“What’s the business, that such a hideous trumpet calls to parley the sleepers of the house?” ~William Shakespeare (Macbeth, II, iii)
Last week’s post introduced you to my fourth grade diary and precious gem queens that ruled outer space. We continue the series this week, with a glimpse into perhaps the reason why I’m not a very musical person. I do like certain kinds of music (80’s music can’t be surpassed for entertainment value and I’m also fond of classical music when I’m stressed), but I don’t ever go to music clubs or music festivals, it’s just not my cup of tea.
But when I started reading through my fourth grade diary, I was reminded of a music memory: my attempts to learn how to play the trumpet. For some reason I can’t remember, I decided I wanted to join my elementary school band class. (I think it was my idea…or was it my parents’?) And when it came time to pick my instrument, I picked the trumpet because it was the closest thing to what my Dad had played when he was in school: the coronet. I actually do remember the trip to the music store to pick out the used gold trumpet in the brown case with the red velvet lining inside, that was exciting. Less exciting: my mom signed me up for weekly lessons with a trumpet teacher there at the music store. I didn’t like him, or the lessons. I guess I thought that once we bought the instrument and I took it to band class, I’d just magically know the trumpet by musical osmosis or something.
January 7, 1980
(Transcript: “Today we had P.E. We played this game with numbers, myne was 1. I had my trumpet lessons today. My teacher is fat. Here is a picture. [drawing] That’s him. And then I did some more homework. It was a rrrrrr day.”)
Ah, I’m afraid I wasn’t very politically correct at nine years old, sorry about that. And I think I may have just watched “Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory” because that picture looks suspiciously like Violet Beauregard after she ate the forbidden blueberry gum. I remember it being very crowded in the confined space of the tiny little lesson room, it was like a closet off the sales floor of the music store. I remember he also had a mustache and glasses, and I’m pretty sure the real reason I didn’t like him was because he felt the need the empty the spit valve on his trumpet extremely frequently, which I thought was really gross. That’s another thing I hadn’t thought through very well when I picked the trumpet – the spit valve situation – and it became pretty disgusting pretty quickly. No one had told me about that little detail. Rrrrrr indeed.
My trumpet troubles continued:
January 23, 1980.
(Transcript: “Today I finished By the Shores of Silver Lake. Mrs. Fullerton started to read Tee-Bo aloud to the class. Today I was practicing my trumpet and I couldn’t figure out how B flat sounded. I watched the circus on TV. And also Happy Days again. I ate chicken for lunch.”)
I still have no idea whatsoever what B flat is supposed to sound like; is it one of the more difficult notes to master? Or is it a scale? I learned to read music at that time, I remember learning that, but I couldn’t read it today if you paid me a thousand dollars. It’s like I’ve completely blocked it out, which is weird to me; you don’t forget how to read your written language once you’ve learned, so why would one forget how to read music language once you’ve learned it? Or maybe I just thought I learned how, which would explain why I was really bad at playing the trumpet…that sounds more plausible actually.
Also, I started to really hate the little red ring that the trumpet mouthpiece would leave around my lips after playing it. The other kids in band class made fun of me for it. I was really bad at emptying the spit valve and it made me gag up a little sometimes. We weren’t getting along too well in this short-lived relationship, the trumpet and I.
You can guess what happened next, right?
February 4, 1980
(Transcript: “Tonight I had to wash my face, and I got soaking wet. (all Dad’s fault!) I didn’t take a bath. I watched Little House on the Prairie. I ate chicken for supper. I had homework to do! [smiley face] We went across to Miss Trihio’s class & watched some movies. (Fairie Tales) We had P.E. today. We did gymnastics in P.E. I read Inky & Texas for S.S.R. Stacey walked without me! I had trumpet lessons [another blueberry Violet drawing] / I quit!!!!!!!”)
Well, what another traumatic day that was…I’d had to walk to school by myself, do actual homework (although I seemed happy about that), and Dad messed up big-time on the face-washing (but thanks for trying Dad). No wonder another trumpet lesson was the last straw. You know someone’s serious about quitting something when they use SEVEN exclamation points and in increasingly larger and angrier sizes. I kind of wished I’d done that when I resigned from that last horrible job I had a few years ago, just to show the level of commitment I had to quitting that time too.
Also, we ate a lot of chicken, and I butchered the spelling of Miss Trujillo’s name, sorry about that (but I was obviously hooked on phonics). I never did learn another instrument after the trumpet trials, although I can play the first few bars of ‘Silent Night’ on the piano for some reason. I guess I just don’t have a musical brain, but I have no problem appreciating a good 80’s hair metal rock ballad when the occasion calls for it.
À la prochaine!
Ant Kristi
operationUNunhappy 