138. Maestro in the making

Now that Gus is mastering the keyboard, cymbals, bike horn, and bass drum in a near-simultaneous one-man orchestra, the job of conductor falls to me.  He knows verbal cues such as “play it” for the piano and “honk it” for the horn, but I stupidly adopted “stomp it” for both of his pedal-operated instruments.  Not only does “stomp it” sound very similar to “honk it” — especially amid the din of squawks and clashes — but it leaves me no way to distinguish between the bass drum and the hi-hat cymbals.  What I need is a gestural cue for each instrument.  That’ll help clarify matters for Gus, plus it’ll enhance the overall performative hilarity for any audience.

I begin by combining a well-established verbal with a brand-new gesture:  to ask Gus to run his nose along the keyboard, I say “play it” while I also sweep my arm sideways over the keyboard.  After maybe half a dozen repetitions, I switch to saying nothing as I sweep my arm, and he catches on to the gesture well enough to respond pretty reliably.  For the cymbals, I combine the usual “stomp it” with a new motion that’s a dramatic, whole-arm finger-point at the pedal.  Again, he picks up the new cue in no time.  I figure I can use a big pointing signal for the bass drum too, since that gets placed on the other side of his bandstand; in fact, I’ll use right hand for one and left for the other.

Now, what about the bike horn?  My plan is to try repeating a thumb-and-fingers squeeze motion, if for no better reason than I bet I can remember it easily, as it’s how I naturally play that horn myself.  And I expect to need every possible advantage, if I’m to be accurately pointing and sweeping in real time with Gus’s up-tempo, bebop musicality.