I wanted to respond here to Flutefish’s response to the post about choosing an instrument, because I know a lot of people don’t read the comments in the discussion area.

(And my apologies, Flutefish, to misnaming you at first; I had just read my Yo-Yo Ma post and had misidentified you because my brain was still on that blog entry. Sorry!)

I was hoping for a response like hers. When my husband came home, prior to seeing that Flutefish had already written, I asked him if he’d read the blog and he said he had, and that he wanted to post something but refrained. I said, “But what I wanted was for people to respond and say this attitude was nuts!” Well, I probably didn’t say those exact words, so excuse the quotation marks … but that’s what I do believe.

So anyway, I’ll now post my opinion; I think it’s ridiculous and unfair to suggest that someone can’t play an instrument because of certain physical traits. (Okay, some physical problems me exclude a person; you have to have five fingers on each hand to play the oboe, for one thing. But those requirements are few.) I say give ’em a chance; you never know what they will do until you let them try. And even if you are absolutely certain someone hasn’t the possibility of becoming very accomplished on a particular instrument, there is still no harm in letting a person try. Even should a person not excel, you might be developing a fellow supporter of the arts. Turning someone away may very well do just the opposite.
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