Orphan Instruments
I have spent my life rescuing musical instruments. Orphans for the main part. It all started with a snare drum which is still around here on a shelf received as a gift from an uncle by marriage. While at university, I had a bugle. Not a trumpet but a bugle. With a serious air leak. Often ended up at football games serving as a noise maker for someone else. And then there was a day I rescued a recorder. A large, wood tenor recorder. I was waiting for a train, in Halifax and in a nearby window of a shop I saw my next treasure. Wouldn’t with all the pieces. I entered the shop checked some other items and then asked, nonchalantly, how much for that. The shopkeeper quoted a price and I responded that it was too much. He made the usual well, take it or leave it. And I actually had an answer. I pointed out the window to awaiting passenger train and I told him with a voice full of calm that I was going to leave on that next train, with or without the recorder. There are other instruments that have been rescued around the house. Or around other people’s houses. In particular a trumpet that was rescued piece by piece while I was at university with the help of a real instrument repair company the trumpet was restored to playing order. There are a couple of flutes that came into my hands from the surplus market end of violin purchased by my father when I was still a child. All still around all still in playing order because instruments deserve careful treatment. Am I through collecting? Probably. I no longer have the will to forage.
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