My fingers still know what to do, and I have no issues reading music - my problem is drawing the bow across the strings in a way that doesn’t make my cat cower.
6 Likes
I played trumpet from 6th grade through second semester of college. I didn’t want to be in the marching band in college so I was in the off-season orchestra, but wasn’t much to that. I have picked it up from time to time since, but it’s probably been 15 or 20 years. I think the Star Spangled Banner is burned into my brain. I must’ve played that literally hundreds of times for every football and basketball game through 4 years of high school. I was first chair by my senior year, but only because my classmate who was better than I was had to step down to basically JV band because of a scheduling conflict with calculus. (I didn’t take calculus until college and then regretted it.) I was pretty much a band geek and practiced all the time. I think I could still play the national anthem, but our current rescue dog is terrified of our acoustic guitar (amongst many other things) so I have never subjected her to the trumpet.
Never did get the hang of the guitar although we still have it. Husband can play a few blues licks and I can strum a few chords, but that’s about it. Kids banged around on it a little but they were not interested enough to stick with it.
4 Likes
I played the clarinet from the ages of 10-18. Went to music school every Saturday morning. Played in the school orchestra, regional orchestra. Took my ABRSM exams in theory - achieved grade 5, and practical grade 7 out of 8 ( this does not correlate to US school grades by the way!). I enjoyed it, but was practising less the older I got. I stopped playing at university and never really thought about it again, until my youngest started college last year! I felt such a void with both kids away and decided to re-learn in December! I thought that I would be able to play, but was unsure if I would remember how to read music, and so signed up for lessons again. After my first lesson it all came flooding back! I absolutely LOVE IT! I practise for 1-2 hours every afternoon, and I think I am better now than I ever was. I play for fun, and love my duets with my teacher. I have spent the past couple of months perfecting Saint Saens clarinet sonata, and am now tackling Mozarts clarinet concerto along with other fun stuff.
7 Likes