Partridge Family in the Making

The girls started guitar lessons tonight. They're taking classes from my former guitar teacher, Steve Edwards. I spent the hour browsing around the store, then I went out and cleaned out the van (amazing how dirty a minivan can get with two children - there were more Happy Meal toys in there than there were bit players in the Toy Story movies).

As their lesson was ending, I stood near the open door of the rehearsal room, and heard, clear as day, Emily playing the twelve notes that make up the riff to the classic rock song "Smoke on the Water" (if you don't know it by name, trust me, you do know it by the sound - it's instantly recognizable - really). She was playing quite well, too. See, this is the piece that I've been using to get the girls used to the guitar as an instrument - it's relatively simple (you can play it on only one string), and it is easily recognizable as a cool sounding piece of music, which the kids really get excited about. (Heck, I remember the first time I ever played that riff, and how excited I got).

Anyway, she even included a fairly technical element in the middle of the riff - a slide, which is where you move up (or down) the neck of the guitar, from one note to another, without plucking the string for the second note. We worked on that part for days, let me tell you. And she played it exactly the way I taught her. Steve, ever the encourager, told her with genuine enthusiasm in his voice, "Hey, that's pretty good!"

As if my heart couldn't swell with pride any more, Emily said proudly,


"Yep! My Daddy taught me how to play that!"


You just can't make this stuff up, can you?