![]() ![]() ![]() Thus began a near-lifelong grind, a lengthy arranged marriage with scattered intervals of mutual understanding and, once in a great while, unexpected joy. ![]() “It’s just like blowing into an empty Coke bottle,” others would insist, and I had to take their word for it because I didn’t think empty Coke bottles were useful for anything besides the nickels you could get in those days for their return. When, not many years later, my younger brother was given the chance to try the trombone, I picked it up out of curiosity and found, to my surprise, that I could actually get a note out of it on my first try.Īs for the flute…let’s just say that I was a slow learner when it came to things like metal mouth-pieces and where exactly to align the mouthpiece beneath my lower lip. (And Jesus, does that speech stretch longer in one’s memory or what?) Any brass instrument would have been A-OK with me. Well…No…Dad…I had my heart set on a trumpet. Instrument? Are…You…SURE…You…Want…A…Flute?” Trumpet,” my father said, staring deep into my eyes and enunciating every word as if it were one of those times I’d done something irreparably bad to the sofa or the bathroom sink. With Miles Davis lulling me to sleep practically every night from toddler-hood and other pieces of my living-room soundtrack ranging from Chet Baker and Clifford Brown to Gerald Wilson and Art Farmer, what else could I want but a trumpet? A trumpet was my first choice for elementary school music education. As I’ve told people over six decades, from Grade 4 on, I wanted almost anything but a flute. ![]()
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