A cute short story. For general amusement.

[three60roundhouse]

There wasn’t enough going on in my life – I was merely eight and had not yet begun to worry about boys (they had cooties), clothes (I liked sweats), or colleges (SAT? isn’t that what the cat did to the mat?). My life was uncomplicated and devoid of responsibility, well, besides feeding myself cookies and milk after school, that is. So came the fateful day when I mustered up the courage to ask my parents, “Mom, dad? I really want to learn the saxophone!”

 

My dad loosened his tie and sighed, “But Clinton plays the sax.”

 

“So?”

 

“It’s like a thousand bucks,” said my mom in a Brooklyn accent as thick as an Irish sweater.

 

“Um, ok. I guess the trombone is cool too. It’s like….spitting, I guess. Into a metal tube. Haha. Can I get that?”

 

Thus began my foray into the glorious world of music.

 

It’s not easy for someone unaccustomed to the way of, as I have come to affectionately refer to it, the glorified foghorn. It’s a term of endearment. I promise. Most parents dread buying children any sort of musical device out of the intense fear of a traveling cacophony of noise in the house. This is an understatement. I would parade around with my heavy metallic contraption having a contest with myself. How long would it take before I shattered the windows? My eardrums? My family members’ brains? I progressed – I learned to make my brothers shake, my mirror shake, the house shake. My blowfish cheeks and purplish lips were a testament to the sheer amount of time I spend being a traveling headache – a trombonist.

 

Music has never been my thing. So it was no surprise that when volume was no longer my major concern, I was given the lowest parts only. I went from being a furious blast of wind to being “Trombone 3”. You know those hearing tests they give you at the doctors office where there’s a note so low in tone it’s barely audible? Well, if you drop that three or four octaves that would be the highest note in my average piece of music. In order to make myself produce these barge-like notes, I would make myself as “low” as possible – sinking into my chair, slouching over, and letting my pupils sink into the bottoms of my eyes. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t help. So when I went home, instead of actually practicing these hideous melodies, I would just try to blast a hole in my wall. It was more fun.

 

Then came IHA. I went from being an insignificant mousey girl impersonating a member of the trombone section to BEING the trombone section. There had been no trombonist in years. Apparently the only legacy left behind by the last one was that she fell off the stage backwards at the Christmas concert. Great. Just FAN-tastic.

 

Tomorrow is the Christmas concert of my junior year. I haven’t fallen off the stage yet, but I’ve been prepping myself for it for three years. There still exists this burning desire to try to huff and puff and blow the audience away with a mighty roar, but it’s been eight years since I chose the trombone (and decided to sever my political ties with my family), and I’ve learned dynamics now. I’ve actually grown taller than my slide, and emptying my spit valve on my enemies isn’t as alluring as it was in the fourth grade. My trombone sounds less and less like flatulence to me every day. Every once in a while, though, I make my own marching band and cause my skull to shake like a bobblehead. That, my friends, is music to my ears.

[rb]

"This one time...at band camp..."

 

Nice story, but trumpet is tops

[aefibird]

Great story.

 

I empathise with being 'Trombone 3'. I was, at one time or another, 'Clarinet 3', 'Flute 3', and 'reserve-reserve piccolo'.

 

That was when I was ^much^ younger and thought it amusing to create as much noise as I could with metal instruments and annoy my family. Heh heh.

 

I did progress to being Flute 1 and Clarianet 1, though not at the same time. My mum & dad are musical, so if they wern't nagging me to practise my flute, it was clarianet nagging, piccolo nagging, piano nagging, saxophone nagging...

 

I 'rebelled' from blowing instruments when I got older and discovered you could make faaaar much more noise with a bass guitar and an good amplifier...

[stl_karateka]

I also started as trombone 3....by the time I graduated I was first chair trombone, drum major, and in the elite jazz combo

[battousai16]

heh heh, you'd love percussion; there's always a good contest of "who can get the loudest sound out of the timpani/gong", "who can knock the bass drum farthest away". mallets requires more finesse, but if you don't have it, that's really obnoxious too maybe that's why my music teacher dosen't like me so much...

[angelica d]

Being a saxophone player myself, I have so sit near the percusionists in our jazz band...thus I am deaf every Friday afternoon without fail!

[WolverineGuy]

I'm a singer, so I can't be as subtle with the spit valve...I just have to hock one on the person in front of me.

[angelica d]

I was playing in a band last week and there was a trumpet player next to me who just would not stop emptying the spit valve. By the end of the show there was a huge puddle on the floor - which a clarinet player stood in and skidded across the room.

[battousai16]

i was playing in pep band, talking to the french horn player behind me, and i had my hand resting on the bleachers. about midway through conversation my hand feels wet. i look down and her spit is dripping out of her mouth piece

[angelica d]

Well on Friday I discovered that playing the saxophone non-stop for a whole day really makes it leak. Especially when you're playing carols outside in the freezing cold...