I don’t think I’ve written much about my youth and how I was knee-deep in classical music, practicing, and performing. Well, more practicing than performing. In 6th grade I started playing the flute. My parents, who were both musicians, made the decision to get me a good private teacher from the beginning, so I got pretty good pretty fast.
By the time I was in 8th grade I thought I was all that and a piccolo, until I had some pretty rude wake-up calls. For those of you with children who wish to play the flute, let me educate you.
- Everyone plays the flute
- There is always someone better, usually a lot of people better
- Take up the oboe or the bassoon if you must play a wind instrument
- Strings are better because there are more of them
I wanted to play in the orchestra, and more specifically the Honor Orchestra (Southern California Honor Orchestra). I auditioned. It was a disaster. I auditioned three more times, each time making the Honor Band (where there are a lot more flutes).
My sister played the string bass and made it every time. Oh, AND she made it into the Honor Band as well.
I continued to play and practice and play. In high school I made the orchestra. I was so excited! The year I got in we played the Nutcracker Suite at Christmas. There is a great section of the Suite which features three flutes. I was chosen to play the 3rd part because I had a great lower register.
Well, much to my horror, about a month before the concert I left my flute in a pay phone booth and it was stolen! My parents immediately bought a new Muramatsu open-hole flute for me. I was thrilled, but totally overwhelmed trying to learn to play the open holes. My lower register mocked me with hollow whistling sounds. I was horrified.
Well, the middle part of the story is that I did figure out the open-hole fiasco, I did play the Nutcracker and much to my utter disbelief, found my other flute in a music store where we frequented. I just happened to have the serial numbers in my wallet of my previous flute. (Apparently, I was far more anal back then) The owners of the music store were ever so glad to hand over my stolen flute for fear that we would report to the authorities that they were purchasing fenced instruments.
I played the flute well into my college years. However, the longer I played, the less I enjoyed it. My experience of playing the piccolo in the BYU Symphony was disastrous, as were most things I did at BYU. I remember my most embarrasing flute experience when the ORCHESTRA decided to play “The Stars and Stripes Forever” and I was the designated piccolo player. However, I had NEVER played in a band and didn’t know the obligato part. Whereupon the director had the rest of the flue section stand and play the obligato from memory just to rub it in that I didn’t know it. I left BYU soon after that.
In High School I discovered singing in choirs (Oh, and always made it into the Honor Choir) and that filled my soul in ways playing the flute never did. I continued to sing in choirs up until about 3 years ago, and I will probably go back to it some day.
Which brings me to bon bons…
My sister has taught composition, theory, orchestration etc. on the university level ever since she received her Master’s degree in music from UCSB. She loved to share with me the little tricks the grad students had in preparing for their exams. One that I particularly remember is the trick associated with Tchaikovsky’s 5th symphony. “Oh, how I love to eat bon bons” were the words put to the main theme.
And why am I retelling all this? Because on my way out of the library today at lunch I heard exactly 5 notes of Tchaikovsky’s 4th symphony before identifying it. And I remembered that it was based on a Russian folk song entitled “The Birch Tree” (which is why I named my dog Birch, but that is an entirely different story).
If only I had had the same “tricks” for playing the flute. Maybe I’d have enjoyed it more.
I drag my sorry ass out of bed at 6:15 most mornings and haul myself off to the local Gold’s Gym. I look like I just dragged myself out of bed, and I make no pretense of looking like anything else. OK, I do brush my teeth and put my hair in a ponytail, but that is about it. I look so bad that my boss ran into me at the gym the other morning and didn’t recognize me.