After reading The Show Must Go On...

When I was a high school student, I belonged to a brass band club of my school. I played Bassoon. This instrument is not famous. But I liked to play it. Our coach, Mr. Matsui was very good conductor. And he coached us very harshly.

We wanted to make our debut at a national convention. Therefore we had to get a gold medal at each three conventions. To rehearse, we always went to school by first train, and we went home by last train. And not only that, we rehearsed every weekend. Mr. Matsui always said “ If you don’t practice for a day, your skill will return back to three days ago!”

We could get a gold medal at two times every three years. But it was hard for us to get it at the third convention. My last year, we got very nervous by the side of the stage at the third convention. We cheered up each other. And we enjoyed to play there. At last we could get a third gold medal! But we could not go to the national convention. Gold medal was given seven teams, and four upper teams of them could go to the next convention. Our team’s rank was seventh. We were unhappy then, but it is my good memory!