You Mean You Can Even Play Saxophone?

So yesterday, in PAK Orchestra (which name I am thinking of changing to the SiMa Hot Box Orchestra...waddya think?) P- asked me if he could switch from bass drum to saxophone. He asked a few weeks ago if he could play tuba. I told him then, and told him again yesterday that if he can come up with an instrument, I will teach him how to play it. I don't HAVE any more instruments to hand out this year, but if he can find a sax, I'll let him play it. He's a pretty sharp kid, and understands music pretty well, so it would just be a matter of showing him how to blow the thing and where his fingers should go.

But here's the funny part: My comment started the whole room buzzing with this question- can you really play that? Meaning saxophone, meaning ME. Can Mrs. McLean play saxophone? I said, "Of course I can; I can play every instrument in this room". "Even trombone?" "Yes, even trombone".

Where have these kids been? I have been the only instrumental music teacher most of them have had at school since the third grade. Don't they remember? I found myself scratching my head over this all afternoon yesterday, and I'm still wondering about it now. Is it because I was Ms. Crocker then, and am Mrs. McLean now? Or is it like learning to walk, or talk?  We, none of us, remember that. So maybe their music learning has been so organic, they don't remember how they got where they are now. I'd like to think that is the case. Or maybe they were playing with me. They are not above doing that. And I am not above falling for it. But it felt like a genuine question. I am asked frequently by my students how many instruments I play when it occurs to them that the same person who just taught their violin class is about to teach the clarinet class. My standard answer is "I play a lot of instruments, none of them very well, but I can play 'Hot Cross Buns' on any instrument, except bagpipes".

Maybe I will need to refresh their memory. True, in this class I don't play any instrument much, except piano, and this year not even that very much. Occasionally I demonstrate something on a violin. Maybe I need to take my saxophone to school and play. Or maybe a tuba.