Christmas comes early

After a two week break, I headed off to see my autistic musicians.

I unloaded the instruments from my elderly mercedes as microphone boy hovered in the heavy rain, peering through the vehicle windows and wondering whether he would be able to get in the car without me noticing; but the call of the microphone was too much for him and as soon as I put it down on the table inside the music room, he abandoned the car and hurried in to take possession.

He has a side effect from his medical treatment which causes him to salivate profusely and, as I watched the cupped end of the plastic microphone start to glisten, I decided that he was welcome to keep hold of it for the duration of my lesson. He is always very lively and inquisitive, and he eagerly began to explore the keyboard as I plugged it up. It started to get a bit slimy and I wondered about electric shocks...

The rained pelted down outside the window and we began with a few songs on the guitar which I usually improvise with the first thing that comes into my head. For some reason I found myself continually drawn to the general theme of fluids and before we knew it the song was about the whole of the hospital being subjected to a flood and microphone boy turning a table upside down, and using it as a makeshift boat to rescue himself and his companions. On reflection, I probably stole this idea from Map and Lucia

We all rather enjoyed this and then I approached the electric keyboard with trepidation, hoping that it had dried out a bit. Microphone boy tapped his head with the microphone to feel the vibration of the spring inside it and accompanied me to the keyboard. He put his ear on the speaker to absorb as much of the sound as possible, (he likes low frequencies) and I kept an eye on the direction and volume of any leakage from him to avoid earthing the national grid.

By accident, (my usual way of playing the keyboard), we fell upon the drum pattern for Jingle Bells. We had all five rousing verses about dashing through the snow, while the other two students hit tambourines and other percussion intruments randomly but with gusto.

The french electrical grid emerged unscathed and I put my instruments back in the boot as yet more rain fell on my head.