Dear Folks, This evening my mind was on music and it reminded me of when I was barely a teenager in North Junior High School in Niagara Falls, NY, and was given the opportunity to learn how to play the clarinet AND be a member of the junior high school band (complete with uniform!). I volunteered and as a result the junior high school provided me with a clarinet and Mr. Hatch the music teacher gave me weekly(?) lessons on how to play the clarinet. Of course he wasn't a professional clarinet player himself; he also taught other students how to play the trumpet, trombone, tuba, saxophone, etc. but I managed to at least get the hang of playing the clarinet. I was dedicated to improving my technique and I brought my clarinet home with me every day and practiced and practiced. I eventually got the fingering down pretty good but I still squeaked and squawked. I was so disappointed with myself. Eventually in desperation, I asked my mother how Benny Goodman managed to play his clarinet with such pure tones and her only response was "Why don't you write to him and ask him yourself?" Over the years I realized that my mother gave the answer off the top of her head at the time and that the real answer was (1) get yourself a professional clarinet teacher and (2) practice,, practice what he preaches. Since that was out of the question, I squeaked and squawked my way through the three years of junior high school band, we performed in front of our parents, we all squeaked and squawked, but our forgiving parents at least knew that we were trying our best. When I entered Niagara Falls High School, in the 10th grade I still didn't want to give up my clarinet even though my technique hadn't improved all that much. It was in high school that I was faced with a wonderful challenge. We were being taught a number of Souza marches and that spurred all of us on. Not only were we taught the marches, we actually marched out on the football field in snazzy uniforms and played for the packed(?) stadium at half time. Now granted, we probably still squeaked and squawked but we sure felt good about ourselves. But what surprised me the most was the grade I received in my senior year from Mr. Emmett, our band teacher and leader. He gave me the grade of 90! Now there was NO way that I deserved that high of a grade because of my ability to play the clarinet. But over the years I've come to the conclusion that I got that grade because I was a VERY serious student and member of the band and if I recall correctly now in my old age, at one point I got so agitated with a particular goof-off band member that I threatened to hit him over the head with my clarinet!! Hey, there's more than one way to get a grade of 90!! :-) vee