Want to hear anout my experience with musical instruments?
Instruments? Plural?
Oh, definitely plural. I’ve tried several of them.
Let’s hear it.
My first exposure to a musical instrument was in elementary school — I forget which grade — when my class was issued what we called tin flutes. Actually they were tin whistles with holes that could be fingered to play notes on the scale.
Then we were given sheet music and shown how to play an actual song. How about that?
Good.
But then I wasn’t satisfied with that. I heard about another wind instrument called an ocarina. It was ceramic and made a more pleasant tone. Not tinny.
I’ve heard them called sweet potatoes.
Right. And then I heard about another instrument called a Tonette. Made of plastic. Not as mellow, but easier to finger.
Did you stick with wind instruments?
Made a slight detour that didn’t last. When I was 9 or 10, my parents paid an instructor to teach me the piano.
My teacher was George K, and I was doing okay, but then he went in the Army just before we got involved in World War 2. I didn’t get along with my second teacher, so I stopped taking piano lessons.
Too bad.
Years later, as a young adult, I took an interest in the clarinet. We can spend a whole session talking about that. Can we wait on that?
Okay. Some other time.
Then I discovered a guitar instructor, Laura Weber, on public television, and I bought her books and tried that instrument for a while. Folk guitar. Acoustic guitar.
On TV? Then you could videotape the lessons.
No. Unfortunately that was before the days of VCRs. If I could have taped the lessons that might have made a difference. But I couldn’t and I lost interest.
I now have in my closet a guitar with one broken string.
In that same closet I have an inexpensive keyboard I’ve improvised on. Am I beginning to sound like a musical dropout?
Well, you’re not the first.
I know. And probably not the last.
Most recently I’ve been intrigued by the ukulele.
So I bought one. It’s within reach as I work in my office, so I’ll pick it up and strum it every now and then as a break from what I’m doing.. And I’ll sing, if nobody else is around.
Something tells me I’m a not-very-serious musician. A writer, yes, but not a musician.
Well, we can’t do everything.