I started making music as a young child, took the obligatory clarinet lessons in grade school, and then started to LOVE it. Through high school, I played four instruments (clarinet, sax, trumpet, and handbells), sang in two choral groups, was a drum majorette, I directed a small handbell choir at my school, and I toured for two weeks each summer with my church handbell choir (we were, I will say as humbly as I can, Very Good). I did not go on to become a music major; in fact my playing dropped off sharply in my 20s. I never did get far on piano, guitar (not for lack of trying), drums, or anything else one could reasonably expect to play casually as an adult.

Many years later, when the kids were babies, I began singing and ringing again, and it lit me up inside. My kids started piano lessons just over a year ago and my husband has set up his recording gear again and we've been slowly accumulating instruments in the living room which the kids can pick up and play with any time, and there is music everywhere and I am in heaven. Wednesday and Sunday evenings (choir and handbell rehearsal at church) are my weekly therapy.

When tendinitis in my wrists cut short my goal of becoming a halfway proficiant pianist, I had my clarinet refurbished, and started playing that again. Tried guitar lessons again too. Stupid RA had made my fingers stiff and sore, so those have been sidelined for a while as well.

Can't stop me from music now, though. Today I bought a (cheap, student) trumpet. Hey, if the kids are going to be well-rounded musicians they'll need a little bit of everythng, right? So I picked it up, 30 years since I've last played brass, and I did this:

http://soundcloud.com/tabinfl/angels-we-have-heard-on-high/s-N58fJ

It's still in there, somewhere! I can still music!