Brassy & Hardly Classy

French Horn // Esther

Hello, my name is Esther Bailey and I am an absolute fucking idiot. 

In this one moment, I can wholeheartedly agree with my inner monologue. Actually, that's a little untrue, I agree with my inner monologue more often than not. 

My eyes are glued to the pencil that is currently buried a centimeter deep in my lead pipe—for absolute no good reason I might add. My good old horn buddy is laughing his ass off as if this whole scene had nothing to do with him. 

If this were a story, and I was the reader as some unlucky sap was my character, this whole scene would have been quite comical. 

I had gotten my braces yesterday, and any brass player with half a mind would know that braces and brass equated to an absolute nightmare. Today was my first day actually playing with these metal shackles, and I cried from my lips making contact with my mouthpiece—I'm not joking, it was pathetic. 

Anyways, today in concert band was the day we were deciding chair placements for Charles Tuscan High School to date. Let's rewind to before I got myself into this mess. 

I was actually quite excited to show off my braces, everyone in band had yet to see them, and I wanted Elias to be the first one to see.

Elias Moore is the other french horn in concert band, along with myself. I love him like a brother and our time together is usually occupied with inappropriate jokes and snickers. He's a blast and a half in the best way possible. 

As I sat myself in my seat, with my horn in clutch, Elias turned his attention away from his phone, "Are you ready for chair placements today? Waiting for the results is gonna be a pain in the ass."

I flashed him a toothy smile, "Yeah, I'm really nervous and excited." 

His eyes grew wide as he stared at my braces adorned with purple bands, "When did you get braces?!" he exclaimed with a small squeak 

"Yesterday," I added with a flip of my hair. It's all about the drama baby. 

I glanced down at the horn between my hands, "My playing is gonna suck though."

Elias gave me a slight nod as his eyes bore holes into the brassy tubes, I could practically smell his anticipation for me to play.

Here's the thing about horn players—scratch that, brass players—no, scratch that, musicians: we are egotistical shitheads. Some musical egos are bigger than others, but we all got em. Elias was gonna sit there with his judgey horn eyes and size up my playing abilities. Well he can revel in my absolute fucking glorious sound.

As the cold metal of the mouthpiece touched my lips, I nearly wince at the unfamiliar push of metal against the inside of my mouth. My embouchure sets, and I take a deep inhale. 

The noise equivalent to an elephant fart gurgled out of my bell. I repulsively held my instrument in front of me, as if it were the problem. 

With a huff and a sigh, I tried again, still no dice. I'm officially a disgrace to all horn players on the planet. I'm a failure. A fraud. A silly sophomore girl stuck with metal cages on her teeth. 

After attempting to keep a straight face, Elias belted out in laughter. 

Unrelated to that asshole's humor in this, tears began to well up in my eyes as I stared down in defeat. Maybe it was my self-dramatized humiliation, or the fact that my mouth ached from two attempts at a concert B flat, if you even consider those gargles notes. It was an emotional moment alright? I was traumatized.

As soon as Elias spotted my tears he stopped laughing, "Woah, woah, woah, I didn't mean to make you cry, why are you crying?" He let out with a chuckle.

"Back off you ass!" I playfully pushed him away as I wiped my face. I removed my mouthpiece and set it on my stand with a metal clack. 

"I don't even want to look at that damn thing." I crossed my arms and sunk into my seat. The people around me continued to practice and chatter over their chair placement music, unaware of my mid-teenage crisis. 

"Listen, you didn't sound that bad." Elias attempted to consol my pathetic state.

I picked up my pencil and twirled it around my finger, "As if," I tapped the pencil onto the empty hole from which I removed my mouthpiece from, "I sound like a fifth grader."

Elias picked his horn up off of the ground and leaned back into his chair, getting ready to play, "Well, you're not wrong there."

"Hey, watch it there pal", as I sat up to defend myself, my pencil holding hand slipped upward and the angle of the pencil dived lead first in my lead pipe. To say the least, I was a bit shocked. 

Elias' head snapped back, once again, in a a fit of laughter.

Here come the waterworks.

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Hello! I'm Kayak and this is my first ascutal short story series like, ever. I'm currently a senior in high school, and I plan to study music education in college. My writing is a little rough, so please bear with me! ;) This little part about Esther is based off of an event that actually happened to me a few years back. It's  really funny to look back on now, but at the moment it totally sucked ass! Anyways, for you non-instrumental folks, lemme give you the anatomy of the horn! 

This is also known as the best instrument in the universe. 

Also, my devices won't let me download a collage maker thingy, so i'm putting down some images that sum up a horn player.