zk/writing/sonata/why-sax.md

Why am I playing the saxophone?

I mean, I'm not now. I haven't played one in ages. I sold the alto and soprano that I had while growing up, and then never picked it up again.

But I kept asking myself that. Why am I playing the saxophone?

I think on some level that it was not really me playing the saxophone. I was the instrument being played by my dad, you know? He wanted a kid that played the saxophone because he was the kid that played the saxophone. He would take me across the street to the neighbor's Christmas party and play me artfully. He'd play the soprano, and he'd play me, playing the alto. He'd show me off to his friends like the finely-crafted instrument I was.

But I never really knew why.

One time, I must've been eight or nine, my mom took me to my saxophone lesson and I very clearly hadn't practiced. Like, it was obvious from the moment I got through warming up that I hadn't made any headway on the blue-book lessons that had been assigned to me in the week or two since the last session.

My teacher was just tired, I think. She got grumpy and defeated-looking and had me just practice them there in her basement studio.

Out in the car, though my mom got pretty upset at me, and I asked her that question: why am I playing the saxophone? I didn't really want to, and when I did it was when I got all wrapped up in something like *Jesu joy of man's desiring* and not when I was working on scales or intervals.

"Well, because your dad and I think you'd get a lot out of it," she said, or something like it.

"I don't see why."

"I think the point is that you learning an instrument is that it brings you closer to music, and you're learning the saxophone because your dad plays, too."

I shrugged. "I don't see the point, I guess. There's not really a point to anything, is there?"

I don't think my mom was looking to hear nihilism from a nine-year-old, or maybe it was just unexpected, or maybe she felt some of it herself and I had yet to learn that acknowledging it verbally is generally not what folks are looking for.

Either way, she got quiet and took me home, or maybe over to my dad's, and then when I saw my dad, he told me to apologize to her for that next time.

I think I knew even less about why I was apologizing than why I was playing the saxophone, then. I wasn't sure how an observation about the relative pointlessness of one's existence could be hurtful. It felt like an immutable fact. Telling my mom "I don't think there's a point to anything" was just me saying that there's no point to anything. You do things or you don't do things and then the things are done or not done and then you do or don't do the next thing, and nothing about the universe cares one bit. There's drive to be had, sure, and pleasure to entice you, and pain to warn you, but it's not like the universe cares any more for those than whether or not you did the thing. I didn't practice, and I got in trouble for it, and I was playing the saxophone and I didn't know why.

I also got really into karate as a kid, thanks to my step-dad. That one I felt more drive to do than I did playing the saxophone. There were times that I really enjoyed it. I would ride my bike up along Baseline to the dojo or whatever and do my thing, and one time I came home and told my mom and step-dad, "If I ever tell you that I'm sick of karate, tell me to stick with it and I'm sure I'll get back into it at some point."

And then I fell out of love with it when things started going south with my step-dad and then I told my mom that I didn't want to go anymore and she reminded me of the conversation and I told her that things had changed, and I think she knew what I meant because she just kinda acknowledged that yeah, they had.

I never really had that moment with the saxophone, though.

Once, I got so fed up with it that I bent the octave arm out of shape so that I couldn't play for my dad's drunk friends, and then he came to my room and found me crying and I told him that I couldn't play and showed him that the instrument wasn't making the right noises, and I had to tell him that I must have dropped the case rather than tell him that I didn't want to play the saxophone because I didn't know why I was playing it in the first place, and he got upset and told me to be careful.

But he never told me why.