Soulful strains

We were driving down an arterial road in Dubai recently when my son suddenly sprang up from the back seat of the car. "Soulful Aggression," he declared.

Aghast, I asked him what he was talking about. But he wasn't listening, his eyes fixed on a partially demolished building we had just passed. The ugly concrete remains, I realised when I managed to board his train of thought, had served as a flash of inspiration for the title of a music album he hoped to cut in the near future.

I sighed with a familiar sense of resignation about what I believed was a fad, a feeling that any mother of a 15 year old would know.

Like many of his ilk, my son embarked on his musical journey with gusto as a tween. He wanted nothing less than a Gibson Les Paul electric guitar for his first lessons, but was forced to settle for a Yamaha acoustic on the advice of his teacher. A month down the line, he had had enough.

"Old MacDonald and Jingle Bells are not my style," he had said, making his case to change his teacher and before I could probe further, he had presented me with the name of a replacement — a revered singer and guitarist, whom he had zeroed in on after much research.

I knew there was no arguing with him. So I signed him up for the new classes, an Ibanez electric guitar slung over his shoulder.

No doubt, the credentials of the new teacher were impeccable. It was equally heartening that he found my son brilliant. But, predictably, these classes too became irregular in a few months, with my son insisting that he preferred self-schooling at home with lessons from the internet.

Again, I didn't argue. As time went by, there was no denying the wealth of information he had assimilated. From the making of Jimmy Page's double-necked, 12-stringed guitar to the logic behind Angus Young's schoolboy stage appearances, he could regale you with charming tales of his idols in the genre of Rock. And as his knowledge grew, so did his own demands, the constant upgrades in his acquisitions — a Dave Mustaine electric guitar being the latest — costing me dearer by the month.

An amateur band with schoolmates also came about, as did a website that was ‘under construction' for the most part. And from what I was told, the band had uploaded a composition on Facebook and YouTube as well.

It makes me wonder at times, as all I get to listen to is a cacophony of stray notes.

"You don't understand the licks," he shot back the other day, hard-pressed to educate me on the importance of the stock phrases.

"Let my album come out," he continued in defiant pride. "I will be featured in an interview when I will probably be talking about how my mother never believed in my music."

"But then, you didn't stop me either," he said.

It was my turn to become inspired.

"Soulful Defence," I thought to myself.