WESTSIDE — Back in 1969, this skinny kid I used to know started his freshman year at a small Lutheran high school in Los Angeles and one of his classes - because his parents wanted him to learn to play an instrument - was beginning band.
The band instructor, Mr. Steve Tirmenstein, showed the class a variety of instruments and suggested a baritone horn might work well for the skinny kid - at least the school had one he could use and learn to play. The sounds emitted from the horn weren’t pretty but Mr. T, as the students called him, patiently endured the forlorn sounds of the horn until theyfinally became recognizable as notes, though not always the right ones and certainly not quite as rich and full as they should have sounded.
Because of a shortage of baritones in his sophomore year, that same skinny kid thought of playing the trombone but his parents rented and then purchased a baritone horn so he could continue in the high school’s marching and concert band without needing to start all over again with a new instrument.
Though he never excelled on the baritone, he learned to play the horn well enough to continue in the band forthe following three years - he played in the high school’s pep band too.
Once his high school days were over in 1973, the baritone horn went silent for years. There was a brief attempt to play with an ensemble in graduate school but practice time was just not available with classes, homework and employment.
He played it again just a few times back in the 1980s to help out a group of youth form an ensemble for special church services but then traded off the horn to purchase another instrument for one of his kids who was enrolled in beginning band.
Anyway, to make a long story short, I was in a second-hand store in Gentry because Mrs. Griz likes to look at “all the neat stuff” people are selling when I spotted what looked like a baritone case. Opening it up, I was surprised to see a rather well-wornhorn. I checked the valves and they were in working order. I played a few notes and was rather amazed at the rich tone of the horn which was almost as old as me. For the grand price of about $65, I couldn’t pass it up.
When I showed it to our church organist, a musician who both plays and repairs band instruments, he was surprised at my find and checked over the old horn for me. He cleaned it up and added a fresh coat of lacquer to the scratched and worn brass.
While I intended to practice and play it regularly, busyness with everything else kept me from it until last week. Our church organist suggested I bring it and accompany him with the bass part on a few of the Easter hymns. I was hesitant and doubted I could do it - after all, not playing regularly for almost 40 years and not playingat all for a good 20 years could be a problem.
I can’t tell you I hit every note or that those I did play were the full and rich sounds the horn could produce, but I was able to play and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was surprised how much of what I thought I had forgotten years ago came back to me.
No one tried to quiet the noise, and no rotting fruit was thrown in my direction - which reminds me of this orange someone put down the bell of my horn back in those high school days. It was very ripe when I removed it.
So, maybe I did learn something in high school after all, and those urgings by Mr. T and my parents to practice, practice, practice did bear more fruit than a rotting orange stuffed down the bell of my baritone. Perhaps, if I practice now, I might be able to build on what I learnedback in the days when I was just a skinny kid.
Oh, and I should add that a quick Internet search provided me with an e-mail address for Mr. T. After teaching me and others in Los Angeles, he went on to teach at another Lutheran High School in St. Louis and has been introducing other students in high school and elementary school to instruments and music there for 34 years. He’s retiring this year after 42 years of teaching. Yet, when I sent him an e-mail, he remembered me.
That, of course, makes me worry what it was I did or how bad my horn playing sounded that he still remembers that skinny kid from 42 years ago.
Randy Moll is the managing editor of the Westside Eagle Observer. He may be reached by email at rmoll@nwaonline .com.
Opinion, Pages 6 on 04/27/2011