Grand Designs of a 10-Year-Old

When you're 10, trying to imagine what your life will be like when you're an adult is... well, you all know what that's like. All the way through our teens we imagine older versions of ourselves doing things that we find appealing at the time. No kid aspires to be a loan officer or a financial analyst. (1) Some may dream of being rich... but what they do in order to get that money is usually a little hazy.

Then we "grow up." Most of us abandon our childhood aspirations in favor of more practical plans. A lucky few manage to evolve their dreams into something more substantial, but no less fullfilling. (2) To this, Joni Mitchell remarked:

So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
Therell be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through

Joni Mitchell - The Circle Game

I'm trying to remember what my own plans were... I remember wanting to be a super-hero at one time.(3) Then when I was nine, I wanted to be a lawyer. (4)

I had no idea that I was going to end up a musician, much less a teacher. When I was 10 years old, the local music teacher came into my 4th grade class with a big chart of instruments. He didn't have any that we could try, nor any recorded examples.(5) We had to choose based on what they looked like. At first I wanted to play flute (mostly because my friend wanted to play flute... and I ah... well you know.)(6) My Dad kind of vetoed the flute idea. "Flute is for girls," He said. So I asked him what kind of an instrument would at least go well with flute. "How about saxophone?" he said. (7)

Now, it would be very senitmental, indeed, to credit my father with my instrument choice.(8) Actually the truth was a little more embarassing. I thought the saxophone looked funny, and had kind of dismissed the idea. But it just so happened that 1978 was the same year that a cheesy little disco movie called Thank God It's Friday hit the theaters. It was supposed to be another Saturday Night Fever, but it didn't quite work out that way.

It did have some early appearances of people who would go on to do much bigger and better things (Jeff Goldblum, Debra Winger, and... Teri Nunn of all people.) Also it featured "performances" by Donna Summer and The Commodores. It was the latter playing the song "To Hot To Trot" that stuck with me... particularly the horn break in the middle. It was then that I got this weird idea that I would learn to play sax, and then grow up and join the Commodores.(9)

I had no idea that Beethoven, Palestrina, Duke Ellington and Gustav Holst were in my future, much less have any idea that I would use music to contemplate my own existence and the nature of the universe. All I wanted to do was wear a shiny sequined jumpsuit and play the riff from "Too Hot To Trot" (10)

It's a good thing for me that this time it panned out to something better. (11)


1. Except maybe my wife. Everyone in her family learned to read by looking at the Wall Street Journal.

2. I count myself among them

3. My Elementary school teacher just nodded and smiled, bless her soul.

4. I Didn't even know what a lawyer was... I just knew that for some reason people seemed to respect them. Ah, blissful, innocent ignorance.

5. It was 1978. Cut him some slack.

6. Funny, I don't even remember her name anymore.

7. He had no idea what he was talking about. Luckily, he was right. Turns out the fingering system is about as close as two different wind instruments can get.

8. That sort of thing works well for memoires.

9. I didn't catch on to the fact that there was an unspoken skin-tone requirement.

10. You want know the funny thing?... to this day, I've never played it.

11. Can you imagine me as a superhero or a lawyer?