zk_html/writing/3/sonata/why-sax.html

49 lines
5.5 KiB
HTML

<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Zk | why-sax</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/style.css" />
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />
<meta charset="utf-8" />
</head>
<body>
<main>
<header>
<h1>Zk | why-sax</h1>
</header>
<article class="content">
<p>Why am I playing the saxophone?</p>
<p>I mean, I&rsquo;m not now. I haven&rsquo;t played one in ages. I sold the alto and soprano that I had while growing up, and then never picked it up again.</p>
<p>But I kept asking myself that. Why am I playing the saxophone?</p>
<p>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&rsquo;s Christmas party and play me artfully. He&rsquo;d play the soprano, and he&rsquo;d play me, playing the alto. He&rsquo;d show me off to his friends like the finely-crafted instrument I was.</p>
<p>But I never really knew why.</p>
<p>One time, I must&rsquo;ve been eight or nine, my mom took me to my saxophone lesson and I very clearly hadn&rsquo;t practiced. Like, it was obvious from the moment I got through warming up that I hadn&rsquo;t made any headway on the blue-book lessons that had been assigned to me in the week or two since the last session.</p>
<p>My teacher was just tired, I think. She got grumpy and defeated-looking and had me just practice them there in her basement studio.</p>
<p>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&rsquo;t really want to, and when I did it was when I got all wrapped up in something like <em>Jesu joy of man&rsquo;s desiring</em> and not when I was working on scales or intervals.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well, because your dad and I think you&rsquo;d get a lot out of it,&rdquo; she said, or something like it.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see why.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I think the point is that you learning an instrument is that it brings you closer to music, and you&rsquo;re learning the saxophone because your dad plays, too.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I shrugged. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see the point, I guess. There&rsquo;s not really a point to anything, is there?&rdquo;</p>
<p>I don&rsquo;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.</p>
<p>Either way, she got quiet and took me home, or maybe over to my dad&rsquo;s, and then when I saw my dad, he told me to apologize to her for that next time.</p>
<p>I think I knew even less about why I was apologizing than why I was playing the saxophone, then. I wasn&rsquo;t sure how an observation about the relative pointlessness of one&rsquo;s existence could be hurtful. It felt like an immutable fact. Telling my mom &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s a point to anything&rdquo; was just me saying that there&rsquo;s no point to anything. You do things or you don&rsquo;t do things and then the things are done or not done and then you do or don&rsquo;t do the next thing, and nothing about the universe cares one bit. There&rsquo;s drive to be had, sure, and pleasure to entice you, and pain to warn you, but it&rsquo;s not like the universe cares any more for those than whether or not you did the thing. I didn&rsquo;t practice, and I got in trouble for it, and I was playing the saxophone and I didn&rsquo;t know why.</p>
<p>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, &ldquo;If I ever tell you that I&rsquo;m sick of karate, tell me to stick with it and I&rsquo;m sure I&rsquo;ll get back into it at some point.&rdquo;</p>
<p>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&rsquo;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.</p>
<p>I never really had that moment with the saxophone, though.</p>
<p>Once, I got so fed up with it that I bent the octave arm out of shape so that I couldn&rsquo;t play for my dad&rsquo;s drunk friends, and then he came to my room and found me crying and I told him that I couldn&rsquo;t play and showed him that the instrument wasn&rsquo;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&rsquo;t want to play the saxophone because I didn&rsquo;t know why I was playing it in the first place, and he got upset and told me to be careful.</p>
<p>But he never told me why.</p>
</article>
<footer>
<p>Page generated on 2022-01-06</p>
</footer>
</main>
<script type="text/javascript">
document.querySelectorAll('.tag').forEach(tag => {
let text = tag.innerText;
tag.innerText = '';
tag.innerHTML = `<a href="/tags.html#${text}">${text}</a>`;
});
</script>
</body>
</html>