I started playing trombone when I was 9 years old. I suppose when I started that I saw it as just another school activity, and I probably would have been just another school musician if it hadn’t been for the jazz band at my high school. The music was challenging and freeing.

In the summers after high school, I played in a band with a great vocalist. I still remember playing Sing, Sing, Sing as a set closer late at night. Jazz gave me another language, another way to express myself.

When I went to university, I played in marching band and in jazz for a couple of years as well. After I realised that I wasn’t going to be an engineer at university, there was a time when I thought of studying music, but I decided that making music my livelihood would ruin it.

I also played in marching band at university. It was amazing playing in front of tens of thousands of American football fans, and the trombone section was a lot of fun.

Music also first took me overseas. I first came to England to play jazz as part of a exchange. An English jazz band came over my last year of high school, and we went over to England after my first year of university. The next year, the marching band traveled to Ireland to play in the St Patrick’s Day parade.

As my journalism career took off, I found less time to play, and I hadn’t really played much in the past ten years until two years ago. Then I decided I wanted to get back into playing so I bought a new horn, and I started playing with a band again.

For Christmas, Suw bought me a stand for my new horn, and I’m looking forward to playing even more. Merry Christmas!