I’m in my Atlanta hotel room, watching tv. This show comes on about kids playing music, and this guy still has me smiling. There were some other kids too, including an amazing brass band made of siblings. Sometimes I hear adult players grumble about having it hard, watching kids depresses them, blah blah. What you should take away from this is a reminder of the essential joy of music and the endless possibility of the human spirit. I think the reason these kids get so good is because they don’t have that thing, that voice of comparison, denigration, or doubt. Young kids don’t have that in general, and it’s when they become young adults that a lot of them quit music or start phoning it in, because self loathing seems to be part of growing up. I say it doesn’t have to be, and adult students can use their experience as a vehicle to access the unrestrained, undiluted, unwavering music that years and years of being “grown up” have obscured. It’s there, I promise.