Member-only story
Once I Played Classical Flute …
Why that matters today …
In the third grade, I chose the flute. I have no idea why, but when they introduced us to the opportunity to learn to play an instrument, the flute was my first choice.
The flute: I started with school lessons and the school band, and to be honest, I had zero interest in playing it. I also wasn’t very good at it so believed I lacked real talent. The flute has a rich and delicate sound, one I worked hard to achieve, but I was still only producing a quiet weak sound.
My mom was a music teacher and heavily influenced us to make music a part of our life. There was almost always singing in our home even on the toughest days when dad had too much Wild Turkey to drink and too much volume in his yell. Between mom, sis and I … eventually one of us would start singing.
I wasn’t enjoying band, and I wasn’t getting much better at playing. I was also in the chorus and singing came pretty easy to me. I inherited a pretty decent set of vocal chords thanks to my mom, our human songbird.
Mom only taught vocal and piano, and to my knowledge, she never played any other instrument so the flute choice was pretty random. I worked at it and marched in the school band at football games which didn’t do anything for me either. With my waning interest, mom was working hard…
