Do I make you "horny", baby? (My Experience of Learning a Musical Instrument)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	My Experience of Learning a Musical Instrument
Date:	01/02/02 (228 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Enjoyable, Loud

Disadvantages: Time consuming, Slow to master, Loud

Of all the instruments I could have asked to play, the trumpet would have been quite near the bottom of the list. After all, I was only around 7 or 8 years old, and had no knowledge of what a good horn section could bring to a band. I think the problem was (as I remember it) that our school had this knack of simply dropping these "huge" decisions on us without any warning.

Take, for example, our school football team. We were told one morning that try-outs for the team were to be held that afternoon, directly after school. I thought at the time I was an ok footballer, certainly good enough to be in with a realistic shout of actually gaining a place, but without being able to tell my parents I would be late home (and indeed, with not having any football gear with me) I sadly had forego the tryout and head home. I'm surprised with this attitude that they managed to get a team together!

Anyway, getting back to the instrument. It was one morning, probably a September at the start of P4, when we were asked if we wanted to play an instrument (and later, join the school orchestra). For some reason (because I'd never considered the possibility at any time before) I stuck up my hand, and in the manner that young people do, I strained with every muscle and tendon to get my hand that millimetre higher than anyone else's, because kid logic dictates that the higher your hand, the more suitable your are for whatever you're volunteering for.

Later that day, and totally against my character, I actually sat down and told my parents what I'd done. In their evil manner, instead of shooting my ideas of stardom down in flames, they were quite encouraging and they told me that they'd support me with whatever I needed. Curse them! I was still too young to be interested in the stars of the hit parade, but I did have stars in my eyes. Rather than the clichéd dream of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll that clouded my vision in la
ter years as I air-guitared to many a song, I could only dream of rubbing shoulders with other famous people like Kevin Keegan, Mohammed Ali and if I were especially lucky, Starsky and Hutch.

A few weeks later, all those who had raised their hands were taken for music testing - I assume that they weren't going to give an instrument to some tone-deaf guy or girl. I remember doing various tonal tests, musical tests, timing tests and even (bizarrely, I though) singing tests. I've no idea why they made us take singing tests, although I had the voice of an angel when I was a nipper. The same can't be said now though, and I do get asked repeatedly why I've got howling dogs in the room.

An unremembered time period later (probably no more than a week or so) al those who were eligible for musical instruments were gathered together and asked which one they'd to learn. Now, if I was asked that question now, I could state any number of instruments, and give valid reasons for them - drums (I like noise), guitar (I want to be a rock god), saxophone (I like some Jazz and 60's soul music) and maybe even the piano (because it's versatile). Nowhere in that list is the trumpet, so God himself only knows why I chose that from the list (none of those other instruments were on it though - the closest I could have gotten was the clarinet).

Eventually, we were taken for a test one day to ascertain if we were right for the instrument we chose. That sounds funny, doesn't it? I thought so too at the time, but apparently everyone who wanted to take on a brass instrument first had to test his or her range. It's like a pfffffffffffft-ing sound, and you need to make it in order for the instrument to make any sound at all. While most people have no problems making this sound, some people cannot pffffffffffffft in certain ways to produce either high or low notes, and the final decision on which instrument you actually get is based on th
ese tests. Most of us got what they wanted, but one or two people had to change to a cornet (higher pitch) or a French horn (lower pitch).

Like all kids (and there's an episode of The Simpsons that will back me up) I fully expected to be belting out all sorts of music within minutes, if not seconds, of putting the mouthpiece to my mouth. Alas, the reality was much different. Not that I found the instrument hard - in fact, far from it. But, I was a lazy child. If I'm totally honest, part of me is still lazy today. So, we were all given a little book in which we made a note of each practice session we did at home, and how long for. Each week, a parent had to sign it off to prove we'd done the required amount of practice. If I recall, it was about 2 or 3 hours per week ? 30 minutes per day for 6 days. But, I could only ever scrape together enough energy to practice two or three times per week.

I'd always get my mum to sign off for the week, but (cunningly) on my way from the classroom to the practice room, I'd fill in the other blank practice sessions to produce a full 3-hour practice week. I got away with it, too! Every few weeks, Mr. Millen (our Trumpet teacher, from the Belfast School of Music) would give us a new (short, and simple) piece of music which would introduce some of the things we had learned ? new notes, music symbols etc.

