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High School Horror Stories

Hey fam, Zoe here!  I just typed up a couple of stories from my high school music days for submission to my new favorite Podcast, Saxophone Academy.  Since I already have them typed up, I thought, “Why not just post them as a free blog for anyone who’s interested in a chuckle”?

There’s nothing earth shattering, I didn’t flush my mouthpiece down a toilet or anything, but bearing in mind that I have always had social anxiety, and the only time I’ve not been afraid to be in front of a crowd is when I have a horn in my hands (Weirdly, I become a total extrovert then!), the first one’s almost worse than the second one!

Enjoy! 🎷

Okay, so, I’ve been learning the saxophone for the last six months, but I’ve been a lifelong musician.  When I was little I’d pluck out notes on my granny’s old as dirt acoustic guitar, and in the 7th grade I joined the school band.  We only had one “band” - dual purpose marching in the fall, and concerts for Christmas and in the Spring.

1st, as I mentioned I am legally blind.  I never learned to read music because my vision is just that bad, even with corrective lenses, so, rather than do the SMART thing and talk to my band director, I did the "What any 12 year old would do" thing.

I faked it.  Bad.  I forced myself to listen to what the guy next to me was playing.  I practiced for hours in the basement under a pillow fort until I could play exactly what I heard, and I memorized every piece of concert, marching, whatever music.

My band director didn't figure this out until 4 years in.  He called me up in front of the entire 60 piece band,and told them how I'd memorized every scrap of music I'd ever been given,and even taught another couple of students how to play some pieces we had lost the music for.

Pretty sure my face stay’d red the entire day.

2nd is an actual horror story. My sophomore year walking back to the band building after a pep rally, I tripped and dropped my horn (silver plated Bach trumpet).  And it developed a nasty crack.

It being a Friday, and the crack not being bad enough to actually hurt the sound, I threw it in my case and didn't worry about it.  We were going to an away game, about a 4 hour drive, quarter final championship, and the bus was a bit of a rough ride.

The crack had turned into a complete break, so I'm standing on the sidelines holding two halves of a trumpet, freaking out.  My band director gets this kind of goofy grin on his face, flags down a referee, and gets some athletic tape to wrap it up and tape it back together.

My fancy silver plated horn looked like a hobo's delight for the night, but it played great until I could get it to my tech.  I thought it would be some kind of horrible, major repair work, but he had a silver plated tube in pristine condition off an old scrap horn, and had me ready to go in less than an hour.

Of course then the new part looked better than the rest of it, but a round of silver polish fixed that right up.  If I have one regret, it’s that I waited until so late in life to learn the sax, but given my experience I’ve really “fast tracked” a lot of learning.  And, I don’t sound like a dying goose anymore: just a sick one ;)

Anyway, thanks for reading, if you’ve made it this far!

• Zoe