For as long as I remember, my favorite toys were ones that made music, toy pianos, trumpets, and so on.

In the 7th grade, I joined the school band. I wanted to play baritone horn (euphonium) because it had a beautiful voice, but the school's rental was already claimed. In fact, all the rental instruments had been claimed so, like all new band students, I got a pair of drumsticks and a practice pad. In retrospect that was lucky, because learning to play drums has helped me immensely in my career, and I think all pop/rock/country musicians would benefit from learning to play drums, too.

Much later, the family of the tenor sax player moved from the area and the band director asked if anyone would like to try the sax, I guess I said "I do! I do! I do!" more enthusiastically than the others. This was even luckier than the drums. I wasn't thinking about a music career at the time, but I ended up having one. There isn't much work for euphonium players.

I took to the sax quickly, went from beginning band to advanced band, quickly, skipping intermediate band altogether. In high school, I sat first tenor sax in the all-state band every year. I also got section leader, which be default goes to the first alto player.

Back to junior high. After school, I got in this rock band. We were terrible, but so was everyone else back then. Nobody taught rock because it was the devil's music.

We got a gig at a junior high dance. There I was on stage with my best friends at the time, doing our best to cover the hits of the day. People were dancing and when I looked down, that cute girl who didn't even acknowledge my existence in English class was 'making eyes' at me. At the end of the night, they actually paid me money for having the time of my life (so far). That's when I said, "This is what I want to do for the rest of my life."

I was classified 4F when I wanted to join the Air Force, so instead I traveled around the country in a rock band playing singles bars in college towns and eventually opening for major stars in concert. Almost had a record deal, but that's another story.

Since every songwriter doesn't have the wisdom to put a sax solo in every song, the other guys in the band taught me bass, rhythm guitar, and some keys. Our drummer could sing, so I would sit in on the drums for a couple of song, and he would get out front.

When saxes were out of demand in the acid music era, I played bass for a living. It's really a fun instrument, and there are a lot of opportunities to be creative while still supporting the band.

I also taught myself flute and wind synthesizer, as the finger similar to the sax. Much later I decided to learn some lead guitar, I'll never be a Jeff Beck, but I can crank out decent leads in pop/roc/country songs.

The hardest instrument I have learned so far is voice. It took quite a few years, starting with easy songs while gigging, and progressing (if you can't practice on stage, where can you practice?).

So now it's sax, wind synth, flute, guitar, bass, drums, keyboards and vocals.

My instrument of choice? It's a tie between saxophone and wind synthesizer. But I'm having a lot of fun progressing on lead guitar, too. But if I had to choose one, it would be sax/wind synth (woodwinds in the sax family)

Notes ♫

Last edited by Notes Norton; 01/08/25 06:55 AM.
Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
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