Hello Stranger

Today is horn lesson day. Technically, every Monday is horn lesson day, but over this past year, which has been...well...hell for my family with one thing after another, I have had to cancel so many that my teacher now greets me this way: "Well, hello stranger. You haven't been here in so long, I can hardly remember when you were here last."

It's a shame because as gruelling as these lessons can be, I do love them. It's similar to beating your head with a two by four and asking for more. And paying for it. Having a teacher keeps me on track. Having a teacher holds me accountable. Having a teacher assures that I will play more than little ditties from 5th-grade etude books that may be fun and easy but do absolutely nothing for my musical development.

My poor teacher, who is an instructor at at least two colleges within sixty or so miles from here, is forced to repeat himself, not because I can't hear, but because my head is full of forty years of plaque and mashed potatoes, and nothing he says sinks in the first time. Who am I kidding? Nothing he says sinks in the first twenty-seven times, and he has to turn every bit of instruction into a mantra.

Play lighter...hold the notes before the rests...set your embouchure...count the rests AND the notes...subdivide....that high G is so piercing the paint is peeling off of the walls... the list goes on.

Last week, after the long-lost-student greeting, I pointed out that to get to the lesson room in the arts building of Mount Union, I have to walk through a corridor filled with students--the usual students who are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one. They are resident college students, music majors who roll out of bed in the morning, throw on some clothes, grab a mug of coffee, and spend the day practicing their instruments and sitting through theory classes. They may have part-time jobs, but most of them are simply students without the added responsibilities of bigger jobs, households, family crises. They don't drive their children to the many places they need to be, they don't cook the meals, they don't do anything but learn.

And as I walk through this corridor, I am acutely aware of my many roles--the food source, the driver, the crises manager, the nurse, the graphic designer, the laundry matron, the floor sweeper, the toilet scrubber...do I need to go on? If these college kids had any idea what lies ahead for them, the good and the bad, they'd latch onto this opportunity to learn relatively unencumbered, and they'll appreciate it. But of course they don't know, and as my teacher pointed out, they cancel their lessons for different reasons..."um, yeah sorry. I slept in." Fools, the lot of 'em.

As much as I groan about the strain of learning to play the horn in my middle-aged state, it is my passion, and a seemingly undying one at that. I hope you all have one--a passion that gets you excited even when you fail miserably--a passion that perks you up at the simple mention of its name.

Off to listen to Dennis Brain playing Mozart's Horn Concerto #2 until I can hum it in my sleep, even if I can't play it as well as he did.