Lost Skills

I have alumni band this weekend. I pulled the old horn out last week to practice a bit. I'm terrible now. I can't always complete a Bb scale. I can't hit certain notes at all on the first try. Dropping the jaw or getting the lips to vibrate properly is a pain. I fear how my lips would reacted if I had played something small like a trumpet.

Music is a skill that must be practiced. I figured high notes or low notes would be a problem. Those are easy. The common ordinary midrange notes like C and D (with appropriate flats or sharps) are the painful notes. Useless air blowing through the horn.

My articulation is completely gone. Trying to get through a string of dotted quarter notes with eighth note followers is impossible. To read the music is a haze in some cases. How does this go again I keep hearing in my mind. I feel like I'm back in 7th grade. For 10 years music was almost my life. My playing was as masterful as you could get without having the raw talent required for a music major. Now the notes aren't even a pathetic shadow of themselves. How can something that was so important for so long be not in my life at all anymore?

I keep saying I want to return to my music. Join a community band to get back into the scene a bit. That's why I bought this hunk of dented weighty brass...oh what, six or seven years ago I guess. When I had to work nights joining a band was out of the question. I never felt like I had the time in school. I often question that assumption. When I made the time to do something during a weeknight that had nothing to do with textbooks or projects I found I was my happiest. Perhaps if I had played a bit those three years wouldn't have been so bad.

I miss my old friend. Perhaps once things settle down and become stable I'll finally go back and enjoy the music. My shoulder is going to kill me this weekend. I'm not looking forward to that either.