It’s never too late to try something new.
If I think about how my college experience affected my life, other than meeting a girl named Sarah Jane Ross a few months into it, by far it was my clarinet playing for the Columbia University Wind Ensemble (CUWE). I doubt that any of my fellow musicians feel similarly, as most of them had experienced serious ensemble playing in their secondary and even primary schools. It was there (typically at a public high school) that they learned to play their instruments, with lessons provided and instruments loaned free of charge, and opportunities to be “cool” by playing during half-time at football games—okay, not as cool as actually being a football player, but on the other hand extremely small probability of repeated concussions.
I came to the clarinet not to impress my peers but at the bidding of my Mom, may she rest in peace. At the age of 12, during my sixth and final year of fruitless piano lessons, my mother arranged for me to go next door to our neighbor Pete Yellin, a professional musician and teacher. Pete had me try three instruments. I loved how the saxophone sounded, I did not like the flute (its arm positioning felt awkward and I also was aware of its reputation as a “girl’s” instrument), and I was kind of neutral about the clarinet. Pete, God bless his memory, advised me to begin taking lessons on the clarinet, after which I could easily transition to the saxophone. He said that if I started with the saxophone I would never take up the clarinet (especially since, as I was to discover, the clarinet, with so many more “fingerings” to memorize than the saxophone, is a much more difficult instrument to play). I accepted his terms, and so for the next three years, like Jacob toiling away for Rachel, my lessons and practice hours were strictly on the clarinet.
Within a year, I was far more proficient on the clarinet than I had ever been on the piano, and I grew to love the clarinet’s particular sound. In the 10th grade, Pete practically gave me his incredible Martin tenor sax (which I enjoy playing to this day), and, just as Pete had said, I easily added the saxophone to my repertoire.
At the beginning of my freshman year in college, I auditioned for the CUWE. I succeeded enough for Rob Freeberg, the conductor, to assign me to the Second Clarinet section. I can still remember the incredible high I got from my first time playing with 40 other people, some of whom were on exotic instruments like the bassoon, French horn, oboe, and timpani (at the 8-piece Yeshivah of Flatbush Joel Braverman High School Orchestra, the most exotic we got was Doron G. on the accordion). What a feeling! You are part of this wonderful, big, complex sound. That first year in the CUWE, I had to hang on for dear life, as I cautiously followed my stand-mate Arielle, playing when she played and stopping when she stopped. Somehow during all my years with Mr. Gnatt in the “orchestra,” I never learned what it meant to come in exactly on time.
Now, 41 years after graduating Columbia, I can see how much the CUWE influenced my life. I had a particularly brilliant class in high school, and so I actually experienced Columbia as a breeze academically (especially since I went from taking as many as a dozen courses, Judaic and “secular,” to five). But thanks to the CUWE, I went on to decades of playing for wind ensembles—in Atlanta (at Dekalb College Band), in Miami (the City of North Miami Concert Band), and in several cities in Israel. There’s a nice camaraderie that develops when you meet with the same group of people every week to make music. And you know, though the quality of the Israeli bands I have played in does not come close to the CUWE’s, even well-worn popular pieces such as “Love Story,” “My Way,” and “Dancing Queen” can feel stirring.
On Wednesday nights I put my sax in a big backpack and ride my bicycle over to play with “The Multi-Generational Wind Ensemble” in Herzliya. Mark Michelson, an octogenarian from Brookline, MA, plays the baritone horn (not surprisingly, way back when, he learned how to play at his public school). Mark inspires me to think that I have a few more decades yet to play. And, Dear Reader, it’s never too late to learn something new!!! But if you do start taking lessons, make sure that you line up a place to play with other people. That will make all the difference.
TEDDY WEINBERGER is a contributing writer to Jlife magazine. He made aliyah with his family in 1997 from Miami, where he was an assistant professor of religious studies. Teddy and his wife, Sarah Jane Ross, have five children.
