It was totally ridiculous. There was no reason our high school band and orchestra needed it. It was band director one-up-manship, pure and simple. That stupid thing was bigger than I was, and the only reason that I was the one who played it, was that I was the only one who could sight read and transpose whatever piece of music they put in front of me. I loved the oboe, but the better I got at it, the worse my sinus headaches got. Later on, in college, I learned a bunch of other instruments, like all music majors do, but I played a dozen instruments by the time I graduated from high school. Unfortunate, really, because I was adequate on all of them, but never really terrific on any of them.