Getting Rusty

My last saxophone lesson was in mid-May. When it ended, I bid my farmer/teacher a happy summer and the sax stayed in its case until early July when I pulled it out to amaze my visiting mother-in-law.

She was amazed, all right.

I couldn’t remember a thing! I hastily put the instrument back in its case and there it stayed. I’m to begin lessons again in November. My instructor will take my hard-earned dollars for teaching me the same old things over. My longsuffering husband will have to listen to the same juvenile beginner tunes, with the same excruciating squawks. Apparently, playing a sax is not like riding a bike. 

Or could it have something to do with the fact I started learning in my 50’s?

I did some sewing recently. Hadn’t sewn much for years and forgot how much I enjoy it when it’s something more dazzling than re-attaching buttons or hemming slacks. 

I was dazzled, all right. 

I couldn’t even thread the machine, let alone the needle. Good thing the old woman who sleeps with my husband keeps a pair of magnifying glasses around the house. 

Last week I returned to Jillian Michaels Yoga Meltdown video workout after giving myself a four month break. It’s not that I intended to give myself such a long break. It was supposed to be a week or two, while we moved. Then I gave myself an extension. And another. I’m generous that way. Finally decided to discipline myself and get back into it.

I was disciplined, all right. 

I thought I was going to get stuck in the Camel pose and die. Some funeral director would make a killing on  a custom-designed, camel-shaped casket for my stiffened carcass. Strangely enough, it wasn’t until two days later I felt the sore muscles – mostly in my shoulders from those despicable Chaturanga push-ups.

Does it seem to you that the older we are, the less time it takes to get rusty? You can’t afford to quit for a minute, or you’re right back to square one. This is why we spend the first several years of our life in school. Youth is the time to study new languages, memorize poetry, scripture, and multiplication tables, and learn how to ride a bike or play an instrument. 

What’s the point of learning anything new at this stage if you forget it all at lightning speed? I may as well sit on the couch watching The Bachelorette and not bother. This is not encouraging.

Or is it?

When I took another stab at my saxophone playing, I realized I could navigate through my beginner book without help and in a lot less time than it took the first go around. In spite of myself, maybe I wasn’t entirely lost after all.

The quality of my finished sewing project is far superior to anything I cranked out when my eyes were only twelve years old, in spite of the ease with which my nimble fingers could thread a needle way back then.

That I found the yoga more difficult after a break tells me it actually was making a difference before the break. It means if we stick with our exercise programs, we really can enjoy some small measure of control over our strength and flexibility as we age—key factors in avoiding falls, broken bones, and aching joints.

Guess I don’t get to quit yet. Bummer.

All this talk of camels and needles reminds me of a Bible verse I once memorized. “It is easier for a camel to play a saxophone than to pass a rich man through the eye of a needle.” Or something like that. 

Maybe I learned that one in my forties.

Saxophone? I Can Barely Use a Telephone!

Well, it’s official. I am out of my mind.

I have taken up the saxophone.

My now-famous doctor of naturopathic medicine thought I should take up swimming to strengthen my lungs. “Frank Sinatra was a swimmer,” she said.

Sinatra swam underwater to develop his lung capacity — which enabled him to continue a musical phrase through a stanza without pausing for breath.

“I’ve always been more of an artist than an athlete,” I argued. “Couldn’t I try something else, like, oh, I don’t know, saxophone?”

Immediately, Dr. Lisa saw no reason I couldn’t do both. That girl thinks I have 26 hours in my day.

I procrastinated for weeks. For one thing, saxophones don’t come cheap. For another, I’d be lying if I said I’ve always wanted to play one.

Finally, I put out a tentative query on Facebook: “Anybody know where I can find a bargain on a used saxophone? Quality not important. It will be played by a 53-year old beginner with weak lungs.”

My odds were pretty slim, right? I felt safe.

An answer came shortly from the most unbelievable source. My own son-in-law had an alto sax collecting dust in his storage space. Who knew Kevin played in his school band for a year in Grade 5? His wife would be happy to let me use it.

What had I gotten myself into? What if I hated it? What if I couldn’t even get a squeak out of the silly thing? Did I really need one more thing to do?

Lucky for me, it was several weeks before we collected the instrument from their home in Calgary. Kevin gave me a quick lesson while my daughter chuckled and chortled. The next day we travelled home with the shiny Yamaha in its velvety-lined case. All I needed was a pair of shades and a hat and I was set.

I put out a new query on Facebook: “Anybody know a local, affordable saxophone instructor willing to take on a 53-year old beginner with weak lungs and a low frustration threshold?” I figured my odds were pretty much one in a million.

But within half an hour, my first lesson was booked with a guy who is proving himself the best music teacher ever. I’m not making this up. Ritchard Wiebe is a wonderful saxophone player, a patient teacher, and a generous encourager.

More importantly, he and his lovely bride Liz both laugh at my jokes.

(On a side note, at the risk of sounding politically incorrect, every person I know born with the name “Wiebe” arrived on the planet with music seeping out of their pores. Have you noticed?)

So I’ve been blowing my horn half an hour a day for six weeks now, convinced God will eventually reward my longsuffering husband. As for the neighbours? It’s a good thing I’m starting in winter when all the windows stay closed.

Having taken piano lessons as a kid, I can tell you a saxophone is completely illogical. On a piano, the notes appear in nice, neat order. When you hit a key, it will always play the same note no matter what you do with your lips, your cheeks, your tongue, or your eyebrows. 

Not so with a sax. The notes don’t follow any predictable pattern. Alternative, convoluted methods to play many of them must be learned. And just because you’ve placed your fingers on the correct buttons doesn’t mean the note will come out right. 

So maybe I won’t be the next Lisa Simpson. But guess what? I’m having fun! I can play Jingle Bells, Jolly Old St. Nicholas, and Good King Wenceslas, all at the same volume: LOUD. Why no one has booked me for their Christmas party is mystifying.

This whole scenario of finding both a sax and a great teacher is something we in Christian circles like to call “a God thing.”

You can call it what you want. Just don’t accuse me of tooting my own horn. Technically, it still belongs to Kevin.