A Musician Is Born

Nicholas and I spent the weekend in New York (second time in two weeks, yes, I know) to celebrate the retirement of the middle school and high school band director, who taught me for seven years (including clarinet lessons), as well as all three of my brothers. At least one of us was in his program from 1991 to 2010. So it was important for all of us to be there, and everyone made it in.

The ceremony included a student-alumni concert of a few pieces (including a Sousa march, a staple of our bands), so Saturday morning we all pulled out our instruments to practice a little. Nicholas thought it was rather loud (he described Uncle Patrick's first tuba note as sounding like a dinosaur). And he kept calling my clarinet a flute. Ahem.

Anyway, then he wanted to try all the instruments, and he didn't do half bad (cue photos).

Uncle Brian talked to him about the finer points of the trombone slide:

From 2012 June

And his technique was pretty good, as it turns out.

From 2012 June

He also got to try the trumpet, thanks to Uncle Mike:

From 2012 June

(He also played the tuba briefly, but I apparently got no photos of it.)

And finally, of course, the requisite video, to prove that he really got the hang of playing a brass instrument.

From 2012 June