I have been asked why I started the ICoMusic Foundation? I will try to answer that question briefly.
I am not just a musical instrument maker that wants to help young people play an instrument. I’m a living example of how playing a musical instrument can change a young person’s life.
When I was young, I was told I was not smart and would not amount to much, they used the word retarded a lot. I believed this because it came from teachers and because of this I did not have a very good self-esteem. Most of my problems were because I had a bad traveling eye and could not read without getting a very bad headache and I was in the end of my Junior year in High school before a teacher recognized my problem.
I had started playing the clarinet and was pretty good at it, when I discovered I could play music on the clarinet that other kids couldn’t. I began to not think I was so stupid.
I became 1st chair in my Junior and High school bands, playing the clarinet changed my life.
Heck, I was 1st chair in the combined Army/Navy band at the Navy School of Music when I was 18 years old in1963 in DC.
Because of playing the clarinet and how it allowed me to think of myself I have patents on several woodwind products, have written many clarinet studies, have written along with my friend Dan Higgins a Hight Note book for saxophone with many original fingerings and concepts. I also invented the “Almost Keyless Saxophone”.
I truly believe in helping young people play a musical instrument and know how important it can be to their lives from my personal experience.
Rheuben