I didn't know you quit, Alex. You used to be so into it. But it is a time-consuming instrument, after all.
I never got past "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" when I played violin. That instrument was always so difficult for me that I'm horribly impressed by anyone who can play it well.
I'm supposed to hear about my tryout date for orchestra today. The orchestra teacher there adores me, so I'm not too worried. (I get private lessons from her, and she says it's just a formality.)
I can't wait to get back into orchestra stuff. Orchestra's great--it's amazing to play along with everyone else, and between all of you it creates a song that couldn't be played solo. I've played with this crowd before, and they're loads of fun. They are, however, witnesses to the Incident.
(Orchestra story!) A few years ago, I was playing at a recital in a nursing home. The weather was awful for keeping instruments in tune, and my cello isn't exactly good at staying in tune to begin with. Halfway through my song, which was quite short, my teacher had to stop me to retune. It went back out of tune while I played the rest. And I'm not talking about going slightly flat--it was more like two octaves within ten bars.
Most of the kids from the orchestra I'm joining thought it was cool that I kept playing, but one girl from another orchestra that I'd been talking to earlier made fun of me. An old lady from the nursing home was rather rude about it, too.
Looking back on it, I'm pretty proud of young!me for the way I handled it. It's been rather hard for me to be embarrassed by anything since. It's not as if 150 people are all staring at me like they were then.
Does anyone else have orchestra stories?