesson, so I'm not sure exactly how that all transpired. At any rate, that's where we stand right now. Harrison is learning cello until August, when he will switch to harp.

(For the record, I wanted Harrison to play an instrument he could march with and play in a combo with. I guess he can do that with a harp...at a Renaissance Faire.)