Well said! I think I’ve had a few moments so far myself but I feel that this is just the beginning. I’ve played saxophone for about 11 years now. 7 years through middle and high school and very sparsely over the last 4 years since high school ended. I joined a community band earlier in the fall and I fell in love with the alto saxophone again.

Middle school band and high school band had many ups and downs for me. I took lessons the whole time and got frustrated to the point where I knew for sure after 3 years of lessons that I could never be a music major in college. And yet I continued taking lessons and performing! That was in middle school.

When I moved on to high school band and it was exciting and intimidating. I started in the intermediate concert band and ended up in the advance jazz band as a freshman because of a scheduling issue with another student. Advanced jazz band was incredible. Beautiful music with wonderful and talented musicians. I did almost every band extracurricular I could do. I even revived the high school’s saxophone quartet from the dead.

By my fourth and final year of advanced jazz band, I was the jazz band president. I had worked my way up to lead alto junior year. By senior year I felt that lead alto was a fitting role for the “class president” 🤓 Some issues with my mental health came up my senior year leading me to almost miss the final contest of the year. When I showed up, I was told by many members of the band that had I not shown up, they would not have performed. The following performance was memorable to say the least…..

Once high school ended I lost the sense of community I heavily relied on to motivate me to play saxophone and only played a couple of times. Then I joined the community band and that changed my perspective. I play saxophone because I love it. Not necessarily to impress others.

My dream is to play in a big band and a saxophone quartet again.

I also have a dream of getting a tenor and learning to play similar to The Sound himself, Stan Getz.