The first instrument I learned to play was the recorder, which I started in the 4^th year of primary school in 1962.  We lived in small country town in Victoria, Australia.  Those were the days before you could five buy plastic recorders on Ebay for $2, so my teacher, Mr. James, whom I  adored, had to order a wooden recorder from a shop in Melbourne.  It cost my parents the equivalent of $80 in 2009 money.  The recorder was hand-made fro m pear wood and had a strong aroma.  My greatest achievement for that year was joining the school recorder ensemble, then graduating to a treble recorder that my teacher lent me.  I was able to eke out a harmony line to God Save the Queen at our school assemblies every Monday morning.

After Mr. James left the school the following year I fooled around with the recorder for about a year until I became too frustrated with its limitations and forgot that I even owned one.

I didn’t play an instrument again until I turned 21 in 1974   I begged my parents for a flute as a birthday present and they obliged.  Not knowing anything about flutes they were swindled into buying me a second hand Couesnon, a brand best forgotten although to be fair, I may have just got a dud. I can’t blame that flute for the fact that it took me three days to get a sound out of it, and even then it wasn’t much of a sound.  Co-incidentally, I had spent four miserable years searching in vain for an interesting career.  Within a few weeks of owning my first flute I knew that I wanted to be a professional musician.  No matter that I couldn’t play much, at least I had a direction.

A professional piano player I met told me that I would be able to learn to play well enough to go professional in nine months, a statement I believed wholeheartedly despite the fact that the guy was a bit drunk Nine months came and went. With no money in my pocket and not much ability at flute playing either I turned to driving a taxi in order to support my flute practising habit.

To be continued...........

Meanwhile, you may be interested to hear how I've progressed from those first breathy notes.

Here's a tune I composed in 1990 and recorded in 2002.

Cool Ron's Blues

It's called Cool Ron's Blues. I'm playing the flute.

On the saxophone, I'm playing a Yamaha tenor with Garry Stocks on guitar, accompanied by a virtual band.

All of Me