Wind Instruments

I picked up my clarinet again tonight for the first time in over a year. More like a year and a half. The last time I played it was a warm, cloud-free summer evening Culver City, the porch light, a few flying insects and an aluminum trailer to keep me company.

For the past few days, my fingers have started to itch to play. Family has been visiting, I've had to work, emails and to-do lists have been beckoning me. But tonight as I got off the phone with a dear (and musically talented) friend eight time zones away, I saw the clocked ticked 15 mins until a reasonable bed time--just enough for a few goes on the clarinet.

Like the QWERTY keyboard is to me now, my fingers knew their respective positions on my wind instrument. Of all the items in my possession, my clarinet may be one of the oldest: we bought it for my second year of band in school and it's been with me ever since. I was probably an intermediate clarinetist when I stopped, and the beginners book is really what I'd prefer at the moment, and there is some sense of freedom and history in just playing a few notes, running a few scale patterns together--like picking up a conversation with a long lost friend and remembering it the same as ever with refreshing nuances and changes since you last spoke.