Some Context…

(copied from my ad-infested blog, originally posted on March 27,2023…)

I was thinking about what a subtitle for this blog would be. Something like “A retiree’s return to music.” Something like that. Music is something that, before retirement, I hadn’t thought about that much for a long, long time. Decades. But upon retiring I decided it would be one of my main pursuits. I didn’t want to retire and just sit around. I wanted to be learning stuff. Using my brain.

There was a time when music was a big thing in my life. It started in fourth grade with the clarinet. I don’t remember too much about those days. I don’t even remember what happened to my clarinet. But in high school clarinet became bass clarinet. To be specific, E♭ contra-bass clarinet. I don’t remember exactly how that happened but I do remember being drawn to low reeds. By senior year I was also playing baritone saxophone in my high school’s jazz band.

After high school came college. I was told that I couldn’t major in bass clarinet – I would have to major in clarinet. I didn’t like that idea so after some discussion the college people told me they needed bassoonists and if I could learn enough to pass the audition I could major on that. Hmmm…

That sounded interesting. So I found a local bassoon teacher and went to work the summer before freshman year of college learning how to play that new (to me) instrument. I did pass the audition and made it into college as a bassoon major. Sadly, I was clueless and aimless and after three years I had dropped out. There were still some efforts to keep music a part of my life but they faded away. Music, at least playing music, slowly ended for me.

Now decades later I’m back at it, working on learning how to play bass and doing other musical things. That’s what this blog will be primarily about.