Girl with a horn

A recent news story suggests that learning music can increase a child's IQ. And that's good news for us this summer, because at least for the next few weeks, my daughter's playing not one but two instruments. After hearing her whine for months about how much she wishes she played the trumpet instead of the trombone, how much she hates the trombone, how she's really a trumpeter but has to play trombone because that's the instrument I picked out for her -- whining that reached a crescendo over the four weeks of summer music camp that end on Friday -- I finally found a local studio that offers rentals and lessons at reasonable rates, and called that girl's bluff. It took her about one lesson and a practice or two to realize that, gee, you can't pick up a new instrument and play it as well as the old instrument (something I told her, oh, 100 times?), and that she really is indeed a trombonist at heart. The lessons are prepaid until the end of the month, so she'll have a little time to live with that truth; but, just to hedge our bets, I signed her up for trombone lessons, too. Maybe, if nothing else, she'll get a little smarter.