Managing Editor
Following my mother’s insistence that I learn how to play a musical instrument as a teenager, I reluctantly agreed to try the clarinet, and it turned out to be a disaster.
To get me started, my parents took me on a Saturday morning to a music store where I could pick out a clarinet. My mother said she dreamed of me playing in a band and becoming as well-known as Benny Goodman someday.
But from the start, there were issues with the clarinet. At the music store, my father was reluctant to spend several hundred dollars for a new clarinet and case, and instead turned his attention to the used instruments which were much less expensive.
He selected one with a beat-up old black case that was only $15. There was a reason why this clarinet was placed in the discount rack as apparently one of the keys would stick and the mouthpiece was scratched. My father said it was a perfect instrument to practice on before I could use some of my own money from my newspaper delivery route to buy a new one.
The music store salesman also sold my father a small packet of reeds used with the clarinet. You would use your tongue to moisten the reed on the mouthpiece before blowing into the instrument. To me, it was like licking a small thin piece of wood and I detested it.
Responding to an advertisement in the Sunday newspaper, my parents arranged for me to attend lessons with a clarinet teacher for $5 a week every Saturday morning. His house was old and smelled like mildew and I quickly came to realize that learning how to play the clarinet would be extremely difficult. There was more to do than just blowing onto the reed and placing my fingers on holes in the clarinet and tapping various keys.
To make music, clarinets use multiple octaves using different fingerings and you are using every finger on both hands to play the instrument. The learning curve was formidable and at age 12, there were many other things I wanted to do with my time after school than sitting in my bedroom practicing scales on my clarinet until dinner.
When I reached junior high school that fall, my parents signed me up to be a member of the school’s band. The music teacher, Mr. Taylor, led the band and would choose music we would be playing for our annual Christmas and Spring concerts.
Every day during the period after lunch, we would gather in the music room with our instruments for band practice. Of everything I associate with playing the clarinet, that was the best for me because I got to sit between two attractive girls, Jackie Duane and Eleanor Gruver. One played clarinet like me and the other played saxophone. I couldn’t decide which one I liked more, but I never told them such.
By ninth grade, I had come to loathe the clarinet. I never really advanced beyond basic playing skills. My clarinet would constantly squeak when I tried to play the notes I wanted. Or several of the keys would stick when I played it, and I’d have to pound on them to make them unstick.
I would compare myself to others in the band and was amazed at how much better they were than I was on their own musical instruments. Each time I messed up during band practice, Mr. Taylor would stop the rehearsals and let me know about the mistakes I was making. It became intolerable and wasn’t much fun for me.
When I mentioned to my parents over dinner that I wanted to quit playing the clarinet, my father said nothing, but my mother had a meltdown of epic proportions. She berated me for wanting to play a musical instrument and then not following through with it. She said no matter how much I wanted to quit that she wasn’t going to let me do that. She said she wasn’t going to throw away all the money she spent on my clarinet lessons for the past three years.
It was a dilemma that I somehow had to resolve. I was a terrible clarinet player, and I didn’t like having to use the reed for the clarinet. I was never going to become Benny Goodman. I felt trapped into doing something I didn’t want to do in the first place.
One day after Christmas when I was in the ninth grade, I saw Mr. Taylor outside the band room, and he asked me how I was doing. I told him it was hard trying to live up to my mother’s expectations and he said he understood. He told me that playing a musical instrument is not for everyone and he would call my father about it.
The next evening, my father told me that I no longer had to play the clarinet if I didn’t want to.
So ended my time as a musician and I seriously haven’t looked back since.
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