Memory from the school days...

Today I had the pleasure of attending a principal's conference with my principal and another colleague. During the day I found myself thinking back to my school days and I remembered an experience from Form One music class.

As a form one student it was deemed necessary for us to learn how to play the recorder.  During the first lesson I found that I couldn't shape my lips around the mouthpiece of the recorder, therefore the sound of my 'music' was rather distorted.  So I just pretended to play.

I shared this with my parents one day (I may have been upset about it?).  If I remember rightly I also wanted to learn the saxophone and had the same problem with my mouth not fitting around the mouthpiece.  I chose to learn the violin instead.  Anyway, back to the recorder story.  I think to make my life easier, my parents spoke to the music teacher (Mr Floyd) about me not being able to play the recorder due to m facial paralysis.  I'm sure they did this to protect me.

Anyhow, the next time we had recorder lesson Mr Floyd handed out the recorders and once he had given me mine, said something along the lines of "Now Corinna's lips don't work properly and she won't be able to play the recorder.  She is going to learn how to play the note without blowing into the recorder".  It may not have been exactly those words...but the meaning was there.

I spent the whole lesson crying into my hands at the embarrassment of my music teacher broadcasting the fact that I couldn't play the recorder.  Not that I think Mr Floyd intended to embarras me...I just don't really think he thought it through.

Did the class need to know?  No.  I could have spent the remainder of the lessons pretending to play the recorder...