Teaching A Seven-Year-Old To Play Guitar

This week he's hiding under a blanket when I come. I ask him, 'Do you want to have your lesson? ' He tells me 'Yes', and so we go into the next room, to his music stand, and start. I watch his little fingers make the chords, trying to gain a hand-hold over chaos. His memory's impressive, though he sometimes muffles every string and has no sense of when to strum. I think of what it is I want to teach him, the things that seem so simple, now, for me. These concepts, time and rhythm, this finesse of fingers don't come naturally. They must be dredged out of a dark sea with a net of patience. Sometimes he walks away before the lesson's done, telling me he's tired, and I leave feeling our effort's dead. Next week, perhaps, his mom will say, 'We're going to take a break...' I struggle through despair those few moments weekly I can spare for preparation, drawing rhythm charts: two long lines mark off a measure, a short line for every strum, chords and lyrics penciled in. This week, it works! Clapping out the 4/4, then the 3/4 time, I finally hear the songs he's worked so long on. He doesn't, but he will. Life has come from the dead impasse. The air in my lungs is vast and fresh now, like the sky that greets me when I get outside. I feel as though I've tutored Alexander for his conquest of the world.