back in the saddle
July 31, 2009
Today I took my French horn out of its case for the first time in more than two years. Since March 2007 it has languished, unplayed, in its case beneath my desk at work. I took it upstairs to a practice room and opened the case. It was not pleasant. The soft case had become damp when my office flooded two weeks ago, and there were patches of mold on the cleaning cloth. There were cobwebs! Nothing to make you feel worse than seeing cobwebs on your horn.
More seriously, the first valve is completely jammed. I’ll need to take a more serious screwdriver to it than I have with me.
But for the meantime, I played for about forty minutes – long notes and arpeggios in the key of C, and it felt pretty good, like meeting an old friend and picking up the conversation.
