Dear Liz:
One statement in your post says it all: *My son loves the trumpet*....Love is such a great motivator, that it, along with faith, is capable of moving mountains....It's not such a big leap to understand that it will be sufficient to allow a little boy to learn to play the instrument that he loves<!>....
A number of studies have demonstrated that the instrument whose sound is most appreciated by a student is the one at which he or she will eventually excel most....It sounds very much like your son's *teacher*(and I use that term advisedly, and only because you used it in describing the person to whom you'd been paying money to *teach* your son to play the instrument he loves) doesn't know much about teaching youngsters.....
The first few years of playing any instrument can be frustrating--there are so many factors involved in becoming proficient, including physical, cognitive, technical, and artistic, that it takes a person who is really caring and patient to teach beginners....
It sounds like the person who has discouraged your son is neither patient nor caring.....
In nearly 30 years of teaching I have found only two students I really could not teach...Both were developmentally delayed...One was truly *pitch-deaf*(could not distinguish the difference between any pitches/sounds), but eventually went on to participate as a percussionist in the junior high and senior high bands...The other spent an entire year without being able to control his body sufficiently to remember the difference between two notes....In other words, he was able to physically produce the two notes, with help on fingering and singing of the notes, but could not reproduce them, even with a tape recorder and a tape of the lesson for reference in his practicing at home....
That youngster, now a young man, still runs to hug me and talk about his *trumpet lessons*(many years later, now), and share with me his delight at being a custodian for a local bagel shop....Even though he *couldn't* play the trumpet, he believed he _did_ for that year, and it's left him with a sense of pride and joy in his accomplishment that I wouldn't want to take away from him, would you?
So, let your son play the trumpet....There are many compensating factors which can be learned, regardless of his current teeth/jaw/lip configuration, to help him in his journey of discovery....
And frankly, in my town there is a young man who suffers from a neuro-muscular disease--lives in a wheelchair, has the use of only one hand(and that is limited), and yet he plays trumpet in the high school band....Of course, he'll never play first chair, never achieve a *high C*(let alone a double or triple high C), but that doesn't matter....
He's a member of the band, he's part of a peer group of some of the finest kids in the school(the band members), he interacts daily with some outstanding educators who view challenges as a daily part of life to be lived with, not fought or run away from, and who see progress in even the _attempt_ to begin the journey, not just in achieving the destination(and no, before you ask, it's not the school at which I teach), and he brings such pure, unadulterated JOY to his celebration of life and music that I can't conceive of ANYone telling him he *can't ever play the trumpet* just because he's living with a life-threatening neuro-muscular disease....
He's too busy living that life to worry about such trivialities....
No, Liz, you keep your son playing that trumpet, and encourage him, even on the days when he hates it(and there will be some of those days as well, as there are in any love relationship, since love and hate tend to be two sides of the same coin of passion)...and his life will be far richer and more beautiful, as will be the lives of all those who interact with him....
As far as that so-called *teacher*...Tell him or her to get in touch with TPIN(the trumpet players' international network) and Michael Anderson....That person needs to learn what real teaching is about--helping the student discover and develop their greatest human potential, not just ensuring that they will succeed on one particular instrument....
And stay in touch with us yourself, please, Liz, and let us know the details as your son continues his journey with his trumpet....We care, we've been where he is now, and we'll stick with him, whenever he needs us, every step along the way....
Feel free to email me directly if I can be of any further help....You came to the right place at TPIN....Best of everything...
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Take Care!
Jeannie