Klarinet Archive - Posting 001077.txt from 2000/01

From: "J. Hobby" <jhobby@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Why?
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2000 18:37:52 -0500

I started playing when two of my best friends joined the band. (Both on
clarinet.) They kept saying, too bad you don't play in the band. So, I
started, at age 13, I think. In the 8th grade, the band director (who was
also the HS band director) asked me, "Do you know what a bass clarinet is?
Would you like to learn to play one?" (It turned out the bass clarinet
player in the high school band was PG, and back then (the fifties) you
couldn't go to school in that "condition." She went to spend a few months
with her aunt in Cleveland, or so they said.) It was something of a
challenge. A bit over a month to learn Universal Judgment and Second Suite
in F.

I had private lessons from the beginning, as well as regular classes. (I
kept taking lessons all the way through university.)

I went through the rest of HS challenging back and forth with one of those
friends for first chair. They both put away the clarniet after high school.
I went on to college on music scholarship. Taught. (HS & private) Played
orchestra and opera. All of that, until a rather painful fall tore my
diaphragm (among other things) requiring major surgery. After a year, the
doctor said it was okay to go back to playing. I couldn't. Two notes and I
had pain and the breath was gone. Being accustomed to eating, I decided to
find another job, and the clarinet went on the shelf.

A few years ago, I got out the bass clarinet and played for a while in the
community band. (No more pain, but still no breath, either.) Before I
could get a lot back, they gave me the baton for three seasons. I resigned
from the conductor's post, and I've now started back on the Bb, and it's
coming back, veeeeery slowly. (I still can't get one note out of the flute,
though.) I'm playing 3rd chair, 3rd part in the community band on Bb, now.
I guess my competative spirit has dulled, because I don't mind playing 3rd,
now. <g>

That's probably a lot more of the "why" than you wanted. Hope I didn't bore
you. <g>

Jim Hobby

=======================

>From: "Bryan Cholfin" <cranked@-----.net>
>
>I have a general question that I kind of want to ask because I've heard it
>quite a few times in the past few weeks.
[snip]
>So I was kind of wondering if anyone else had been struck the same kind of
>way, and who did it to you.

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