Heartbreaker Part II

Years and years passed and I was still stuck playing the saxophone. And with each year, I think I was somehow getting worse. My dislike of the saxophone mixed with my natural unnaturalness with all things relating to music produced an incompetence like no other. I_was_terrible.

I was so much worse than everyone else— and there were some seriously incapable human beings also playing instruments, and even they managed to push something out that sounded better than a drowning muskrat/Cher.  Most of the time I wouldn’t even bother playing, I would just pretend to while dreaming about all the other better uses for my saxophone: fire kindle, a silly hat, a life preserver for someone I wanted to see drown, a remote control, a giant bubble maker.

High school came in 2003, and everyone in band had to join the marching band. The whole idea of it terrified me— because unlike band, marching band required not only the ability to play your instrument, but also the ability to simultaneously march around in some prearranged manner whilst wearing a silly hat.  What a terrible idea. There was no way I was going to be able to play a saxophone and move at the same time. That was asking way too much. Having me do such a thing is like having Charlie Sheen host the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards: lives would surely be destroyed.  I had to get out of this.

Again I began arguing with my parents to let me quit. I claimed that they were no better than the fanatical, strict parents that pushed their kids to become child prodigies; some now refer to these types as Asian Tigers, but they can also be classified under the general term psychotic.

But after realizing that was too far of a stretch, I claimed they were like the delusion parents who believed that their talent-less children were beaming stars of endless potential.

But as I said, my parents are indestructible and unflinchingly rigid. There was no beating them and they would not accept the fact that I was terrible at the sax. I was searing with anger.

 

Marching band started and our routine was based on the catchy showtunes of The West Side Story. During one particularly inspiring song, we would form a giant heart. As you can imagine, it was emotionally stirring and thus a very crucial part of our show. The responsibility of leading the saxophone section to connect with the flute section during this one segment had arbitrarily fallen upon me. And this, my friends, is when I became the Heartbreaker. Because all I literally had to do was take fifteen steps in that –> direction, but somehow managed to fail at this every time. I would always break the heart.

Despite my continual heart breaking and overall incompetence, the marching band managed to score pretty high in all our competitions. And when the state competition rolled around, we had a decent chance of winning. I spent the entire week before this worrying about the show. I was absolutely sure I was going to blow the whole thing by breaking the heart. Everyone in the marching band would hate me— I would be the least popular kid in the least cool extracurricular activity.  High school was off to a great start.

But guess what haters— the day of the state competition came and I did it. I nailed it. The marching band virtuoso buried deep down in the caverns of my soul finally emerged and I successfully walked in a straight line. It was the artistic peak of my entire life. I was euphoric. “This,” I thought as I breathed heavily, “is how Bono must have felt when he sang at the Super Bowl.” Except I didn’t have an American flag sewn in my jacket. But, it was still awesome.

Lil Mama, whom I like to refer to as the voice of our generation, once said as a judge on America’s Best Dance Crew, “Y’all took the extra stab in the heart of the chicken!”

I’m not really sure what that means, and am pretty sure Lil Mama is crazy, but I’d like to think if she were there the night of my successful performance, that’s how she would have described it. Stabbing the chicken heart or whatever.

After that year of marching band my parents finally let me quit the saxophone. Their greatest fears did not come true— while I have become a drug-addicted prostitute, I’ve managed to stay out of Orlando (thank God). And other than that, I’ve accomplished a lot of great things.  Like, for instance, when I went to a Dunkin Donuts right before it closed and the cashier gave me all the leftover, stale donuts for free. No big deal. (It was the greatest day of my life).

The end.

Heartbreaker Part I

The summer after fourth grade my parents enrolled me in a summer music course to learn how to play an instrument. This introductory course was designed to give its attendees a head start at learning an instrument as all the kids would be joining the school band the following fall.

Before the class started I had to make the important decision of what instrument I wanted to play— a decision that would shape my entire life— and if I picked incorrectly, I knew I would be destined to lead a sad and miserable existence. I wasn’t butch enough to play the trumpet. I wasn’t prissy enough to play the flute. And I certainly wasn’t Asian enough to play the violin. So after a whole minute of critical thinking, I chose the saxophone.

I waited impatiently for the summer course to begin. It was my reasonable belief that I was the most gifted child in all the universe, and naturally, would be sensational at the saxophone immediately. I could not wait to get my hands on the shiny, expensive looking piece of metal and start churning out jazzy noises that made people want to get up and jazzercise.

The summer class finally started and it was great. There were fifty or so hyper-excited eight-year-olds who, like me, were exceedingly happy to be holding something that made loud noises. We didn’t really learn anything, nor did we get any individual attention to ensure that we were playing correctly— we just kind of blew away on our instruments and thought about how much better we were than all the other eight-year-olds who were not taking this jumpstart course.

 Both summer and my class came to close and my first year of school band was starting. I was eager to show off to my new teacher my extraordinary saxophone abilities. Surely she would be blown away as I played the difficult classics I had mastered over the summer.

But things did not quite work out as I had imagined. In fact, what would be the exact opposite occurred. I barely played three notes before my instructor commanded me to stop.

She looked me straight in the eye and told me I had it all wrong.

According to this muxpert (music expert = muxpert), I was completely neglecting the woodwind technique known as tonguing. For all you non-muxperts out there, tonguing is like rapid fire licking, except the intended target is not your Fudgesicle or Tiger Beat poster of Justin Bieber, it is the reed of the saxophone.

Such incompetence, my teacher concluded, could only be remedied in one way—PROMPT CONFISCATION OF MY SAXOPHONE. Everything but the top goose neck. She told me that I wouldn’t be needing the rest (98%) of the instrument until I learned how to tongue. “All you need to focus on,” she said as she took the instrument out of my hands, “is properly licking your saxophone.”

My precious ego was shattered into a million pieces, my dreams evaporated. There would be no jazzercising tonight. No jazzercising ever. When I returned home I threw the case in the corner and looked at it with contempt. This was what Don McLean was singing about, because, this was truly the day the music died.

By the time my parents came home, I had already buried my shame and musical failure deep inside my soul and was on the computer fully engaged in Math Blaster.

“Greetings Daughter! Why don’t you show us what you learned during your first saxophone class?”

“Can’t you see I’m busy learning math.”

“Please.”

“FINE. BUT DON’T EXPECT ANYTHING FANCY.”

I walked very angrily over to my case and pulled the remaining piece of my saxophone out. My parents looked at my stripped saxophone perplexedly.

“Where is your saxophone?”

Emotional collapse.

I sat in the corner gently weeping and licking the reed of my saxophone. My parents backed away slowly.

When my teacher took away my saxophone, I like to be poetic and say that what she was really taking was my enthusiasm for musical growth and development. Because from that moment forward, there was nothing I felt for my saxophone but pure, utter hatred— and I wanted to quit immediately.

My parents, however, did not feel the same way. Their strange parental conscience deep down in their hearts whispered to them, “If you let your daughter quit the saxophone, she won’t grow up understanding the concepts of perseverance and responsibility. She will unavoidably become a drug-addicted hooker that lives in Orlando. And you will have to take care of her HIV babies.”

I begged, pleaded, argued and strategically negotiated with my parents to let me quit. But they were unwavering in their decision. And they did not want to take care of my HIV babies.

Not even a convincing PowerPoint would dissuade them. There was only one thing left I could do— murder my parents and make it look like an accident. But, surprisingly enough, I love my parents and/or am not deranged so I just kept on playing.  Also my parents are indestructible.

End Part I