I Played the Clarinet

But I wanted to play the trombone...

I Played the Clarinet

The Adagio movement of the Concerto for Clarinet by Mozart, Op. 107 is a piece that I actually played in public. I believe it was in 1987 at New Heights Baptist Church as an offertory. And the folks in charge of the music after that offertory said, “You know, maybe you want to play an offering that's a little shorter next time.” So, a little highbrow for a Baptist Church perhaps, but still a melancholy, thoughtful tune that is part of three movements for the Concerto for Clarinet, starting with the Allegro—and a difficult piece for a clarinet player especially n amateur clarinet player like I am, so that was the only piece of the Concerto that I played in public. But I did study the complete Concerto for Clarinet very often. It was something that I warmed up on, something that I would get out and play. And I still have the sheet music here that was purchased at Eddie's Music in Vancouver all those years ago—probably about 1973 was when I first received the music, along with clarinet lessons from my stepfather, Lee Mack, who was a competent clarinet player himself. I don't know that he would have played the Concerto for Clarinet in its entirety, but he certainly was a capable and professional musician with a degree in clarinet performance from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music as proof. And his gift to me, along with the music, was 10 clarinet lessons for that year, which I believe we fulfilled.

That deal wasn’t something that I really looked forward to. He was rather a particular taskmaster. And I remember one—and this might be the only—lesson that I truly remember. I got to the clarinet lesson and one of the keys—I should say, one of the screws in one of the keys on my clarinet—was backed out, as will happen while you're playing and not paying attention to the maintenance of the clarinet. So, we spent the lesson pretty much reinforcing the importance of taking care of your instrument.

And let's see. Let's back up a little bit. I started in fifth grade playing the clarinet. I wanted to play the trombone. I came home and told Mom about playing the instruments at school. I wanted to play trombone, and the person who demonstrated the trombone said he liked the length of my arms. I had long enough arms to reach sixth position already. So, he knew I was going to grow into the trombone and be able to manage it. But she convinced me that the trombone was going to be easy to dent. It was going to be hard to maintain. And, you know, a clarinet’s easier to take care of. So, I wanted to play the clarinet. I was okay with that. I was okay with anything other than the flute.

So, I played the clarinet for fifth and sixth grade at Marshall Elementary School. And upon my last lesson with Miss Buchanan, who was the music teacher at Marshall, Miss Buchanan said to me, “Dave, you just need to play softer. You play too loud.” And it was a small—shoot, was there 10, 12 people in that little elementary school band?—and I was playing louder than the trumpets, so she had a difficult time corralling me in.

But then, that next year in seventh grade, I got to Cascade Junior High. There was a 25 or 30-piece band—seventh grade band—and I was playing first chair. And Mr. Weber seemed to be okay with the volume that I contributed to that junior high band. So, I played clarinet for three years in junior high. And then, when I got to high school, I went to saxophone.

I had asked Mr. Weber about playing saxophone in the stage band at Cascade Junior High. He said, “I don’t have a stage band. I would rather that the band I teach be fundamentals. I don’t want to jump to stage band and not work on the fundamentals.”

So, I went to Evergreen High School—I believe in 1975 was my first year there. 1975–76 would have been my first year, 10th grade. And I played saxophone the first day in concert band. And Bill Stevenson said, “Hey, can you move to first period stage band? I need a tenor sax player.” And I said, “Yeah.” So, I played tenor sax there for two years. Didn’t play in my senior year because I was so far behind on math and science credits and took chem study first period instead of stage band.

So, moving on to college—I went to play saxophone for Dale Beacock at Clark College. For about a year, I played with the stage band, and he needed some backup on clarinet in the concert band because they were going to a band contest in Hawaii, and he wanted me on the clarinet. So, I played the clarinet. I did actually play the clarinet in the Honolulu Shell in Honolulu with the Clark College Concert Band.

And then, I put my instruments down and didn’t play at all until a friend of mine at New Heights, who had just become a choir director, said, “Hey, Dave, I want to put together a band. You know, why don’t you bring your saxophone and just play?” I said—his name was John Karn, beautiful guy, great musician, great singer—and he said, “Bring your saxophone. We’re going to have a worship band.” And I said, “You don’t have any sheet music. I need some sheet music. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t play by ear.” He said, “Just bring your horn and play, and it’ll be fine.”

And I very reluctantly brought my Buescher alto sax to church, sat down at the piano early before service one morning, and just noodled around on the hymns that we were going to do that day. And I realized at that point that the alto sax line is a minor third lower than the melody line. And that is the bass line on the hymns. There are two staves there, right? You’ve got your sopranos and altos, and your tenors and your basses on that bass line. And I could actually play—if I added three sharps—I could just play the bass line, and I had it down.

And that was a revelatory moment for me in my understanding of music theory, which I was very poor at. But I played for years and years—played alto sax, played tenor sax, sang in the men's ensemble, sang in choir, sang solos in the Easter special, in the Christmas special, and basically 25 years plus of being involved in music at New Heights Baptist Church.

And then… moved to Gig Harbor and sang in the choir at Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church. And the same deal—they had a worship band for their praise songs, and so I played tenor sax and actually played clarinet a couple of times with the men’s ensemble. Played a Gaither tune, played clarinet solo, and then I also played “Just a Closer Walk” with the bell choir at Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church, which was a lot of fun. Sharon Curie was the bell choir master, and she had pretty competent players for the bell choir, and it was fun to play a kind of jazzy version of “Just a Closer Walk” with Sharon and the bell choir at Chapel Hill.

So, fast forward to Houston. I moved to Houston somewhere around 2011–2012. Dragged my saxophone down to Houston, dragged my clarinet down to Houston, and didn’t do anything with them really until a friend of my wife said, “You know, I’m doing an event and what I’d really like to have is a saxophone player.” So, she came home and said, “Dave, do you want to play saxophone for this event?” I said, “Sure.”

And luckily for me, in the age of the internet, there are literally millions of backup tunes for B-flat instruments. So, I found one author in particular that had all his tunes set up for three albums—choruses of jazz standards, one straight, one ad lib, one straight type of backup music—which is perfect for me, and some other things that I’ve thrown in. But very easy to put on a little saxophone show these days.

So, that’s where I am—here in Houston in 2025. My next gig is June 22nd, and I will get out my saxophone and my phone, and all my songs are on a playlist on YouTube. Log into YouTube, grab my playlist, and it’s ready to go.

And if I had thought all those years ago that having a backup band was going to be this easy, I would have spent more time playing the saxophone. But anyway—that’s what happens when your mom says, “Hey, why don’t you play the clarinet?”

Thank you.
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