I've been playing since I was little. ^_^ Not seriously, or anything, but damned if I didn't try. (Goodness, this is a long post...)
When I was a baby, we had a piano in the house. I often used it to climb out of my playpen and then I would try to "play" it. Little did my mother know that I really WAS trying to play it. She got rid of it because it was old, out of tune (and tuning is expensive), no one knew how to play it, and it helped me climb out of my playpen. If only she knew....
Fortunately, we had a (really crappy) electric organ in the basement. When I was kid, I used to play that, one handed only, of course, lol. For my first grade recital, I played Happy Birthday on it in class. Ah, my first taste of performance. I was so cute.
About the same time, I had a dinky little toy piano that was in my bedroom. I used it more as a footstool than something to play on because it had maybe a two-octave range. Really, what am I going to do with two octaves? Play Happy Birthday some more?
In my elementary school, the Suzuki violin class was always around looking for more students, and every year I wanted to join, but every year, my parents said no. I was upset at them for about a week solid each time.
A few years later when I was eight, my niece got a mini keyboard for Christmas. I played that thing more than she did. She lost one of the instructional books that came along with it, and only had the songbook left. It had a little instruction in it, but mostly just music. That was when I taught myself how to read music. I didn't know *exactly* what a half note was, or anything, but I figured out what it meant in relation to a quarter note, or the time signature, say.
The next year, fourth graders in my elementary school were allowed to play in the band. Sweet. I tried out the clarinet, and I was able to get a sound out of it, so I was accepted, and this time my parents gave in (because apparently, I wanted to play something really REALLY badly), and let me stay in the band. Yay!
From fourth to seventh grades, I switched instruments every year, wanting to learn something new. Looking back, it wasn't such a brilliant idea, but I was a kid, so I didn't know any better. I played clarinet, alto sax, trumpet and flute. I got stuck with the flute in seventh grade because we suddenly had a new band instructor, so it naturally became my primary.
I've been playing flute since seventh grade, which was about ten years ago. I picked up a piccolo for marching band in my senior year of high school four years ago. I've been in marching band for five years, now, even though this year was spent instructing colorguard (and has killed my embouchure because I don't practice anymore! ;-;). And I'm a marching band geek to the extreme. I met my best friend in marching band, I met my boyfriend in marching band, and if (when -_-) I have kids, they're going to be in marching band, lol.
I never had any formal musical training, EVER, because everything I ever learned, I learned in band class in school. My stupid high school didn't even offer AP music theory -- but I heard they started the year after I graduated. Figures. I HAD to learn more (still wanting to learn new things), so I decided that when I got to college, I was going to minor in music. I'm almost done with it, though I doubt I'll be finishing it at Stony Brook. I was in the University Wind Ensemble on flute for three semesters, as is required for the Theory Track of the minor. I also took three required semesters of keyboard, which I thought was awesome because I finally got to learn to play with BOTH hands, heh heh. My most recent performance on the SBU campus, though, was Saturday at I-Con at NTT playing my piccolo-ized version of the Tetris theme.
Apparently, everyone there loved it. XD I was so nervous, I started shaking again, and my non-existent embouchure didn't help much, either.
I'd love to learn a string instrument, but I don't think I could do it. I've gotten too used to woodwinds, and always having an *exact* place for my fingers, that learning to approximate would probably just drive me nuts.
And I'm going to shut up now before I completely bore you all to death. I'm just passionate about music. (Read: "This has been long enough as it is.") ^_^
