BOY WITH A HORN

For my readers -
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Looking through some old pictures I wondered how many were taken out in front of our little house in South Millville?  25-50-100? – Lots because in my growing up days we never seemed to have a flashbulb handy…but Joan Crawford’s “key light” was always there…

One picture got me thinking – “Boy with a Horn” I always called it.  Me in profile blowing a middle C on my rented golden trumpet and wearing pants with a wide strip down the leg…

And then I was back in Millville.  The pants were hand-me-down  Millville High School marching band pants procured by our band teacher of the Bacon Junior School for our Annual Spring Concert.

They were heavy wool halftime show uniform pants – blue with an orange strip and guaranteed to itch like heck in the spring heat on stage.  They must have been used by someone 6’5” as my grandmother hemmed them up at least 10 inches for me – a fourth grade 2^nd Trumpeter.

But first things first - it all started with picking a musical instrument and taking music lessons – which my mother thought was necessary to mold me into the gentleman she hoped I would become.  

I stood for a very long time peering in the window of the Millville Music Center, land of 10,000 records in racks that lined the walls and musical instrument emporium.  It was time to decide which instrument to take.  I looked hard at a saxophone = too many keys, “That’s got to be hard!” I said to myself.  

The trombone, no keys, that would have to be hard too to master with no keys to push.  

“Ah,” I mused – the trumpet.  Just three keys, not too many to master.  I piped up to my mom standing with me on that fall day – “I think I would like to play a trumpet.”   She smiled and we rented a golden horn – with only a small dent in the bell.  And so began 8 years of trying to play a loud brass horn.

Oh, why didn’t I pick guitar?  Or banjo?  Instruments that one could play around a friendly campfire.  But no.  I picked the trumpet – I would learn later that one rarely hears someone at a cocktail party pulling out his trumpet and blasting a few numbers for the revelers…the trumpet is not a party instrument.

 I was shortly going to learn that I had absolutely no aptitude for music.  Matter fact years later when I would appear in musical stage plays the director would cut the songs or dances from my scenes after several rehearsals.

But I tried to play on…and on…and on.  

All summer I blasted scales waiting patiently for my teacher Mr. Leski, the go-to music teacher virtuoso of Millville music teachers to actually give me a real song to play – but each week he would say, “Keep at it my boy, and soon you will be playing a beautiful melody for your mom.”

I kept it up.

 

Now Mr. Leski had a very unique teaching technique.  He used phrases to help us kids learn the timing of each kind of musical note.  “Get it” = two beat half notes.  “San Francisco” = 4 beat quarter notes.  And so I constantly practiced my scales with beating foot and get-it-get-it-san-fransico in my head. 

I blew every variation of a scale known to ever been played.  

My grandmother made me practice for at least an half hour every afternoon after school as the days grew shorter.  The in October my chance to play a real song came.  Miss Now our maiden music teacher visited my 4^th grade classroom recruiting members for the Bacon Junior School band.  When she asked if anyone studied a musical instrument I jumped up and waved my hand at her.  And that’s how I got to wear the blue pants with an orange strip a few months later.

However, it wasn’t an easy journey for me.  All winter we practiced for the annual Spring PTA concert.  Playing our numbers over and over twice a week – but band practice did get me out of class and to the big auditorium stage.  It sure beat faking the need to go to the restroom to break the drudgery of working elementary arithmetic problems on the blackboard. 

I wanted to play songs – but I really wasn’t very good at playing them.  And as 2^nd trumpet I really wasn’t playing the melody anyhow – just a lot of low tones that were supposed to harmonize and give the music depth and majesty.

But when I practiced this stuff – it just sounded like da-da-da…da-da.   No majesty.

Plus, my big fear was making a mistake and blowing one of my famous screeching bad notes that were always coming from me as I was developing embouchure as Mr. Leski labeled my upper lip - that felt like hamburger after practice.

And so I started to just hold the instrument to my mouth and pretend I was playing to the chagrin of our first trumpeter – a seventh grader.  Occasionally he would elbow me during one of our weekly assembly performances of marching in and out music – “Hey kid, give me some help!” he would bark between stanzas.

I started to hate playing in this band.

And then one day with only a few weeks to go to the big concert the first trumpeter was absent.  Before Ms. Now raised her baton she said directly to me, “While Jim is out please play the first part Cal.” 

Gads I couldn't hide anymore.  

Everyone looked my way – Mary Jane lowered her violin and gave me a leering smile.  She knew I never really played – everyone knew except Miss Now…

I started to sweat.  Get-It Get-It…San Francisco started to drum in my head.  This was going to be a mortifying moment of truth.

Tapping her long baton, Miss Now said, “Turn to number 4 in your song book – let’s try a new one today.”  Good grief not only was I going to have to actually play, but a new song I didn’t even know.

I place the horn to my lips.  Watched for the downbeat and to my surprise a pleasing, blatt- free sound flowed from my horn.  It was a real song coming out and one that I knew – my grandmother loved this song and sang it many times while she did her ironing.    

At last, I was playing a tune.  

And out of the corner of my eye I could see Mary Jane’s look of shear surprise as she sawed her strings.  I'm Always Chasing Rainbows filled the auditorium.  I still love this old standard.  And I walked home that day whistling it. 

And from that day on I played every note on my music sheet.  And enjoyed my trumpet.  I played on for 4 more years – but the day I went to the High School and put on a football uniform I put my horn down and never played it again.