For the month of April, LifeScouts has been creating badges based on musical instruments and talents, and the other day, a flute badge appeared. I've mentioned before that once upon a time, I played the flute.
When I was in the fourth grade, I went to an elementary school where there was no band class, just orchestra. You could choose your instrument (violin, viola, cello, bass) and begin taking classes in either the fifth or sixth grade, I don't remember which. I wanted to play the violin.
But the summer before fifth grade, my family moved, and my new school only offered band classes, starting in the sixth grade. So the summer before sixth grade, they had a day where you could go in and test some of the instruments and determine what you would like to play. I thought the saxophone sounded like fun.
My parents said no. My aunt had been in band when she was in high school, and was the first-chair flute player. So we already had a flute in the family, and my parents decided that a free instrument was better than one you had to pay for, so I was going to play the flute. (Not fair: my sister got to play the French horn even though we didn't already own one.)
I never particularly liked playing the flute. The best I ever got was second chair, for a few brief weeks, and I was ridiculously proud of that. The thing I liked about being in band was that all my friends were also in band. That made it a hard decision for me to quit my freshman year of high school, but my parents didn't want to keep paying for it if I wasn't going to practice, ever. Playing an instrument just wasn't my thing.
Did you play a musical instrument in school? Was it the one you wanted?
(You can click through to the LifeScouts website for other people's flute stories too!)
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ReplyDeleteI played flute! I loved it once I got into middle/high school. I wanted play it. I even got to play piccolo in my senior year!!
ReplyDelete*I apologize for posting/deleting as my youth group. I thought I was signed in! :)
No problem!
DeleteThe first chair flautist got to play the piccolo in a few of our band concerts, which was pretty cool.
I played the piano for awhile under my mom's much force, and I wasn't ever a fan of it. Practice required a lot of pleading and yelling from my parents. Ha! In HS, I wanted to play the flute because I thought it was so cool, but the reminder of practicing my piano daily was enough to discourage me from picking up the flute.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't wait to play an instrument and I played the clarinet starting in 4th grade (lucky for my parents I got my uncle's old one). I was pretty bad and once I got to middle school even though the seating was by grade, in 8th grade I sat with the 7th graders! Probably b/c I brought my clarinet to school on the first day of school and never brought it home until the last day...clearly I never practiced.
ReplyDeleteHehe, I actually knew quite a lot of people who left their instruments in the band hall for the entire year. How any of us ever got any better is beyond me!
DeleteI started playing the flute when I was 11, because I begged my dad to let me. Until I was 16 I had private lessons because band class wasn't offered at my schools (only choir or keyboard). Then we finally got a band class during my final years of school and I loved it. It was way more fun than playing by myself.
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