After starting out to recount my New Year’s experience, I turned down an unexpected garden path to find myself understanding at last my turning away from and eventual return to a life with music.

For many years, starting in middle school and throughout high school and college, I loved playing the saxophone. I loved playing solos, I loved playing small ensembles, I loved playing in marching band, I loved playing in jazz bands, I loved playing in wind ensembles. I just didn’t love playing for others as a soloist. I loved the music and I loved the experience of adding my own musical voice to that of an ensemble, but I hated being singled out as the dominant sound at a given time.

This dread of soloing is what partly what talked me right out of a degree in music. True, at the time it happened, I was biting off a bit more than I could chew, what with taking 18 credit hours on two completely different degree tracks, working part-time at a software company, running a chapter of the fraternity, struggling to comprehend the basics of programming in C, and beginning my relationship with Patrick, and dealing with the divorce of my parents.

It was simply too much for me to handle at once. I hated the sax for making me have to practice for hours a day just to keep up my GPA. I hated playing the sax. I hated how I sounded, I hated playing scales, I hated playing the music that my instructor had chosen, I hated my instructor for picking music that I hated, I hated the fact that I would have to perform a measley half-hours worth of music in the spring to finish. All of this helped lend credance to the argument that I didn’t really need to finish my degree in music as it wasn’t going to provide me with a career (ie. pay the bills) after graduation. The decision was made, and I ended my last semester as a sax student at UCF with a dismal C in lessons.

I did keep up a connection with music, though, continuing to perform in the UCF Wind Ensemble and play with the Synthesizer Ensemble. I composed my own music for a time, and immensley enjoyed having one of my pieces utilized in a digital media project for SIGGRAPH. After a few months, I even dabbled in harpestry. Anything but the sax. My poor tenor slept in its stygian case for many years to come.

The first time that it came back out had to be the first summer that my friend Tony started a summer wind band program at UCF. He wanted some conducting experience and we all wanted to play some wind band music. Many of us were prodigal musicians trying to find their way back home. Some of the group were music students who just didn’t have any other outlets over the summer. We didn’t meet for long each week, but just enough to make some good music (and some awful music as well).

It felt good again to have the sax weighing on my neck through the neckstrap. I had forgotten how amazing the sensation of my mouth resonating with the sound of the instrument was. I had forgotten the joy of being in tune with other instruments, of swelling in dynamics together, of producing chord after chord of harmony together. That summer, I rediscovered the joys of making music.

Now, I play sax in a rock band. This past weekend, in fact, I played gigs on Friday and Saturday nights. I was forced to solo much more than I was comfortable doing, but after each one I felt less weird about it, more challenged to do better next time. I bought more reeds last night and am going to get my sax fixed up a bit before the next gig. The least I can do after all the abuse I’ve put it through over the years. Its even got some company now, a sort-of sibling in the form of an electronic wind controller. I think its happier, now that its being played again. I know I am.

Tags: band, Patrick, UCF

Categories: Public

---