Home

You're buying a house and the first thing you do is check out the school district. After all, you have kids, and a good school system is first on your list of qualifications.

At last you find a house in a school district that's rated "Top Notch." It has an especially fine music program, too. Great! Just what you've always wanted. You've been playing Beethoven, Mozart, and Puccini for your kids for years. Now it's time for the real thing - music lessons!

The first son, the rebel, gets a choice. Which instrument would he like? (Not "do you want to play an instrument?" He'd just say no).

Reluctantly, he picks the saxophone. His father, who played sax and clarinet in his youth, is delighted. A chip off the old block, right? Wrong. The boy with a clever mind and no stick-to-it-iveness takes lessons and drops the saxophone in five weeks in favor of Cub Scouts. He lets you know in no uncertain terms that there will be no second choices.

"I've gotta meet some kids, don't I?" he says. "I need some friends." Who could argue with such logic from a small boy in a new town?

The second child is a girl. Which instrument would she like? The piano. Rows of dollar signs parade through your dreams every night. But you remember your own wish for a piano as a child. Your parents could not afford one. They took you for a musical aptitude test to determine which other instrument you might be suited for. They told your parents you could play anything. You wanted a piano. Stubbornly, you said, "Piano or nothing." So you played nothing. Your loss, and you regret the mistake to this very day. You vow that your daughter will have her piano.

So you buy a beautiful piano, country French to blend with your furniture. The piano bench sports a cushion upholstered with fabric to match the sofa. You shop for a smoked-brass music lamp. At last, all is ready.

Enter the music teacher! You've asked your neighbors for recommendations. Who's the best? And you get this big, tough guy like a drill sergeant. He scares your little girl to death. But does she learn! You love hearing her practice. When she gets to Chopin, you beam. The fact that she usually has an upset stomach on music lesson day does not dawn on you until years later and you make the connection. By that time, the drill sergeant has retired. A sweet woman has replaced him.

In the meantime, the third child, a boy, has begun trombone lessons. In the first of many music programs for parents, he and two other 3rd graders do a trombone solo, which you record, of course. But the trombone doesn't last long. He abandons it and, with no enthusiasm, joins his sister in piano lessons. The sweet woman teacher doesn't push them.

You take the children to the opera, in English. They hate it. You take them to the ballet. Once. They refuse to go a second time. You try orchestral concerts. They make noise and disturb everyone with frequent trips to the bathroom, giggling, rustling candy wrappers, and searching for lost objects deliberately dropped beneath the seats. You even try klezmer and cantorial concerts - they say it's "bar mitzvah music."

By high school, all lessons are abandoned and the two music students join the choir, largely for the social benefits. The boy makes a brief foray on the stage singing "I've Got The Horse Right Here," a gambling song from "Guys and Dolls." The girl appears in the chorus of "The Sound of Music," wearing a nun's costume and walking through the darkened auditorium to the stage carrying a lit candle. Her friends think it's hilarious - a Jewish girl playing the part of a nun.

Dutifully, you attend choir concerts to show them how meaningful this is to you. You buy recordings of the concerts and give them to the grandparents. Unlike some parents, you do not sneak out between acts or leave during intermission if your child's group has already performed. You stay to the end of the recital, appalled by the rudeness of those parents. You are determined to give support and encouragement to all the children and teachers who worked so hard to prepare for the performances, but stop short of direct endowment to the music department.

Son No. 2 joins a rock group. He plays guitar and sings some strange stuff. You try unsuccessfully to convince yourself that any music is better than no music. The group rehearses in your backyard until a cantankerous neighbor complains to the police.

You finally give up when son No. 1 decides to pull your leg one afternoon and carefully coaches his friends to mispronounce every classical composer's name as a gag. After Mouse-a-gorsky, Beat-hoven and Wagner pronounced with a W instead of a V, you've had it! You chastise yourself for not playing classical music for them "in utero" when you had a captive audience.

So they grow up on a diet of rock music and you give them headphones because you can't stand the stuff.

Then two of the children get married. The girl takes the piano with her - it goes well with her furniture. Son No. 1 and his wife have a baby. Although you swore you would never become a baby-sitter, you are so crazy about your grandson that you eat your words and volunteer for duty. When his parents come home, he is asleep in your lap and Debussy's La Mer is playing on the stereo. You never really gave up at all. Maybe this child will learn to like classical music? Do you think the 1812 Overture will wake him?

Toby Rosenstrauch, an award-winning columnist, lives in Boynton Beach, Fla.