I recently posted about playing saxophone again with Middle School Jazz Band. At that time, I was playing alto sax with the band. I like playing alto just fine, but a few weeks into playing with the band, the teacher asked if I would show one of the clarinet player students how to play tenor sax. Yes. Of course, I said, and we got to work.
As I said, I like playing alto just fine, but I LOVE playing tenor. The lower register resonates more deeply with me — my body, my air, my self-expression. I PLAY alto, but I AM a tenor.
This identification with the tenor sax began when I was in high school. My private teacher at the time was a jazz musician, and he said one day, “I’m partial to tenor,” meaning he liked it more. I thought that sounded cool, the way he phrased it, and that he had an opinion on which sax he liked most. Over the years in high school, as the alto sax ranks became more competitive and high-stress, I switched over to tenor sax where I could chill out a bit. I was always first chair as a tenor, because the competition wasn’t stiff, and there were only three of us compared to six or seven altos.
In college at Michigan, I signed up to march in the marching band as a tenor. When I got to the first day of band practice, a horn-player friend of mine who was a few years older and in the band said, “Yay, you’re playing with the saxophones, they’re over there,” she said, pointing at the altos.
“Oh no, I play tenor,” I told her.
“Oh!” She said, sounding like she knew something I didn’t. “You’re playing tenor? Well, that’s a completely different thing. The tenors are over there. They’re crazy, good luck.”
I found the tenors, and was at once intimidated and deeply delighted by how boisterous, strange and wonderful they were. Our rank leaders that year were named Fred and Barney (her last name), so we had Flintstones-themed rank leaders. I felt really shy around these folks, but we slowly warmed up to each other over the first few weeks of school.
The number one currency in the tenor section, and the band as a whole, was comedy. Whoever could make the rest of us laugh was lauded and loved. And we all tried to make each other laugh ALL THE TIME. We had inside jokes, dirty jokes, jokes about how we were the best section, jokes about our names, jokes about how cocky the trumpets were.
We had jokes that were rules, like whenever the director told the band we had to go over a section of music and “break it down,” the tenor section would all repeat, “break it down!” and go into a ridiculous dance, pulsing our arms back and forth. If the weather was going to be iffy and the director told us to “dress appropriately” the next day, we would show up in neckties.
These threads of comedy bound our section together. Everyone in the section had their spot, and we all had each others’ backs. For hours each week in the fall, we’d play together, practice drill, march on the field, sit and play at football games, then do it all again the next week.
This fall I’m going back to march in the alumni band for Homecoming for the third year in a row. A good group of my tenors ought to be there, and I’m so looking forward to being with them again. At Homecoming last year and the year before that, I felt a deep sense of belonging that had been missing from my life. The band hall smelled the same, the pictures in the display cases were familiar, the faces of fellow bandmates were older, but the joy of playing together was the same.
Homecoming. A sense of belonging, of being home. I’m looking forward to going back.
Michelle Folk Johnson 