A Clarinet: A Short Story

Your heartbeat can change and mimic the beat of a song. So instead trying to put your heart in music like I did, try getting the beat in your heart. The clarinet is not necessarily the best beat maker, but it does have a nice range. Despite its cold, hard, raven-black wood and shiny, icy, silver keys that clink and clank as you warm everything up, it can turn into liquid gold in your hands. Once more fluid, the sound can be molded into whatever deep and rich or light and high hum you desire. That is why I adore it so much. It is long and rod-shaped and sprinkled with keys throughout; the silver bands of the ligature hold in place the yellow, wooden, saliva-soiled reed. The reed tasted bad, is smelly, and can easily mold, but it gives my

Looking back, it was one of the few things I put all of my effort into. I was just in sixth grade, and had just started my musical career with not so great of a clarinet. However, I was enlightened by my peers and teachers that I was talented. I had not been in many competitive activities, but in what I had attended I had always performed well. Was it so odd of me to expect, again, exceptional results? During the frosty November morning I played my audition music for the judge as best I could. The last note was an artless G; I only pressed my last three fingers down. I held it out a couple counts longer trying to improve my tone to end on a good note. I ended with a pseudo smile, even though he could not see me. I was trying to mask the anxiety I felt. The school held an acrid, acidic smell of cleaning chemicals. There was an atramentous sheet covering my judge's face. I saw his foot tap a couple times, but I could not read his face. It was frigid in the school, and the tiles were blindingly white and pristine. I felt extremely ambivalent. I had not been unsuccessful in anything before, and everyone had told me I played well and had a chance of getting in. Yet I felt that I maybe did not do well enough; at that point very few had triumphed. As these qualms whizzed in my head, I scooted my chair back, stood up a little bit dizzy with nerves, and adjusted my skirt as I noiselessly exited

It severely marred me, but I know in my heart there was nothing else I could have done. It left a hole in my heart but put a few crevices in my brain. I realized that fate is not only the pleasant, attractive, "happily ever after" in fairy tales but also a bitter, unfair, and realistic hurdle in life. The incident took away my innocence and naivety and brought out a more mature, practical side, but I am also more optimistic and emotionally stable. Now that I acknowledge that failure is a natural part of life, I can better respond to it and be more prepared and less hysteric when it hits. When I first got my clarinet I immediately noticed the delightfully dazzling keys. I wondered how many there were, what they each did, and so on. But the black stage for the keys never really caught my attention. The black represents the serious and more undesirable things in life like dedication and disappointment, and the silver keys represent the more pleasant and pleasurable things like entertainment and victory. But both the wood and the keys have to be present to give the clarinet it timbre, and both adverse and enjoyable times have to be present to develop and relish in this lifetime. After you have accepted and experienced the duller darker things you can begin to shine and feel content. Maybe that is what it feels like to have your heart and a good beat perfectly in