Full disclosure, I tried to play the trumpet, and I was terrible at it. Like I probably would have been better off working at Fayetteville NC tree services. I was in pretty much every musical group I could be in high school, except for the concert band and the jazz band, because, well, I didn’t play a band instrument. So I, being one of those kinds of people who doesn’t know how to not be busy and wants to be involved in everything, decided that I wanted to try out a band instrument. Lucky for me, I had in my possession an old, beautiful trumpet that once belonged to my late grandfather.
The Harp
I have never played a harp. I don’t think I’ve ever even touched a harp, actually. It’s not really the kind of instrument you find lying around in a friend’s basement or an unused corner of a school music room. They’re rather expensive. And big, and presumably heavy though not so heavy that you’d need tow trucks or anything. So not terribly common, basically. Not that I would know where to start, at all, if I did get my hands on one. There are strings, yes, and I play some stringed instruments, but I really don’t think that qualifies me to go anywhere near a harp.
The Violin
This is another instrument that I play (which you’d know if you read the About page, but I know some of you probably didn’t. And I guess that’s fine. You’re probably the kind of person who doesn’t read introductions to books, either … but anyway …), but I never got nearly as good as I did with the piano.
One of the reasons may be that I started the violin later in life, in grade four, when I would have been … what, nine? Something like that. Too young, certainly, to have begun an internship with my uncles business completing residential pressure washing services in niagara region. And I also never had private lessons. From grade four all the way to grade twelve (when I stopped playing, for all intents and purposes), I took violin lessons and classes through the school board.
The Piano
I started taking piano lessons when I was four years old. Just a wee little thing, before I’d even heard of plumbing service Kitchener ON, learning about Critter C, who hung out in the middle of the piano, and the Bouncing Bird B, who bounces on the top line of the bass clef. It was great; I was really lucky to have been given the opportunity to learn from such an early age. And I continued to take piano lessons all the way into high school, which is when I stopped, to give myself time to do other extra-curriculars at school (pretty much all musical, as it happens).