Last week, we went to a Terrible Orchestra concert.

That’s their name. The Fort Wayne Terrible Orchestra.

In Fort Wayne, there is a Philharmonic Orchestra, there is a community band and a community orchestra and an American Legion band and a couple other groups. And then there is the terrible orchestra. The conductor is a member of the Phil. Other people play with other groups. Others play at church.

But this one, meeting in a church gym, playing a couple concerts a year for family and friends, is for fun. The delight in instrumental music, for some people, is not soloing. It’s playing together, being inside the music. The musicians learned to play at some point in their lives. Maybe high school, maybe after that. They don’t have the time or the space or quite the skill for some of the other groups but they find life by playing together.

Nancy and I aren’t in the group, but we know several people who are. And we go to these free concerts and talk to friends.

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I’m writing about them because I told Nancy that I needed to write about something fun. We all do. At a time when things feel terrible, many people are not. They are working together making music for fun. And for life.

There’s nothing terrible about them.

Or you.