Venting moment

I left orchestra tonight at the break. You see, I've been playing French horn since I moved to St. George. It's been a challenging instrument to learn and I have liked having another instrument on my list, but I'm also very frustrated. I agreed to play horn because there were no trumpet openings in town when we moved here. Little did I know that that decision would keep me from playing trumpet at all. I am not as good at horn. I worked for 18 years at developing my trumpet skills. 18 years for heavens sake! Nearly $20,000 were put into developing my talents. Now, because I have played horn, no one believes I can play trumpet, but the truth is that I play trumpet better than I play horn and if I just had a chance I could prove it. Tonight I sat listening to the trumpets really struggling through the parts. At the same time, I have a guy come sit next to me saying he was asked to double my part. Since when did Beethoven call for 2 second horns in his fifth symphony? So, I am playing well enough, while the other guy isn't and I'm listening to trumpet parts that I could add assistance to and I just became so frustrated. I handed over my part to the "double" and left. The crappy part is that musicians play politics. It's the "if you help me I'll help you, but if you don't help me, well you better watch out" attitude. So, if I don't play in the orchestra, there's no guarantee that I will have a job at Tuacahn (it's because the Symphony director conducts both). Grrrrr. Right now I wish the blasted music "gods" in this city would hold auditions like the rest of the musical world. Anyway, I'm sure most of you don't understand my frustration and that's o.k. It's that same as working really hard a job you love, have a promotion, and then get kicked down to something you can't do as well and don't like as much, but you can't do a darn thing about it. Frustrating!