Random thoughts on a Monday afternoon in mid-March (UPDATE: for some reason I just happened to come to this page and saw that I left the page unfinished)
1) I've been away from trombone for nearly four years now. Truthfully, I don't miss playing that instrument--which I started because that's what we had in the house; my brother's Bundy peashooter, stuffed into a closet on our tiny Cape Cod's upstairs. I probably would have played just about anything else brass--or sung in choir, if I'd realized sooner that being outnumbered ten to one by girls in a class where girls and boys mutually enjoyed singing wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
I came to realize years later that school music was kind of a economic class thing. The kids of academics and more financially secure families played in orchestra, band was middle class, and choir was, well, just about everyone else. There were notable exceptions, but that's how it was (and still is, in many places) where I grew up. The choir always had its share of All-State members--three or four annually, if I remember correctly. An occasional band member would make all-state band or orchestra, but the Michigan Youth Arts Festival was always held on the same weekend as the annual Tulip Festival, and of course the band would march and squawk "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" to its thousands of adoring fans. Band members stayed home, even if they qualified for States. I didn't, and never regretted it. The trip to Central Michigan University was worth it. I played well, the band played well, and I was privileged to hear the Youth Arts Festival soloists with the Michigan Youth Symphony, as well as the All-State Orchestra. I look at the roster and the program and wonder what my fellow musicians are doing now.
*--Jimmy Buffett, Livin' and Dyin' in 3/4 time, 1974.
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