The French Horn ( edited repost)

I think I know why I deliberately made myself forget about playing French horn. To admit to playing it is to tell how I stopped playing it.Why.I remember auditioning for the advancedband, the teacher came all the way from the other school.
I got in, no problem. I "won". At that time it was probably the best thing that ever happened for me, the most personally thrilling. I was ecstatic. Felt like winning.
So I played. I kicked ass, I was 1st chair. There was a real competition thing going there. I think there were 4 of us. The girl that was second chair made me feel like I had to stay on my toes. There were 2 guys, also.I was proud of myself, but I had a secret. The longer it went on, the more my insecurity and fear grew. Let's call it paranoia.
I didn't know how to read music. Never did learn. I mean, I got the idea, I get it, kind of.It's just that my mind/body doesn't see music that way. Not when it comes to playing it, hearing it. The way my ears transmit sound to my brain.Basically, I got to stay first chair with people wanting my spot, all that time, playing
by ear. And after a while, it ate at me. For some reason, I thought it was really bad, that I was a fraud. Mr. Sonstegaard would say "Ok everyone, turn to page 21" , and everyone would do it, including myself, but those might as well been sheets of kleenex. They were, in fact, less useful to me then kleenex .
So I kept up my fraud, learned songs, until one day I couldn't stand it anymore. I was feeling like I was retarded. Literally, retarded from being as good as everyone else, because the black dots were just black dots and squiggles. Even though I was still first chair.
In fact, Purple and fucshia, lavender are sounds of minor chords to me, and blues chords really sound brown sometimes. Or red..Or orangey.Or even black.
I see music in color, and shapes in my mind. I even see/hear it in textures. My friend Al had an old Gretch guitar, really nice. I called it the crunchy Gretch. Sounded crunchy a lot. But good.
This isn't some acid-related thing, I was a young kid seeing it like this.
I can see music in color, shapes ( such as when Santana does this one solo that I like, it sounds like a sunburst, or like an exploding star. My mind sees it as a burst of light behind my eyes.). I can see music in texture. I can even see music
in numbers.
But I cannot see music in little black dots.
I can read music these days -sort of.This was how I felt at that age.I felt like I wasn't good enough for band because I couldn't read music.So I went to Mr. Sonstegaard, and I spoke to him after class one day. Told him " I'm going to have to drop out of band."
He asked why, and I told him. His face changed, but not in the way that I expected.
He said " You don't know how to read music? And you've been playing by ear, all this time?"
I said yes.
" Well then you CAN'T quit band, don't you see how good that is?" But I didn't see it.I felt like an idiot.He was genuinely upset, and he really did put on a hard sell, as far as trying to get me to stay in band. Normally he was a laid back, cheerful guy. This was a very different demeanor, he was geuinely unhapy!

Makes me sad thikning of it now, because I stood my ground and quit band. :( What a mistake.I regret it, and I have regretted it always. It wasn't really about the money, and the cost of renting the French horn, like I'd originally hinted. My parents never complained about the rental.Those even then were very expensive to own, though.That's why we rented it.
So I guess I know now why I never wanted to remember thatI played French horn.
And recently you-know-who reminded me. That's surely why I remembered it.

Songs are like puzzles, brightly colored ones. Drums, bass, guitar, all puzzle pieces that fit together to from a picture, a song.