That Special Person

I have a confession related to my last blog ("I Chucked It.") I never did go for that extra walk. But wait - let me explain! I had a good reason.

A few days prior, I received the CD of the performance of my children's youth orchestra concert. My son is principal trumpet and my daughter is 3rd trumpet. The pieces featured the brass quite a lot - to name a few - "Apollo 13," "Finlandia," "Phantom of the Opera," and "The Empire Strikes Back." I helped out in the percussion section and got to play crash cymbals on Empire. How cool is that??

I have been listening to that CD over and over and over. In general, music brings out strong emotions in me and touches the depths of my soul. When I or someone I love is making the music, that feeling is magnified 10 times.

The CD was playing while I typed my blog 2 days ago. All the emotions suddenly reminded me of my own youth orchestra experience as a girl. I played the bass. Yep, the big, tall, stand-up double bass. I was a tiny child and it was rather comical to see. I was a decent player, and as there is always a shortage of child bassists anywhere you go, I got a lot of opportunities to play with orchestras at a younger age than I normally would have. I was exposed to a lot of incredible orchestral repertoire and my love for it has never faded. In college, I went on to play piccolo and flute with a regional symphony orchestra, and now I feel so lucky to play in the percussion section of my kids' orchestra.

All of this is because of one special person - the strings teacher who taught me to play the bass back in elementary school. He was a bass player himself. He taught us as a group - we had a few violin players and then there was me on the bass. I guess he thought I had potential because he gave me additional private lessons, free of charge, before school. He made sure my parents knew about orchestral opportunities in the community.

I am very grateful to this man. I googled his name and I found him, along with his address and phone number.

Instead of going for a walk, I pulled a blank card out of the cabinet and wrote him a note expressing my gratitude.

I'm sure my teacher didn't dedicate his life to teaching music because he expected any thanks from his students. He did it because he loved it and believed that he was making a difference in people's lives. I'm glad I sent a note to him affirming that was true.

Here's a few pictures of the concert.

The whole group:

My 2 favorite trumpet players in the whole world:

I told you I'm tiny... well, here I am playing 20-inch crash cymbals for "The Empire Strikes Back"

I'm sure everyone here can point to various people who, in a unique way, made a difference in their own life. Without my strings teacher, my orchestral experience might have been limited to being a piano soloist. There are several people - both in music and in other fields - who had a tremendous impact determining my life's direction. I have lost touch with some of them. Thanks to the Internet and Social Media, I hope I can one day reconnect and express my gratitude.