Tenor Sax is Part of His Daily Life

Redmond David picked up the sax for the first time at 45, knowing nothing about the instrument; he's been playing for more than 15 years. "Bright Blue" painting by Todd Horne.

I migrated from India to the United States 30  years ago. While growing up in India, I attended Anglican Church and sang  hymns and heard the piano being played. In my teen years and through college, I enjoyed listening to Indian film music and western music of the 1960s: Jim Reeves, Elvis Presley, Connie Francis…I did not have the opportunity to learn  music. I somehow loved Indian percussion.

After a couple of years in California, I was able to begin my musical journey by taking piano lessons at a  local community college. This helped me learn to read music. I realized if I could do this I could slowly begin playing other instruments using the piano as the basis.

As my daughter  progressed through school and moved from piano to percussion to clarinet and trumpet and finally gave up band, I was determined to continue to learn music. I chose the alto saxophone as my instrument not knowing much of it other than it was on the list of instruments on my daughter’s band list. I rented one and took lessons at the music store.

I moved to Texas 15 years ago with my job. I continued to take sax lessons. After two years, I joined the Denton Community Band. This was the most traumatic weekly experience of my life. As an adult beginner, it was a couple of notes, a couple of bars learned at each rehearsal. It’s been over 13 years and I now play the tenor saxophone. I also play in the big band at church. And over the years I  have attended two Jamey Aebersold jazz camps and one UNT Jazz camp. I taught myself clarinet and played it for two semesters.

I take tenor sax lessons every Saturday morning and  have rehearsals Tuesday and Thursday nights. I  make music a part of my daily life. I am not a gifted musician but get great satisfaction in learning as much as I can late in life and am enjoying the company of folks from all walks of life coming together to make music.

I encourage young and old alike to take up an instrument and study music. I stumbled upon this site when I read about it in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal.

I am so excited to read the stories of other musicians. Most of them are very talented and dedicated to music. I am glad I found the Music After 50 website. I am well over this threshold and I plan to enjoy it.

Redmond M. David, BE (Mech), MBA
Denton, Texas