Fruits of Insanity

a gleeful cacophony

When I was young—about eight or so, Mama started teaching us piano. I enjoyed it up to a point. I still know in general how to read music, but I don't play more than picking out melodies with a single finger. I don't really know any other instruments. In third grade, our music teacher made everyone choose an instrument and join the orchestra. So I learned enough flute to know that I didn't want to play that either.

I didn't like third grade. We moved twice. Once, two weeks into my year at the school in Connecticut that I'd attended since kindergarten. My teacher was one of the mean ones, but I enjoyed knowing the other kids and being able to make my way around without issues. We headed away from the cold to my Grandparent's basement in Arizona.

I liked that school as well, although I only attended until Halloween. The other students were friendly and we were studying a unit on Scandinavia, which was incredibly interesting to say.

Then we moved again.

We were in company housing at first (until after Christmas), which felt transitional, and we ended up in a little neighborhood school in upstate New York where I attended until sixth grade.

It was such a small school that there was only one grade per class, which meant, there was only one teacher per grade, and the teacher I was blessed with for the duration of third grade was not at all in control of the classroom. I don't remember learning anything that year. I didn't make friends. I was the eighth girl in our class of twenty-six, and the other girls had already formed their cliques. And eight year old boys were not interested in making friends with girls, mostly because the rest of the class would erupt into catcalls because they were just at the verge of knowing that girls were different than boys.

I have always been an introvert. I didn't really mind the fact that I wasn't learning anything. I spent my time in third grade coloring pictures of places I would never see again because we'd moved away from Connecticut. My house. My best friend's house. The ice cream shop next to the supermarket. The woods at the back of our house.

After that Christmas, we moved to an acre of land and a big house—so big that there was a room in the front that we never used except for Christmas. I had a room of my own, one that even had a lock It was about that time that I started to learn the flute.

I didn't like it. I much preferred singing or whistling to trying to make the instrument sing for me. It was work. I think I must have been a lazy child, because I didn't want to have to do something that would require serious practice.

So, despite the musicality of the family, and my own sense of musicianship (which I admit is somewhat lacking) I don't play an instrument.

But I've been surrounded by people who play all of my life.

Mama plays the piano and organ—in church, of course, but when we lived in Connecticut she gave lessons enough that she bought her own piano. A black Yamaha upright. She loved it. Recently she bought a baby grand, and the upright ended up with Rachel, as it should.

When she started teaching piano to us, even though Joy was six and Rachel was four, she taught them, too. Joy didn't do any better than I did—in fact, she gave up even sooner. Rachel, on the other hand, learned and thrived on the piano. When she grew up, she got her undergrad in Math, but when she went for her Master's, it was in Collaborative Piano. She is a trained accompanist, which means that she has a consistent source of income through students and other gigs like weddings.

When she was first learning, Mama was upset at how she would bang on it, so she convinced Rachel to treat the piano well by promising it to her.

Dad also is musical, although he mostly dabbles. He can almost play the piano, but he played the trumpet and french horn when he was young, as well as harmonicas. I've always enjoyed listening to him play the harmonica—the song that comes to mind is Oh Susanna, which we could sing along to.

Over the years, our family had a succession of interesting instruments. Joy was never very musical, although she has a beautiful voice. In third grade, she took up the violin, and put it down again almost as quickly. Rachel always had the piano, but she briefly took up the clarinet. In high school, she played four stick xylophone as part of the pit crew for the marching band.

By the time Lorenzo was in high school, I was graduated from college, so I got to hear him playing the trumpet from afar. He got a scholarship with the university band—so his trumpet, and later the sousaphone put him through college. Madeline started playing the clarinet young, and then in eighth grade, started playing the bass clarinet. She studied music education, which meant that when she got her scholarship to march in the band, she marched sousaphone just like Lorenzo because she wanted to tell her students later that she didn't just march clarinet. That's not as impressive or difficult.

Rose picked up a violin was she was small, but put it down again. She sings but she's more interested in art than music.

But I'm supposed to be inspired by uncommon instruments. I have a hard time defining what that means. I've been surrounded by a cacophony of music all my life. In fact, one of my college roommates was a music major—oboe. I have to say that reeds in general—double reeds especially—have the kind of relationship with spit that I never was very comfortable with. One nephew plays a cello.

One Christmas, Dad got a panpipe that he plays occasionally.

So tell me, in a house where so many instruments were played and enjoyed, what instrument was uncommon?

Word count: 1025
Prompt 9: Uncommon Instrument Awareness Day (7/31)