Saturday, November 24, 2007

Memories of the Dreaded Recorder

Music in an educational setting turned sour for me in grade school with the introduction of the recorder. The memory still haunts me and is probably the reason I have never touched an instrument again until this course. Our class was doing a school wide recital of "Tony Chestnut Knows I Love You" on the recorder. My playing was so poor, you can imagine the sour notes played two beats behind everyone else, that I was asked to hold the large flip chart cards of the body parts the audience was supposed to be pointing at. This killed my musical ego and I have told myself that I am musically inept the rest of my life. What a shame because music is awesome. It is instant expression, and really puts a smile to my face. I have been fighting my demons and venturing into the world of music again. I got some lessons on the steel drum while on a cruise vacation this summer, Dan has been instructing me on his amazing electric drum kit and he does not even yell at my when I pick up his guitar and puck away at the strings. I even went out and bought the horrid recorder and gave it and myself a second chance.

I found an awesome recorder website at
where I have been teaching myself.

Amanda won't let me practice when she is home and Cyrus my dog is not as encouraging as Jodi's is, but I laugh myself insane as I practice again and again. As teachers do not ever stop a student from trying no matter how bad he or she is. Thanks.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Too bad we didn't have time to have a recorder jam session in class -- what a sound that would have been. Great to see that you aren't giving up and giving it a second chance. I think you'll do great...PS, I can lend you my dog for an hour if you want her to give you a recorder boost --- she just loves it (awful or not!)