After going through several rooms filled with musical instruments, we have discovered a wide variety of instruments in various conditions and of widely varying value. I was deighted that several instruments previously thought to have been missing were found.

This week we found a blue baritone saxophone. It will go with the milk green UCLA Les Paul guitar that we found this summer. We found a Wagner tuba in fairly good shape and two more that had been poorly repaired decades ago; a rediscovered a set of instruments given to us by the late Jack Lord (Hawaii Five-0), including 3 old Martin guitars, 3 old 4-string banjos, and 2 wonderful old mandolins–a “The Martin” and a Washburn; a treasure trove of historic autoharps; and a number of clarinets that even our clarinet teacher didn’t know about. As I reported a few weeks ago, going through all these instruments with the faculty has been like going through your grandparents’ attic. Everyone loved it.

As I reported these wonderful finds to the faculty in our meeting yesterday, I saw the voice faculty looking glum. Michael Dean spoke up: “Did you find any tenors?” The faculty roared with laughter.