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September 19, 2015
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| One day he came up with the idea to play an instrument. He had worked hard but after the economy became bad, his company gave the employees two choices: one, one could get the same salary but would have to work more; two, one could get a lower salary and work less. He chose the latter. He was in his late 40s. He was single. He didn't have a habit to buy an expensive car or go abroad often. He didn't go out drinking so much. He liked a simple life so he didn't need a lot of money. But, on the other hand, he was concerned about his future. He didn't have any certain hobbies. Somebody said that before retirement one should have five hobbies, and the earlier that one starts them, the better. He started to surf the Internet looking for a hobby. He thought about something good for his health, challenging, as well as being able to continue after aging, and, if possible, attracting women (He didn't have a girlfriend). When he happened to see this instrument, his eyes shone. It was a kind of electric clarinet. He had once tried to play the guitar when he was a high school student because his
After the guitar, he bought a harmonica, a recorder, and an ocarina. He was not a music buff but somehow he was fascinated with instruments. It seemed like the ultimate hobby to create sound. But, even an ocarina was difficult to play and its melody was limited and soon he got bored. Two decades later after trying the ocarina, he happened to see this electrical instrument on a website. The advertisement said that the instrument was like a clarinet or saxophone but it wasn't difficult to play like a real one. He knew those type of instruments were hard even to blow and make a sound, but the advertisement said that you blow into it like a recorder. He easily found some videos of playing this instrument on the web by professionals and amateurs. Surprisingly, some amateurs who commented that they only had played this machine for a couple of weeks uploaded their own videos and their playing was not bad. One demonstration site of this machine showed that the machine had a lot of sound modes including the sax, trumpet, clarinet, flute, trombone, and other various type of woodwinds and brasses. The sounds were almost the same as the original ones. It also even had some percussions and strings like a guitar or violin. It was not expensive. He ordered it. Soon it came. He opened the box and set a battery and connected his headphone cable to it and gave it a blow. It was the sax sound. It was rather good, it seemed just like the sound of a real sax, at least for him. He stood up and played it pretending to be a jazz sax musician. It was fun. It was refreshing. He soon was absorbed by it. He played it until midnight. From the next day on, he returned home as soon as possible and practiced earnestly every day. He mainly used the mode of sax and trumpet, and sometimes played clarinet or the flute for a change. One month passed. On this particular day, at night, he came up with an idea and went to an observation tower on a hill in his town. There was a beautiful night view in the distance, and below he could see all. He had thought that if he played while looking at the night view, it would seem cool. Especially, if he played 'Il Silenzio', a number from Nini Rosso, a famous Italian trumpeter, the title was called 'The Trumpet In The Night Sky' in his country. He started to play. The trumpet sounded as if it was echoing through the night air, although it played only in his headphone. When he was finished, a couple came up to him and the guy asked him what he was doing. He looked around and noticed that at this time this place was a Mecca of couples. He explained about the instrument and after a little hesitation he handed his headphone to the guy and played a part. The man was amazed and handed it to his girlfriend, she was also amazed. They begged him to perform the whole song and they could listen by sharing the headphones. He played. Looking at the night light view, they enjoyed his play. Some other couples gathered around and he did the same thing one by one. After a while, one guy said that he had a handy speaker in his car. He connected it to the machine and performed. The trumpet sounded in the night air literally, many couples were listening hand-in-hand. After this night, he couldn't forget the big applause and started to practice other moody music like the theme of 'Love Story', 'Moon River', 'Amazing Grace.' Every weekend he went to the observation tower. It was a good routine for him to practice continuously keeping motivation. He sometimes change the instruments accordingly to the music. Some of the audience posted about the performance on their Facebook, and the number of couples increased. One day, an old couple paid him some money saying it was worth the money. He was surprised. Some of the others followed. He was happy to make people enjoy and even get some money. But, as time went by, he became a little bit tired because almost all of the audience were couples and started to think about changing locations. But one day, when he was preparing to play at the observation tower, a woman in her 30s came and asked him to allow her to join his performance. She had the same type of machine. He was surprised and of course agreed. They played the 'Titanic' theme song. She performed the flute line which supported his sax line very well. This improvising play got more applause. Now they were practicing the theme of 'Romeo and Juliet' by Nino Rota in his apartment. Sometimes they synchronized the rhythm looking at each other. Nobody but them knew that they were playing the instruments, as they used the headphones. |
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*clumsy : A clumsy person moves or handls things in an awkward way (Co)
*buff :someone who knows a lot about computers/ films /wine, etc (C)
*woodwind :woofen or metal musical instruments that you play by blowing into them (L)
*brass :musical instruments that are made of metal, such as the trumpet (L)
*literally :according to the basic or original meaning of the word, etc (O)
*improvise :to play music or say words that you are inventing, not reading or remembering (C)