If They Build It, you Will Come

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You’ve heard the saying from the 1989 hit movie Field of Dreams: “If you build it, they will come.”  Well, that’s a little how I felt when the Grosse Pointe Music Academy opened up in my town; just backwards, as they were the ones who built it.   Actually, when they FIRST opened up they were called Guitar Union and they had this cute little logo.  It was a circle with what looked (to me) like two intertwined lutes in a kind of yin-and-yang pattern – I later found out they were two guitars – (DUH!… GUITAR Union.  How dense can I be?).  Their motto at the time was “Bringing Music to the People;” “How quaint!” I thought; very earthy, very grassroots, kinda’ hippy.  I liked it.  And right here in “snooty” Grosse Pointe – oh come on now, you know we have that reputation – there was hope for us yet.  And I wondered how long they’d last.  It was 2005. At the time, our son was 5 years old.  I would have been 40.

So, according to an old advertising adage there is something called the “Rule of 7.”  It says that before a person acts on an advertisement, they need to see it 7 times. I am not sure how many times I saw that Guitar Union logo, or exactly where – which is how it works with advertising – but I finally called.  By this time, it might have been 2006 or 2007.  Life had happened.  I was glad they were still there!  This was a testament to the need for organized music lessons in our area and the quality of lessons they must have been providing.

The phone was answered by this really nice guy named Henry.  Turned out he was the owner of the place.  Being the mom of a then 6 or 7-year-old, I must have been starved for some adult interaction: I think I kept poor Henry on the phone for at least 15 minutes!  We talked about the best age to start a kid on the guitar.  We talked about the price of guitars.  We talked about his teachers, and what criteria he used to hire them. We probably talked about the weather.  I was impressed.  Henry was knowledgeable and friendly, and didn’t seem to mind answering the bajillion questions I had. He had passed the test.

What I did not expect was that SOMEHOW we started talking about lessons for ME.  DRUM lessons!  WHERE did that come from?!  I made the joke with Henry that if I were to come in for drum lessons I would have to show up in a costume (see photo).  He said that was fine with him.  The seed had been planted.  RkrMom (Rocker Mom) – that’s me – had been born.

~RkrMom