Does Tal ever get under anyone else’s skin? She reminds me of those multi-sport athletes that can perform all sorts of challenging maneuvers with ease! Smarty pants!
I can offer those observations as one who was too similar in my elementary through middle school years. I wanted to think I excelled to create a diversion from how I really f…
Does Tal ever get under anyone else’s skin? She reminds me of those multi-sport athletes that can perform all sorts of challenging maneuvers with ease! Smarty pants!
I can offer those observations as one who was too similar in my elementary through middle school years. I wanted to think I excelled to create a diversion from how I really felt. I corrected my teachers! (After all, I was right!) I took any challenge or dare that showed itself.
Then there was the first chair B-flat clarinet incident. I’d played since second grade (with little instruction from the traveling music teacher, and less practice). I had joined the school marching band before starting middle school, and learned to keep the reed from freezing solid during Veteran’s Day parades in sub-freezing weather. 🥶
So when i joined the concert band, the more melodic first chair sheet music “sounded right.” I also didn’t know the sense of second and third chair parts. They sounded unmelodic! Clunky. The band leader indicated that third chair was the available seat, so there I started. I also quickly realized the first chair clarinetists were great! Bruised ego... but I persisted. I made 2nd chair by 9th grade but never 1st.
My emphasis wasn’t on mastering the instrument. Rather, assuaging my sense of low self-esteem with “position.” First has to be superior to third! The clunky third chair parts were a dead give away!
That’s my long version, incomplete, of what typist wrote so efficiently! I only saw weakness and failed to see opportunity. I would not have allowed a “Cal” to share thoughts on how to view weakness and respond to opportunity. Knowing myself in those days was more like living “The Daily Riddle,” A Tal classmate or friend wouldn’t have made sense telling me to focus more on knowing myself.
The Pennsylvania-Dutch saying comes to mind, “We grow too soon old and too late smart.” The growing old part I have a handle on. The smart part might take a while longer. 😬
Does Tal ever get under anyone else’s skin? She reminds me of those multi-sport athletes that can perform all sorts of challenging maneuvers with ease! Smarty pants!
I can offer those observations as one who was too similar in my elementary through middle school years. I wanted to think I excelled to create a diversion from how I really felt. I corrected my teachers! (After all, I was right!) I took any challenge or dare that showed itself.
Then there was the first chair B-flat clarinet incident. I’d played since second grade (with little instruction from the traveling music teacher, and less practice). I had joined the school marching band before starting middle school, and learned to keep the reed from freezing solid during Veteran’s Day parades in sub-freezing weather. 🥶
So when i joined the concert band, the more melodic first chair sheet music “sounded right.” I also didn’t know the sense of second and third chair parts. They sounded unmelodic! Clunky. The band leader indicated that third chair was the available seat, so there I started. I also quickly realized the first chair clarinetists were great! Bruised ego... but I persisted. I made 2nd chair by 9th grade but never 1st.
My emphasis wasn’t on mastering the instrument. Rather, assuaging my sense of low self-esteem with “position.” First has to be superior to third! The clunky third chair parts were a dead give away!
That’s my long version, incomplete, of what typist wrote so efficiently! I only saw weakness and failed to see opportunity. I would not have allowed a “Cal” to share thoughts on how to view weakness and respond to opportunity. Knowing myself in those days was more like living “The Daily Riddle,” A Tal classmate or friend wouldn’t have made sense telling me to focus more on knowing myself.
The Pennsylvania-Dutch saying comes to mind, “We grow too soon old and too late smart.” The growing old part I have a handle on. The smart part might take a while longer. 😬
Thanks for sharing your clarinet experience with us!
We live and we learn?
What is small to the bear is big to the ant?