Air Air Air... I NEED AIR!

When I returned from Iraq I wanted to get a dog and go ice skating at least once. I’ve done neither, but I’m still open to both.

After returning from a deployment in Washington DC, I want to rekindle my love for band music and keep my life as simple as possible.  I’m working on doing both and I’m determined to make this happen.

I could almost call these latest goals part of a mid-life crises.  However, I don’t consider my quest a crises at all.  It feels like coming home.  On so many levels I’m coming home, lighting a fire in the fire place, pressure-washing the picket fence and cleaning the windows.  I feel good and I’m viewing a double rainbow in the sky.

As a guide and coach for my music homecoming, I decided to take lessons from one of Huntsville’s professional tuba players.  I find it amazing that a town this size (slightly more than 300,000 area population) has an excellent selection of musicians who teach, several of them tuba players.

Last Wednesday I took a big step and experienced my first tuba lesson in over 30 years.  Interesting, I believe the instructor said he is 31 years old. I didn't see a need to compare the two lengths of time during our lesson.

During the lesson I thought I was going to either crack apart like pottery in a cold snap or burst like an over-inflated balloon. We did some serious breath work. The tuba dude must have had a half dozen little gizmos that measured and trained wind in and out of lungs.  By the time I left, I was totally exhausted… and this was only a half-hour lesson!

No problem, this was cool. I know I need more sound.  As embarrassing and uncomfortable as the exercises are to get me there, I'll go for more sound, more power, more tone…all that.

Here is what he recommended:

1. Relax - Dude! I just spent a year at the Pentagon and I'm supposed to relax???

2. Breathe More - I like the concept.  Again, after a year of biting my tongue, now I'm allowed to breathe???
 
3.  Flow More - I guess this will be the result of combining relaxing and breathing.  Who knows, it may result in some real music.
 
4. Strength is Weakness??? - I have to keep thinking about this since it's back-door reasoning in my book. And, I think it's tied into the "relax" issue.  When one is tense and puts strength into contorting muscles as opposed to pushing wind into the horn unpretty things happen.  That’s the best understanding I can come to at this point.

Before I pick up my horn again I think I’ll look online for the ice rink hours.