Playing Clarinet with My 11-Year-Old Self: A Story About Music, Memory, and Loss

December 22, 2025

This is my first holiday season without my mom.

While going through old recordings after her passing, I found something that stopped me in my tracks: a recording of me at 11 years old playing "The Christmas Song" on clarinet, with my mom accompanying on piano.

It was a fifth grade band holiday concert. Fifth-grade me squeaking through phrases, my mom patiently at the piano, both of us creating something we didn't know would matter like this decades later.

So I decided to do something: I played a duet with my younger self. Current me, meeting fifth-grade me, both of us held together by my mom's piano.

This episode is different from my usual format. It's personal. It's emotional. But I think it might be exactly what some of you need to hear right now.

WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER IN THIS EPISODE:

The story behind the recording and why my mom captured that moment

What grandparents (and parents and teachers) are really doing when they show up

The "long game" of creating meaning that compounds across decades

Why you should record yourself NOW, even if you're not ready

What you're actually building when you practice your instrument

The full duet performance: three generations in one musical moment

How music collapses time and creates conversations across decades

What it means to become "someone's archive"

THIS EPISODE EXPLORES:

Finding meaning during difficult seasons

The role of music in processing grief and loss

Legacy and what we pass down to future generations

Why your practice matters more than you realize

Creating archives that reveal their meaning later

The compounding effect of showing up consistently

How adult learners demonstrate possibility to those watching them

Whether you've lost someone recently, you're thinking about legacy, or you're wondering if your practice time really matters, this episode is for you.

ABOUT THE CLARINET NINJA PODCAST:

The Clarinet Ninja Podcast helps adult clarinet players reclaim their musical dreams through evidence-based practice methods, systematic skill development, and the mindset of lifelong learning.

Whether you're returning after decades away or just getting started later in life, this show proves it's never too late to become the musician you've always wanted to be.

Hosted by Jay Hassler, who combines performance experience from Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera, and Broadway with adult learning science to create methods that actually work for real people with real lives.

LEAVE A REVIEW:

If this episode resonated with you, the best way to support this work is to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

It helps other adult learners find the show and join this community of people who believe music is a lifelong conversation with yourself.

Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. Sometimes the people who need these messages most don't even know they're looking for them.

Keep practicing. Keep showing up. Keep building something that compounds.

EPISODE CREDITS:

Host: Jay Hassler

Production: Clarinet Ninja

Original Recording (1985): Jay Hassler (clarinet), Betty Hassler (piano)

Music: "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)"

Episode Transcript

I'm taking a walk in Central Park, uh, during the holiday season, uh, doing some thinking. This is the first holiday season since my mom passed away. She passed away a couple months ago, and I don't talk about it a lot, but my mom was a huge part of me learning how to play the clarinet and the support and, uh, care that she gave to that, uh, impacted just about everything about why it is that I play the clarinet, and how I got the opportunities I did. Uh, and going through, uh, the emotional parts of, uh, uh, a parent passing away, and the logistical part of finding a lot of your life in their stuff, uh, I found something that I wanna share, and I've done something that I, I, I wanna share with you, and it goes directly to finding meaning in the clarinet. We talk a lot about mouthpieces, reeds, how to practice, all sorts of things, but let's talk a little bit about why we do those things. Let's head back to the studio, and I'll show you what I got. I want you to hear something. This is a recording of me when I was 11 years old, playing the Christmas song, Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, with my mom on the piano. Now, this recording was at a big moment in my life. I was playing at the holiday concert. It was a big deal, and it was the product of a lot of work that I had done and ma- my mom had helped me with. And I wanna share it because it's something that, after she passed away, uh, sort of turned up in the things that I found, and it was a wonderful, wonderful memory of all of the things that my mom did to help me learn how to play the clarinet, and at this performance. And it definitely serves as a reminder of the roles that everybody plays, parents, grandparents, kiddos, and, uh, and I It's, it's a wonderful tribute to a very, very special night, and a very big moment for me early on in my clarinet career. I don't think that when my mom sat down and played the piano with me, she was trying to intentionally create, uh, a long-lasting memory of anything. I think she was trying to support her child. And that's actually one of the things that's beautiful about performance, playing music, and playing music with those that you love. And as I look around here, and I see all the people creating memories, whether that's young people in love, or grandparents, parents with kids, uh, I think about how important and resonant the idea of playing music together actually is. One of the things that makes music even more resonant than some of the more standard things that we do to create memories, and we can create these memories at the holidays, we can create these memories any day. And that can be cooking dinner with your family, going to a particular county fair with your family. It can be a lot of different things. The thing that makes music and the performance of music with people you care about, and people that you love particularly meaningful is that it is a moment in time, and that moment in time is unlike any other moment in time. And it transcends how good is the performance. That's almost irrelevant, although, of course, we all wanna play our best performance. That's just why we get the best mouthpiece, we get the best reed, we practice efficiently as we can to get that particular moment in time to be what we want it to be. So, what I'm inviting you to do is keep a frame of reference about why we do the things that we do on the clarinet 'cause it's a very, very powerful thing, and it's something that I hope you see in my project today, uh, can be resonant for years to come, far beyond any of our lifespans. I've always felt that live performance, in very specific situations, is incredibly important. Some of those situations include weddings, and the polar opposite of that, funerals. But these opportunities to make music with people we love, for people we love, is something that is treasured. And, uh, and that's one of the things that is really important to me about the teaching that I do, is that there's a lot of people who are starting the clarinet late who wanna play it quite well, and they wanna play it to create lasting memories for them, but also lasting memories for generations to come. So now I decided to do something that the 5thgrade version of me could have never thought of. What grade are you in? third. Uh, yeah, could have never thought of, and that is I'm gonna play a duet with the 5thgrade version of myself, the current version of myself, and my mom. What do you think of that, kiddo? Yeah. And I think it's, uh- Why can't I be doing the piano little hard for you right now. I know. I'll try later. Okay. Making music is important, and making music with people that you care about is important. And making music is also a way that you, people can become people you care about. It all works together. So let's listen to me and me and my mom play some Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire. generations, all in one. But looking forward in time, the music you make and the music that you make with the people that you love, or the people that become important people in your life because you made music with them, it builds a bridge from now into the future. It builds a bridge from the past. And these are all really, really wonderful things that music can do. And this season, finding this recording, having this first holiday season without my mom, I just felt like I had to share these ideas with you. When I think about it, and I think about it deeply, is that of all the performances I've given, I wouldn't trade any of them for that performance in 5th grade with my mom. Those memories that we can create with music and the people we love can really extend for generations to come. And I want to impart upon you the gift that we have as clarinetists, as musicians, to share our love, our passion, and really have that be something that goes on and on and on. And I want to say thank you to my mom for giving me that when I was in 5th grade, and even more than that. My mom was a huge supporter of me and my music. And, uh, without her, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now.