Ugh this was so upsetting to read despite being validating.

If I were going to apply this as an analogy to my life it would be like some keys pads were fucked but not all of them. So, not being able to hit some notes was seen as a choice and personal failing. I would have been fine quitting band 😭

Eta: do people realize this is the the ADHD comm? I'm making an analogy, I don't give a fuck about the technical aspects?

I coach rock climbing, and this happens with shoes all the time. At a point your ability exceeds the equipment you currently have. Like no matter how much technique you develop, the junky climbing shoes might just slip on that hold. It’s always fun to see a really strong climbing wear more advanced shoes for the first time and realize what they’ve been missing out on.

This is how I felt when I found out I had sleep apnea.

For as long as I can remember, I've been constantly tired, and unable to focus. Then I heard about the symptons, got diagnosed, got a sleep device, and suddenly I could stay awake, and focus. I'm sharper than I've ever been, and I have sooooooo much energy.

I often wonder how differently my life would have turned out if we had a society that, like, ya know, had sympathy for kids, and tried to understand where they were coming from instead of treating health issues like a moral failing.

There's a second lesson here- if you teach people to their individual ability rather than to the average ability of a class or grade level, you get some amazing results.

Every other kid in the class was playing 'at grade level'. This kid wasn't so he got a lot of extra instruction.

But what if every other kid got the same level of extra instruction?
They didn't, because they performed at grade level and thus were determined to be satisfactory. But I argue that if you give every other kid in the class the same focus as OP's friend, you'd find a lot of people going much farther than they would otherwise.

This is one of the horrible things of our education system- kids aren't pushed to meet their potential, they're pushed to meet grade level.

I have a story that falls in the same pattern and involves the clarinet, but is basically the much kinder version. I was in band for years, playing brass, but opted to take a credit in the "beginner" band to try a wholly different instrument, and settled on clarinet because thats what they needed.

I had some real advantages over the beginners, being able to read music well and being used to playing in larger, more complex ensembles. When it came to actually playing though, I was terrible. I was always getting this warped, squeeling tone that was written off as using a wood reed vs a metal mouthpiece like I was used go.

Well, about a week in, the conductor stops and has me play a scale, which came out with a terrible warble. He stopped for a second, eyeballed me, and then had me swap to a number 2 reed instead of the normal 1. This is a thicker reed, a change you would expect beginners to move to after playing a woodwind for a few months.

Instantly, the sound firmed up correctly and I hit the exact tone. It was honestly astonishing. I had gone from a squeel to a pure tone immediately. My younger peers where shocked, having just thought I was somewhat shit at the instrument. Turns out the years of playing brass had given me a strong embouchure, or jaw muscle, so I was basically warping the beginner reed by just using it. I'd love to say I went on to first chair, but I had to drop the class due to conflict and that pretty much ended my time with the clarinet too.

Really interesting to have something like that happen, at least when the lead in is immediate support instead of years of beratement.

I had a similar problem when I was learning guitar. I had my grandma's old steel string guitar, and the action was so high (the strings so far away from the fretboard) that it took a lot of strength to press the strings down to the frets and it was difficult to get a note to play correctly. After a month or two my instructor had me try a different guitar, and like magic, I was able to play the song I was learning all the way through with no effort at all.

reminds me of the "bicycle in a car-centric city" analogy. Everyone is telling you take the main freeway and just "go faster" under the presumption that your driving a car without consideration that it takes more effort for you to even take freeway.

This is a beautiful story. Sometimes adversity makes some people better. Imagine how many people experience this and quit instead.

Part of a band teacher's job is maintaining the instruments. The band teacher deserves all the blame attributed to those bad pads.

Hi. It me. The clarinet.

Ah yes, the weighted training clarinet

this happened to me.

i wasn't last chair, I was "always second" but I was stuck with a hand me down clarinet with shit pads.

my mom was too poor to even look into having it repadded for years.

i silenced the class and got moved to first chair after playing with proper pads.

it was frustrating and glorious. you're just not allowed to blame your instrument. but I think we can all agree.

fuck em.

Lesson here is that I should definitely buy the new set of golf clubs

And sometimes the clarinet is not broken and you have to give up things you love doing for things that you are simply capable of

I can be in board with this story until he moved from last to first overnight. While I realize that’s exaggeration, at most I’d believe he moved up a bit unless he also changed schools or the band teacher changed. That would require the band instructor to admit they were wrong in their judgement of the student, which almost never happens.

Sometimes your clarinet is just broken.

Happens more and more as you get older.

Systems theory in a nutshell. If we judge a fish for its inability to climb a tree it'll go through the rest of its life thinking it's dumb.

When learning to weld, it's recommended that you start with Stick welding if you want to be serious and learn all the types eventually. It's harder to start with, but forces you to learn better hand control. Stick welding isn't like a broken clarinet, but the story reminded me of that.

If I ever get to retire, I would love to repair instruments for public schools.

This story is a good analogy for when they try to force kids to learn by certain methods instead of accepting that another method might suit them better

Laughs in oboe If all the instruments need repair, everyone gets to suck at oboe

This must be why Harry Kim joined Starfleet.

Sports never have been and probably never will be my thing. I hated gym class because almost all the activity was just exhaustive. Just doing a thing to get tired for the sake of exercise.

And sports went the opposite direction, with a focus on winning and competition, on top of the exhaustion and typically overbearing coaches.

I started band in 5th grade and did it all the way through high school including marching band. And marching band is where it really started to click, having performative rather than exhaustive exercise.

Years later I discovered Muay Thai and that was surprisingly very similar in terms of a focus on form rather than speed or power. Really helped me dial in my physical awareness to the next level.

The point of my story is that even if you feel like you’ll never be able to do or be a certain thing, you may find later on that it’s actually a great fit, even if it doesn’t make sense from the outside.

this might be the kick in the ass i need to repair my saxophone

I played clarinet in 5th grade and was last chair. I challenged the girl next to me a couple of times and won, but then she'd take it back the next week. In my case it was because I didn't practice and didn't want to play the clarinet, I wanted to play the sax, but we already had a clarinet, so that's what I got. I still have the clarinet, it's in my closet.

How do you get that far without knowing basic instrument maintenance?

Everyone in my class was required to learn an instrument too. Maintaining, cleaning and checking whether everything works was literally one of the first things we were taught dude. No way that kid never properly disassembled their clarinet.

"It's" = "it is"

"Its" = possessive form of "it"

When in doubt, remember that an apostrophe always takes the place of extra letters. For example, "who's" = "who is" and "whose" = the possessive form of "who".

Neville Longbottom has entered the chat.

Something something !adhdmemes@lemmy.world

I'm not sure if the right lessons are learned here.

Imagine that this person was handed a will maintained working instrument.

Then he would not have received all those specialized training and advanced techniques used to mask the clarinet's failing. Would be still have been as good years later?