My interest in playing a musical instrument began summer I graduated
from High School. That was the summer that I taught myself to play
the harmonica, which was the instrument that my Grandfather played.
Three summers later, between my junior and senior years in college,
I started playing the recorder and found a recorder teacher the following
spring. I enjoyed the recorder. It was small, easily carried
anywhere and it was fun playing folk tunes on it.
The next year I moved to graduate school. When I wanted to resume
my recorder lessions, I could not find any recorder teachers.
(Later, I learned that there was a large underground recorder
society on campus.) Finally news that the Music Department needed
students for the Graduate Flute Students to teach. They were so
desperate, no auditions were required and, if you were already a
student at the University, there were no fees. "Well", I thought,
"this would be a good way to improve my recorder playing", so I went
out and bought myself a nice $35 flute and
began taking flute lessions. After six
months of lessions, I decided that I was going to stick with the flute
so I bought a real flute and have hardly played the recorder since.