Trombone Trouble: Part 2 - Grade School

In my previous post, I outlined how I had been "tricked" into being assigned a trombone in the fourth grade.

I had weekly "trombone lessons" from Mrs. Hall. This only goes to prove that old axiom, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." Mrs. Hall was not a trombonist. She couldn't show me how to play the danged thing. All she could do was sit there and tell me I wasn't doing it right.

Of course, I was also conscripted into the school orchestra. As low-man on the trombone totem pole, this mean playing third or fourth chair. My part of the score would consist of six measures of whole notes, 32 measures of rests and 4 more measures of whole notes at the end of the composition. Or to describe it another way:

BLAAAAAT / BLAAAAAT / BLAAAAAT
BLAAAAAT / BLAAAAAT / BLAAAAAT
(an eternity of silence)
BLAAAAAT / BLAAAAAT
BLAAAAAT / BLAAAAA-AAAAAAAAT!!!!!

Two big problems:

1. Since the trombone section never carries the melody, it was nigh impossible to know what I was supposed to be playing. Practicing this crap was an exercise in annoying, flatulent mooing.

2. Counting out 32 bars of rests was deadly. I always lost count and then I wouldn't know when to come in!

Here's how you're supposed to count rests for a piece of music in 4/4 time:

one-two-three-four
two-two-three-four
three-two-three-four
five-two-three-four

oops, I mean, "four-two-three-four"
Oh lord, where am I now???

I dragged through grades four, five and six with this stinkin' albatross around my neck.

My big break came in the seventh grade, when I started Junior High School. Somehow, I was able to convince everybody concerned that this trombone thing was a waste of time and was able to drop it.

I turned in my $5-a-year student rental horn and heaved a sigh of relief. I think the fact that I was learning to play guitar on my own (and actually making progress) was a mitigating factor on the home front.

But then...