European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - December 31, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse The stars and stripes thursday december 31,1987 columns today s crossword the musings of a failed musician by Andy Rooney Al some Point in life everyone wants to team How to play a musical instrument. My Mother Bough me a brass. Bugle Tor 15 when i was 9. I treasured it polished it and tried to icam to play it. I Learned How to gel sonic in i a out of the Bugle but never what you d Calm Muir the world must be filled with unsuccessful musical careers like mine and in s probably a Good thing. We Don l need a lol of bad musicians filling he air with unnecessary1 sounds. Some of the professionals Are bad enough. Instruments come and go in popularity and some go and never come Back. I hardly Ever hear an accordion anymore. The Lute the mandolin the ukulele and even the Harp scum 10 be instruments of the Pasi. The Saxo phone is still popular but the trombone seems to be . 11\ too hard to hold up probably. The most enduring musical instruments Are the violin and the piano although people Don t have pianos in their Homes the Way they once did. Most pop music groups Don t use either pianos or violins but the instruments will outlive the kind of music that s popular with Youn people now. The violin and piano take More work and ability than Many modern musicians have the Lime or patience to master. They want something they can bang on. Their idea of music is a noise so loud that nuances or sound Are lost in the cacophony of reverberations produced on the eardrum. The favorite instruments of he Rock musicians Aren t made in be played so much As beaten. Drums arc favourites and while jazz drummers like Gene Krupa and Luddy Rich were Artisti. Most Modem music drummers might Aswell be swinging a baseball Bat. The change of the guitar s standing among Musial instruments is one of the most interesting recent developments from the Choice of the romantic Blan Ket Robed Gay Caballero on horseback the guitar has gone in i opposite directions. It has became a a Voricl of a group of serious musicians who hear in it sounds its Spanish inventors never dreamed of. And then of course electrified and plugged in. It s inc weapon of Choice for the modern Rock Singer who needs som Ching to hold onto. Fall of read about music were the billboards on the concert Halls you d think every Good musician was Well known and making big Money. Our neigh bored Wright is a Superb guitarist who plays in what i think of As inc Andres Segovia style. If cd Ever makes it big hell have Good stories to Tell about How hard it was getting started. Four cars ago de gave us a cassette of music he d recorded on his own equipment and it s a Gem. I Don l get tired of his giving cassettes to his friends and no business is tougher to break into than the recorded music business. I have the feeling you could be Arthu Rubinstein your whole life and not be discovered if you did t gel some kind of Lucky break. If i d stuck with the Bugle or the Harmonica do you think i d be playing in the new York philharmonic today we All have our Best suit and our Best shoes that we save for special occasions. If we re going someplace where Well be seen by a lol of people we d like to impress favourably that s when we Wear our Good clothes. It s a habit we re encouraged to form from the time we re Small children. Closets across inc country arc filled with the dress up clothes kids hardly Ever Wear. You want a Little inside information on the column writing business columnists sometimes save their Best Loo. Don t look for their Best stuff Over the holidays. They have 1o write columns but they know a Tot of papers Aren t going to Prim them and if they do t a lot of people Aren t going to read them because of celebrating. There in t usually much news Over the holidays. Some papers Don t even put out editions. When Abc broadcasts the super bowl game it s opposite inc Lime period occupied on lbs by "60 you can fact the producer of "60 minutes does t waste a lot of his Best stories that night. The correspondents and the segment producers have a Little game. The losers Are the one whose pieces arc broadcast opposite inc super bowl. It s usually a mistake to try to guess when you should go with your Best. The football players who play hardest in practice when it does t count usually do Busl when they play the game Loo. The people who seem to be most successful go with their Best no matter what the occasion is. 1 Admire them even though 1 Don t always do it myself. The trouble with trying to save your Ben is you often end up saving it for a time that never comes or does t come often enough. I have an overcoat i paid so much for that i hate to Wear it because i Don l want to see the cuffs of the sleeves and the elbows Start to get ragged and worn looking Lite my old coat. Last saturday night it was bitter cold and we were going out to dinner so i got out my Good coat i be saved for occasions like that. When i put in on for the first time this year i realized it did t fit me very Well anymore and it had a slightly old fashioned look about it. Obviously i should have been wearing the coat More since i Bough in seven years ago. Now it s unused but old. It might As Well be old and worn out. The shelves in our Kitchen and the freezing compartment in our refrigerator Are testaments 10 this strange compulsion i share with a Tot of people to save the Best until it s no longer any Good. Several Yean ago we were in Switzerland. The Swiss have a Knack we Don t have for making great chocolate and 1 bought several pounds of it with the intention of making a special chocolate cake with a lot of chocolate and very Little flour in it. I saved thatch col be for exactly the right occasion for so Long thai when 1 finally decided to use it it had turned Chalky White and funny looking and i threw in out. It s obviously a mistake for people to do less than their Best use less than he Best or write Esi than the Cal whether it s going to be seen or read by Many or not. It s a lesson i Haven t teamed that s All. Id Tiff us Moduli service i this Snow port Finks Elany Atoka -3-j i ukr w\5 across1 Young. 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