Mr. Millen was an intimidating, but friendly type of character. You knew when you were in his bad books, and you knew when he was in a good mood. One day, out of the blue, he decides that out of the four pieces of music he'd given us, we could pick one of our choice, but we had to play it from memory. This was the first time we'd done this, and we had been given no prior warning, and who was the poor sap who had to go first? Yours truly, of course.

Cold sweat, memory loss, nerves? I had none of these as I produced a perfect rendition of the third tune (they didn't hav
e any names - just the order in which they were entered into our music books). Of course, the other four people had time to compose themselves, and they too performed perfect renditions of the third tune.

So, let's jump forward a year. I'm one year older (not necessarily wiser) and I've been playing the trumpet for a year now. Now, from what I can gather from my parents and Mr. Millen, I do have a talent for this music malarkey. I've a reasonably good memory so I can learn music quickly, and I can pick up new notes in a short period of time. By this time, I can also read music - so playing a new piece of music is challenging, but not impossible. I'm really enjoying myself with this trumpet malarkey, and despite still being lazy when it came to practice, I seemed to be doing quite well at it.

A friend of mine from Cubs who was a few years older (he was in P7 when I was in P5) than I was, also played the trumpet, and he was in the process of doing his Grade 3 and he also played for the School of Music orchestra. However, Mr. Millen had never properly explained the "grade" process to us, so I wasn't really sure what it meant, but this small piece of information was to prove important at a later stage of my musical education.

We were also being taken for extra tuition by one of our school's own music teachers to learn a few extra notes that would be required for an upcoming orchestra performance. I'd always been quite a shy kid (in fact, I still am incredibly shy) but I had no qualms about playing in front of my schoolmates, or anyone else for that matter. However, the extra lessons were given on a different day to our normal trumpet lessons, and by accident (I forgot to bring in the trumpet) I managed to miss about 50% of the extra lessons. I did learn the notes, and could play them, but I was struggling a bit with reading them. So, the orchestra leader told me that if I was running into trouble, not
to play, and to join back in when I was comfortable. Even with this minor embarrassing situation, I still enjoyed the trumpet. By the end of this year, I was up to four practice sessions per week.

However, at the start of P6 I was starting to get annoyed with the seeming lack of progress we were making. By this stage, my friend who I mentioned earlier had already done his Stage 1 and was working on his Stage 2 and yet he hadn't even explained to us what the Stage system was or how it worked. We were still learning new things, of course, and playing regularly in the orchestra but I was feeling that I wasn't actually making any progress.

Around this time, my trumpet needed repairing, so I was on a forced break away from the music etc. for around five or six weeks. During this time, I made up my mind that once the end of the year came, I would give up the instrument. I told my parents this, and they were not at all pleased, even though I thought my reasoning was quite valid. The angriest though, was my trumpet teacher who went ballistic when I told him what I had decided. He asked me why I wanted to give up the trumpet, and I told him. Interestingly, although he wanted me to continue playing the trumpet, and spoke to me at great length that day about what I would be missing etc. he never once explained why none of our class had taken Stage 1 or if any of us were likely to do so.

By the time we had left primary school, two of my closest friends had been regulars in the school orchestra for a while. One played the clarinet, and the other played the French horn. Interestingly, the clarinet player had taken his Stage 1, but the brass player hadn't taken anything. When starting grammar school, I was approached by the Head of Music and asked to take the trumpet again. I was very tempted by the offer, if only because one of the last things that Mr. Millen had said to me was that I'd never get another chance if I gave up the trumpet.
In the end, I refused, believing that I'd been away for too long, and it would be like starting from scratch again.

Since then, I've toyed with the idea of taking up another musical instrument - guitars, drums and saxophones have all been stared at lovingly each time I walk past the music shop, but knowing from experience how long it took me to become semi-decent at the trumpet, I've always ended up walking away. These days I just don't have they money to spend on an instrument nor do I have the patience and willpower to invest a few years of practice and learning.

Looks like it's back to the air guitar, at least I can play that one perfectly.

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