My husband, Gary, is a musician who has been involved, in some way, with music throughout his life. As a Senior, he recently announced that he was taking up the trombone!
His first instrument is the guitar, followed by keyboard and voice. He has had no formal music tuition; he was attracted as a teenager to the sounds of his big brother, Jim, strumming a guitar and playing along to the Beatles songs in his bedroom. Naturally, he picked up a guitar and joined in.
His whole family are musically inclined, and there followed many iterations of musical groupings over the years which formed and dissolved like waves on the sand.
So… he is going to learn how to play the trombone!
Perhaps the lure this time may be traced to his daughter’s influence. As a contemporary jazz saxophonist and singer, she tugs at his heart. Maybe he can join her on occasion in the Big Band she belongs to, if he can ‘hold his own’ on the trombone…
Recently, he shared his interest in playing the trombone, when idly chatting to a work mate. After relating his intention, he concluded by saying, “All I need now is a trombone!”
Lo and behold, the workmate replied. “I can help you with that! I have a trombone -and it is a reasonably good one – that you can have.”
Gary’s demur that he would need to pay him for that, was met with, “That won’t be necessary. It is sitting around doing nothing. I’ll give it to you on permanent loan. If you finish with it one day, you can give it back to me then.”
It struck Gary, and me, that in most instances, when we share something of ourselves with others, we are met with kindness. The kindness may take many forms – one of them not usually that of a trombone!