This is not a pit orchestra although I have played in more than a few of those and they are FUN! But this is The Interlochen All State band in concert. I am actually in FIRST SEAT, which a lot of people didn’t expect a yooperlander to ever achieve.

And it was tricky to get to that seat as a yooperlander because usually I did NOT have any kind of a decent teacher. It wasn’t like I could take lessons from Detroit Symphony Orchestra flutists. They were five hours away. In the beginning, I had the band director and a senior in high school. Um, not. But. In 8th grade I hit gold. A professionally trained flutist moved across the schoolyard from me while her husband was at the Kincheloe Air Force Base and she was a WONDERFUL teacher and remembering how sweet she was to me after all these years, I think she realized how much I would be on my own when she moved on. Knowing she wouldn’t be there to mentor me for long, she loaded me up with standard flute repertoire pieces including a lot of virtuoso works. Knowing The Commander, she probably paid more for my lessons than the asking price plus she was more than willing to buy music. (We were not rich…) I am actually tearing up remembering and writing about this little period of my life, and I don’t tear up often.

What brought this on though was that yesterday on facebook, somebody posted a YouTube of a high school friend singing. How to make this short? Because it isn’t really. Mark was a good friend of mine in high school when a bunch of us were auditioning to attend the Interlochen All State program. I got in. I can’t remember if he did or not. I know he did not get into the college I started at (long story). He auditioned on piano, which he was good at. But. He auditioned with a splashy piece that is not part of the standard classical piano repertoire so he was rejected and kind of laughed at.

My assigned piano teacher actually TOLD ME why he wasn’t accepted. That was not the only reason I didn’t give in to my piano teacher’s “advances”. Can you say “old and ugly”? I learned pretty early how to deflect that kind of shitola. Beginning with him.

The thing is, I remembered my friend as a good pianist but I didn’t remember him acting/singing in Hello Dolly, the musical my school produced when I was a senior. Until I was almost finished with a long boring comment and then a LIGHT BULB lit up. He was a wonderful actor and singer.

He died last year after a long musical career out in the LA area, sounds like mostly teaching/coaching but with some performance. He was very clearly a talented musician. Godspeed Butch.

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