COMMENTARY: Learning From A French Horn

I’m not exactly buying the theory we are the sum of the parts of those who have gone before us. But if we are, and I get to pick the parts my kids get from the Lovely Mrs. Smith, one of those parts I hope they get is musical talent.

In addition to a lot of other positive things, my wife is a pretty good singer and at one point even played the flute in the high school band. She hasn’t done much with it in a bit (say, the last 27 or so years), but she can at least carry a tune and produce a sound from a musical instrument that doesn’t remind people of a boat motor that almost started correctly.

That’s important because music is a wonderful talent that can enrich lives, sharpen skills and generally spread joy. If you have it.

Which I have demonstrated, fairly conclusively over the years, that I don’t. And that comes into play because our youngest has decided to take guitar lessons.

Now if the precedent of his siblings is any indication, I’m sure he’ll do just fine and everything will work out. Of course that’s the sort of thing I would also say when the little masks drop down from the overhead compartment and the flight attendants start running up and down the aisles looking worried.

Because there really isn’t much worse than discovering, long after you’ve taken up a musical instrument, that you may not have the skill set for it.

And it doesn’t help when you determine that you’re actually the last person in your household to realize that.

I know this because, even now, the distant memory of my musical experience still haunts me. The French horn was my Vietnam.

My father was in the Air Force, so a lot of my childhood was spent on an air base near a small town in Michigan. There really wasn’t much to do in the winter in Michigan except drink and ice fi sh. Since I was in elementary school, at least one of those was pretty much out, so my mother decided playing a musical instrument would keep me occupied.

If she’d only known, she’d have let me go with my first inclination, wood carving with chain saws. Probably would have sounded better and been less painful in the long run.

I’m sure things may have changed, but at the time the only thing that kept the French horn from being the geekiest instrument in the band was the piccolo.

However, I did get to sit near the saxophones, so I was only a couple of chairs away from cool. Which is sort of a reoccurring theme in my life.

And it’s not like there a lot of practical applications for a French horn, unless you plan on using the case to fi ght off wolves (it was a very rural small town in Michigan).

Seldom do you hear “OK everyone, let’s gather around the fire while Gary plays ‘Michael Row The Boat Ashore’ on his French horn.” I went to a lot of Bruce Springsteen concerts when I was younger, and I never recall the Boss saying, “and Clarence Clemons, the Big Man, on the French horn.” I mean, I was kind of on an island.

Which would have been fine with my father, who observed that what I lacked in talent, I made up for in enthusiasm. This was after I told him I had probably taken my musical abilities about as far as I could and was ready to seek new horizons in other areas.

And he had suggested that was all right, since despite constant, long practice, the horn would probably have sounded about as good if I had dropped it down the stairs. Dad tended to call them as he heard them.

I did, in fact, go on to other things, many of which were probably just as annoying and none of which involved a musical instrument. That’s what you do when you’re a kid - try something, potentially mangle it and move on. Despite the unfortunate French horn period, my father never said no. Although sometimes he did flinch a little.

So if I hope my children get their musical talent from their mother, I hope from me they get the willingness to try something a little different and not be afraid of potential negative consequences. Maybe my youngest becomes the next Eddie Van Halen (without the multiple marriages, tattoos and rehab). Maybe he just learns to play a few songs, has a good time and moves on to something else.

Either way is fine with me.

If there is one thing I learned from my dad, it’s that if you can’t give your kids any real skills, hope that you give them curiosity and be as supportive as you can of where that curiosity may take them.

And pray it doesn’t involve anything with a mouthpiece.

GARY SMITH IS A RECOVERING JOURNALIST LIVING IN ROGERS.