Kids Say the Darnedest Things, Even When Occasionally Crossing the Line

This one came at the beginning of a lesson this morning...

KID: So...what's new? How are the wife and kids?
ME: The kids are hopefully nonexistent, and the wife and I are still trying to meet for the first time.
KID: So, no sperm bank donations, then?
ME: Wow--that's perhaps the most awkward lesson comment ever...
KID: Really?
ME: Maybe. And you know this is going on Facebook. You can even read it in a month! [He's a senior.] Along with all the other crazy stuff my students say.
KID (laughing): I'm not sure that I want to...

Kids Say the Darnedest Things When They Take Your Questions Too Literally

The high school audition music was passed out at the end of last week, so I'm hearing kids on it for the first time today...

ME: So have you had a chance to look at this yet?
KID (hesitating, sheepish grin): Yeah.
ME: So do you mean you actually practiced it, or did you just simply look at it--"Hey, look: Notes on paper!"?
KID: Looked at it.

Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Nearby States

I was discussing tomorrow's jazz trip with one this morning...

ME: This may seem early, but tomorrow at this time, I'll be on a bus, headed to Wichita, Kansas for a jazz festival.
KID: So you're going to go play jazz with corn?
ME: No, there's a perfectly good festival out there.
KID: So you'll have the most teeth of anyone there?

Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Missing Items

One kid at a middle school who had evidently lost a pair of glasses was asking the director if he'd found any...

DIRECTOR (holding up a pair) Are these yours?
KID: I don't know; I can't see.

Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Sheet Music

This one came into his lesson empty-handed, and I asked him why...

ME: Didn't I pass out something to you last week?
KID: Yeah, but it was for jazz.
ME: So that means what, that you have it memorized? OK...1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4...

Failiversary

Tonight, I'm in the thick of preparing for a big concert that takes place tomorrow, but I would be remiss if I didn't pause for a moment at this time to reflect on the third anniversary of my accident, the entire story of which may be found here (go to the Older Posts link at the bottom of the page, then again to the bottom of that page to a post from 2009 called "An Interesting Day," and then skim at will). As I just said on Facebook, while the ensuing recovery was definitely a challenge, I'm grateful for the things I learned at the time and the friends and family who helped me along the way.

As for now, the knee hardly bothers me at all, save for a little piece of excess cartilage near the scar that seems to have hardened into a bony knot and precludes me from kneeling on that knee (so yes, it looks like I'm Tebowing if I have to do that on a hard surface) and the occasional twinge when the weather gets really, really cold. Three years ago, I had no idea what the immediate or long-term future would hold, but it seems to have gotten back to normal in relatively short order.

Big Kids Say the Darnedest Things

In one of my college jazz combo rehearsals yesterday, we were tuning the horns, and one of them, a retiree in his 70s, was just a little sharp, so I told him to pull out his mouthpiece just a "micro-hair." He reached back to his nearly bald head and plucked something out, saying "Here you go--a micro-hair!"

Blogiversary

Just a quick note to mark my ninth anniversary of blogging. While I certainly haven't gotten things completely figured out with regard to proper maintenance of this blog in the era of Facebook and Twitter, it's still in my long-term plans to keep this thing alive and viable. If nothing else, it will continue to be a collection of "Facebook's Greatest Hits" (the Kids Say the Darnedest Things and Playing This Week in the Kevmobile series), as well as longer-form things that don't fit as well on the social networks, such as essays, CD and concert reviews, and so on.

For those of you who visit here regularly (or even irregularly), thanks for stopping by; I'll try to always make it worth your while.

Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Bad Penmanship (Mine in Particular)

As I entered a student's check in the ledger and endorsed it, he took note of my, umm, "unique" signature...

KID: (laughs)
ME: Like my signature, do you?
KID: It's like a jazz signature.
ME: Oh yeah?
KID: Yeah. If jazz had a signature, it would be that.

Kids Say the Darnedest Things When They Mis-hear Instructions

A band director related this tale from yesterday:

DIRECTOR: If you're working the fundraiser this weekend, you'll need to wear a white, collared shirt.
KID: Huh? A white-colored shirt?

Kids Spell Things in the Darnedest Ways

Some middle schoolers were asked to mark their music with the names of the instruments that were playing the same parts that they were. On one kid's page, he was playing alongside the "cleranets'" for a while; he was later joined by the "fluts" and the "obous."

Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Less Familiar Musical Terms

Today, a student and I were playing a duet with appoggiaturas in it...

ME: Oops--what happened there; did you just lose count for a second?
KID: Nah, I was just confused by the Impostor Zero.
ME: You mean appoggiatura? Impostor Zero sounds like an anti-hero in a comic book.
KID: You know what I meant. This is going on Facebook, isn't it?
ME: You know it.