It began in January of 1972 at a public grade school in Wisconsin. First, I wa given a trumpet mouthpiece-I couldn’t even get a sound out of it. When I was given a clarinet mouthpiece, what came out was high-pitched and, while not exactly in tune, the teacher decided “Let’s put him on clarinet.”

The following September I was transferred to a parochial grade school system which had a Saturday morning rehearsal in which all the musicians in the network got together to hold 90-minute rehearsals. During one rehearsal, I met a female clarinet player while standing in a march line. in the gym. I got tired and left the line to go to a chair on the sidelines, rested there for about 10 minutes, and she was kind enough to show me where I was supposed to be when I returned, by motioning with her hand.

Back then I just went right into individual practices when I worked on the material. I was in the Explorer Band in Year 1, and the Cadet Band (the better of the two) for the last 2 years I was in that grade school system. The clarinet I used back then was a Vito which one of my cousins had given to me. I got good use out of that Vito horn for several years.

First concert I played in that system went smoothly, except the timing was off for a bit during “Battle Hymn of the Republic” The director stopped the band, said “Letter A, please. WATCH!!” No further problems after that.

All through those 3 years, I also had weekly individual lessons during the regular school year. Word of my progress got around once I was finished with grade school. More on that later.