I remember the whole thing this way.

When I was 10, I was told that anyone in our grade and above could try out for band. That sounded fun, and so the day it was set up at school, I headed to it.

There were a lot of other kids there, and the town band directors and our music teacher were shepherding us from instrument to instrument. We were to try out on whatever we wanted to.

I wandered from table to table trying to figure out what I was REALLY excited about. When I first heard about this try-out thing, I hadn’t really put much thought into just what I wanted to choose. That happened on the fly in the classroom.

I then decided to try the trumpet. I headed back to the table, and the teachers had already cleared off most of the instruments. One of them told me that they needed to be careful about how many students signed up for the various instruments. They needed a reasonable balance of sounds for the band, and having 70% Drums, 25% Trumpets, and 5% “Other” wouldn’t work.

I asked if anything was left. I was shone three instruments: French Horn, Tuba, and Baritone Horn. I gave each one a shot. The French Horn seemed ridiculous – all those pipes and tubes swirling around – and the mouthpiece felt like a razor on my lip, so not that one. The Tuba was intimidating and heavy, and I could not figure out why the mouthpiece had to be so big. So, the last one I tried was Baritone Horn. It seemed kind of off since the bell of the horn bent to one side. The mouthpiece wasn’t too bad – not as bad as the other two instruments. So Baritone Horn it was.

I think the band director was happy about this. Apparently there aren’t that many students that land on playing the baritone horn. So right away, I was both valuable and a visible oddball.

Nothing’s changed.