Too Early?

I have a student who's in grade six (I assume that she's 11 or 12 years old - I've never asked), and she's just started to play the flute (so far, we've developped the Bb and F major scales). In her last lesson, she asked me to teach her "Lester Jumps or something like that..." so I played the melody to "Lester Leaps In" and she perked up right away and exclaimed "that's the one!"

I wrote out the melody and gave it to her. We spent the rest of the lesson firming up the rhythm (she can play the notes consistently) and I sent her home. Her homework for the next lesson - memorize the tune.

I'm very excited that a student that is young has taken an interest in the music that I love. I've asked several other music teachers in the area what they think in regards to her age, experience and their teaching methods. I have gotten too basic responses - "too early" or "go for it!"

So, I ask teachers (in all subjects), parents and anyone else who has an opinion a few questions -

If a young student shows interest in a subject, do you acknowledge it?
If not, are you stiffling their creativity in any way?

Transcription - Joel Frahm - Pennies From Heaven (Chorus One)

I have been doing a lot of lifting lately, and therefore, quite a bit of intense listening. One saxophonist that has caught my ear is Joel Frahm. I had the opportunity to chat with Joel while he was in Ottawa (unfortunately, I missed both his shows for my own gigs, but caught him afterwards). Super nice guy! He even tried my new horn (Selmer Cigar Cutter Tenor - I love it!).

This transcription, from Sorry, No Decaf, grabbed my attention because of the phrasing of the melody, and because of Joel's inside-outside breaks (check out bars 15-16 and 31-32). As far as
I've heard, the trio (Joel Frahm - tenor sax, Doug Weiss - bass, Matt Wilson - drums) play over the standard changes, but I'll update that as I move through the rest of the solo.





As I was transcribing this, I went through the first few times in real time, and I caught quite a bit of it. Then I put the solo through Transcribe! which helped me out. I found that the intro was harder to write down than to play. The 6/4 bar drove me crazy (I kept trying to figure it out in 4/4), but overall pretty straight ahead. Frahm's use of space in the next couple of chorus' have been fun to figure out, but they're not quite ready to go. I'll post them soon.