Clarinet

The other day I was watching some videos on YouTube of the clarinet being played. There were some AWESOME clarinetists that I found. There was one in particular, Jorg Widmann, who played a song called "Fantasie" . . . it was amazing! The guy had great control over his clarinet, which left me in awe. Hearing all those clarinetists playing made me miss playing MY clarinet. I started playing the clarinet around the age of thirteen or fourteen. I taught myself for the most part, but began taking lessons a couple years later when I joined the Jr. Philharmonic. I only had lessons for a couple years off and on. I used to LOVE playing my clarinet . . . I would practice my clarinet for up to four or five hours every day! It was rare only to play an hour . . . that was only when I was just too busy. But I never played less than an hour a day. I was first clarinetist in the local Jr. Philharmonic . . . first out of two or three clarinetists. I was involved in several music competitions . . . never really placed . . . except for one time that there were only two contestant, that time I won second and third place for singing and clarinet. When I was eighteen I began having a lot of problems with my jaw and had to start wearing a splint on my lower jaw, which caused a lot of pain because it was forcing my jaw into the right position. So . . . sadly, I had to quit the orchestra and couldn't hardly play for several months because the pain was too great. After being out of playing for so long I had a hard time getting back into it, so I didn't even pick my clarinet back up for almost a year. I have tried getting back into it several times, but have failed every time. I play for church every Sunday, but that's it. I rarely pick it up otherwise. Right now I am having a hard time focusing on everything I love to do (playing the clarinet, singing, photography, and writing). It just seems like too many things to be able to do them all. I need to figure out a way to keep all these things in my life because they all mean so much to me. Today I played my clarinet for a little while . . . it was like I had never stopped. Music soothes me . . . I couldn't survive without it. I have uploaded a slide of pictures I have taken accompanied by a track of a song I played. There are a few mistakes, but it's decent.