Dick Hyman discusses which instruments he began playing on

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Dick Hyman discusses his early training

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Dick Hyman discusses the many different types of keyboards he has played on

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Q: “For all the piano playing you do, Piano is actually your second instrument, wasn’t it? You started playing a horn?”

A: Dick Hyman: “Well, no. That's not quite true, although I have to compliment you for knowing that I played clarinet at all. It's one of my minors. I did, as a kid, play clarinet and I played it well enough to play it while I was in the navy.”

Interviewer: “Yeah, there were no marching pianos, aren't there?”

Dick Hyman: “Yeah, that's right. But I really haven't played clarinet in a very long time and I never was a very proficient one.”

Interviewer: “But it got you out of KP duty, I guess.”

Dick Hyman: “Yeah, it helped. It helped ease the way in the navy a little bit. I like the idea of playing clarinet, though, because I think that may have showed me the melodic approach to keyboard playing, the one note at a time approach, so as I said before, everything kind of feeds into the other things. “