I’ve played through the Weber Clarinet Concerto several times in the past, but the most frustrating play-through must have happened today. The reed was pretty bad, but I decided to use it nevertheless, hoping it’ll get magically better as the practice session wore on. It never did.
It’s incredibly frustrating as I grow up to not be classified as “great” in things that I used to be great at years ago. All-state, Festival of Winds, FSU band camps, All-districts; I dominated most of these competitions. I was pretty damn good as a clarinet player for my age. The key phrase of the previous egotistical sentence was “for my age.”
Now, I’m decent in Cornell. In math, I also see myself struggling to see solutions in hard problems that I would’ve blown past in high school. This is good though. I’ve learned more about myself than before, and egos needed to be bursted from time to time.