‘I think it is time to suck the saxophone!’
Well, I never believed I would hear that phrase uttered, and especially not by a beautiful girl. What did it mean? Had my luck turned for the better with a long evening of Eastern European lust lying ahead? Or was it some little known put-down of the type beloved of most of the women I know?
‘I’m sorry…suck a…’
‘Saxophone. Yes’
‘I thought you said that. Excuse me for asking, but where should I…we…’
‘Suck. Well you need lessons’
Now, you can call me old fashioned if you like, I really don’t mind, but how could this woman know that I had problems with the blowing of my saxophone. Had some long forgotten, (aren’t they all), lover blogged about my inept ‘ musicality’ on the world-wide-web?
‘Yeah, don’t let him near your woodwind honey, he’ll just nibble the reed for a few seconds and then fall asleep blaming a hard day at the office. And as for his tongue work…’
‘Why…how do you know I need lessons?’
‘Well, it’s obvious isn’t it. When was the last time you played a tune on any horn?
I collapsed heavily into a nearby chair, my mind scrambled at the thought that the world knew about my inadequacies in the music department. Desperate, I threw out the old line.
‘I can still hold a tune’
‘You’d better make the most of it, because you won’t be holding anything else for a long time. Face it, your days of playing in any duo are long gone…solo is all you have…unless you come with me for lessons.’
But I just need a little practice. It’s been a while.’
A year or six more like. I’d been on my own too long and life was far too short for the sort of practice I needed now.
‘Your finger work is shot to pieces…’
‘Ok, when do we start…the lessons I mean?
‘I have to make a call or two…just stay there and relax.’
Which is why, a few days later, I found myself at ‘Saxraum’ with an alto sax in my hand playing the intro to Smoke on the Water…she really did mean a music lesson. Damn it!
Now, in some strange way it all makes sense. You see, I am going through a learning phase. I am learning how to exist on my own as I wait for my single life to be returned to me. It isn’t easy as it involves long periods of meditation in smoky bars with smoky voiced women and unfiltered men. Now, I quite enjoy the smoky voiced women…the more the merrier I say…but I have to stub out the men. I have no interest in the male mid-life crisis. I mean, I’ve been living one for the past…perhaps I’ve been living one all of my past.
I am learning how to live on my own after endless years of sharing. I find myself contemplating kitchen appliances and curtains, vacuum cleaners and cutlery, gas bills and light fittings, which is fun in its’ own sad way. Certainly my knowledge of bed linen has increased ten fold as my boredom threshold has collapsed into a state of Zen.
And I am learning how to play the sax.
I have always wanted to play…something. At school I was handed a tuba, which was bigger than me, and we couldn’t become friends. I tried guitar but we were only passing acquaintances. I had a recorder once, but that was in a different world before I realised how important music was to me. In general, kids who play the recorder should be locked away for the good of society…and the teachers should be ashamed of themselves. Will the fractured sound of ‘London’s Burning’ ever leave me in peace?
There is something vaguely surreal about learning to play something like the sax in Vienna, the city of Wiener Schnitzel, Wolfgang and waltzes. Since I arrived here I’ve watched numerous students, young and old, wandering the streets with an endless array of instruments strapped to their shoulders, which is impressive when you are a pianist. I have a tip for would be musicians: learn the flute, the harmonica, or better still the triangle. They are small enough to carry in your pocket, and quiet enough that the neighbours won’t attack you with a heavy object when you practice late at night.
When I lived in London, one of the kids next door played the clarinet in the garden. As we were in the UK, it rained occasionally, and she had an ingenious contraption attached to her music stand. At the first touch of rain, she would play a certain note and a miniature umbrella would spring into life, keeping her instrument safe and dry. Unfortunately, when the wind was howling and the water was falling in a perpendicular manner, it wasn’t quite so successful, leaving her with wet feet and a soggy score? How we suffer for other people’s art.
And how I suffer for my art. Saxophone lessons are not easy. Every session is like a visit to the gym. It leaves your lips dry and bruised, your muscles filled with lactic acid, your ears ringing from the high pitched squeaks you produce on occasion by accident, and in a typical Austrian late spring you are quickly drenched with sweat. But it is fun. Strangely, unpredictably, marvellously it is fun. (Although I guess not for my teacher…) I am living a tiny dream, and one day in the long distant future, when I am too old to care and there is no one around to hear me, I shall play something that reminds me of a little Vienna bar and a strange lady who forced my hand and sent me to ‘Saxraum’.
Funnily enough, I am meeting her in that same bar tonight. I wonder if she’d like to see how my lip work has improved? Probably not…now, where’s the music stand?
