it's true, you never really leave high school

Oh. My. God.

This weekend? There could be drama.

Wait, let me back up.

My high school music experience was less than stellar. My first year, our instrumental program consisted of one band with maybe twenty people in it. My high school was only offering the band director position part-time, which made it difficult to find good candidates. My first trombone instructor actually considered applying for this job until he found this out. Apparently he also had a fascinating conversation with the school principal about why you can’t really march with only twenty people.¹

So, for my first two years of high school they had newly hired this one fellow. And, he was incompetent. Staggeringly so. So much so that even a high school freshman could tell he had no idea what he was doing. There are many anecdotes I could recount... like the time he wandered off during a playoff game to get a cheeseburger and left a student conducting the pep band for the entire second half of the game. Or the time he made my normally calm and laid back friend so furious that he punched a wall and broke his hand.

The entire band hated him. Those of us that did honor bands were ashamed to admit what school we went to, and couldn’t bring ourselves to applaud when asked to thank our music teachers. I almost quit band because of him.² Even now if you mention his name to any of us that were in that band, you will probably see open hostility... and as bitter and cynical as I am, I am rarely actually hostile. After he left, a formerly retired band director took over, and it was like night and day. I couldn’t believe what he managed to do with our sad little group in just one year, and it only made me feel more cheated.

We later heard through the grapevine that he had taken another teaching job with a middle school, and then had had a nervous breakdown. And we laughed. The people that didn’t know him thought we were horrible... all those that did remember him laughed along with us. The last I heard, he was doing construction.

This could be shrugged off as the biased memories of an overdramatic teenager.³ And, you know, we weren’t exactly easy on him. You’d be amazed at the shenanigans you can get away with when you’re 14 and your teacher doesn’t know what he’s doing, and the trombones were the worst offenders. Now I look back on those days and shake my head a bit. I was the token voice of reason in that group,⁴ but I didn’t really try as hard as I could have, because I had lost all respect for our teacher.

However. My undergraduate school just happened to be the same place that he got his teaching certification for this state. And the faculty there remembered him. Oh, did they. And they took great pains to make sure I understood that he had never actually attended the school as a student and that the music faculty had had no say in the certification procedure. I believe the words "we all knew he shouldn’t have been teaching" were used.

Oh, and also? Apparently he had to do his student teaching twice... because he failed the first time.

I could say more, but you probably get the idea.

Anyway. The other day I had to go pick up some music for a gig I’m playing this weekend. And as I was initialing the sign-out sheet, guess whose name I saw under second clarinet?

I actually physically backed away from the clipboard.⁵

Now, it’s been a long time, and I would personally rather just let it all go and never speak to him again. I have this feeling, however, that he’s going to come up and talk to me and act like we’re all buddies, and I’m going to end up biting my tongue and being politely insincere. Or, you know, maybe he blames my classmates and I for being less than cooperative. An actual fight would be hilarious, but I rather not deal with the resulting drama. I’m not a big fan of drama, and prefer to avoid it whenever possible.

So, here’s hoping he never looks behind him. I’m shooting for quiet and anticlimactic here. However, if he does decide to start some shit?

Oh, it’s on.⁶

1. My band never marched. It was the only good thing about high school.[↩]


2. My youth symphony is what saved me... I don’t know what I would have done without them.[↩]


3. I know, this is redundant.[↩]


4. and because of that I never actually got into trouble for any of it[↩]


5. It’s a good thing no one was in the office at the time, because that would have looked quite strange.[↩]


6. Note: this will probably not happen.[↩]

a thanksgiving interlude

I hope everyone has a lovely Smallpox-Blankets Thanksgiving Day. Mine will be spent in the kitchen, doing prep work and asking the important questions like, "How long has that been in the oven? Did you set the timer?" I prefer this, because it means I spend less time talking to family.¹ I have also made an apple pie and cranberry sauce from scratch,² although we still had to buy the canned stuff because some people in this family will only eat jellied cranberry sauce that is the same shape as the can. I will admit to a certain amount of nostalgia here, but seriously.

I told my mother that my terms for helping in the kitchen were an unlimited supply of both caffeine and alcohol, which she felt was reasonable. There's a certain technique to surviving a holiday dinner with the family, and while I did pretty well last year I'm hoping to refine my technique.

1. I start with coffee. This is key, although too much too soon can have its own hazards.³

2. At an appropriate time during the day,⁴ I switch to beer. Not too much, because there is still cooking to be done and cooks to be monitored, but enough to take the edge off.

3. Dinner goes with wine. Especially handy because no one can really keep track of how much I've had.

4. For dessert I usually switch back to coffee, only maybe with a shot of something. Maybe a couple of shots. It'll be a judgment call.

5. Once everyone leaves, anything goes. Hard alcohol helps counteract all the coffee I had at the beginning of the day, so that I can fall asleep. Probably should wait until the dishes are done, though... it's only courteous.

Wish me luck.

1. No, no, I love answering questions about how my career's going nowhere. Please, ask some more.[↩]


2. I actually volunteered for this... I think it's a subtle form of self-harm.[↩]


3. If you can feel your eyebrows, you've probably had a little too much.[↩]


4. like, say, when your guests start to arrive[↩]

another one? already?

Yes, I'm trying to post more frequently. No, I don't know how long it'll last, but I figure I owe it to my three (3) readers to give it a go. Maybe if I keep these short I won't run out of material as quickly.¹

Anyway. In honor of my last day at the repair shop, I present the following phone conversation.²



"So, you're calling to ask about a... red flute? What's the serial number? [Pause.] It doesn't, huh? Well, you know what the deal is with those flutes with no serial number, don't you? [Another pause.] They can only play really lame music."



Thank you and good night.

1. Does anyone else believe that? I didn't think so.[↩]


2. Well, half a phone conversation... I couldn't hear the other half.[↩]

overheard in a private lesson

"So, what are you guys working on?"

"We got a bunch of Christmas music this week."

"Yeah, it is that time, isn't it? Okay, let's see. [papers rustling] Hmm... 'Coventry Carol'... written out in pencil... and then photocopied. Awesome. Okay. A medley, that’s nice... wait, what’s this? 'Jingle Bells Forever'? [Pause.] This is... a combination of 'Jingle Bells' and 'Stars and Stripes?'"

"Um. Yeah."

"...Why would you do that?"

"I... I don't really know."

"Right. Okay. We... won't be working on that one. Ever."

"Yeah, I don’t blame you."

a manifesto of sorts

(As you can see, I’ve been sitting on this one awhile, and after you read it you’ll understand why. Some parts of this may be serious. Some may be satire. I leave it to you to decide which is which.)

--------------------------------------------------------------


I am a bit preoccupied with musicality.

Trouble is, I don’t really have the vocabulary to explain my thoughts about it. There's a quote by Steve Martin that is apropos: "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture." And I certainly don’t have the ability to reproduce it yet when I play, which means that when I go off on a rant¹ no one knows what the hell I’m talking about.

This has sometimes led to the following exchange during a lesson:

"I’m having trouble with [insert piece], I need help."

"Okay, let’s hear it. [I play.] It sounds fine to me, what’s the problem?"

"I don’t know! It’s just not right, and I don’t know how to fix it."

"...Right. Let’s move on for now, and we’ll just...come back to that later."

Pete and I had a discussion once, when he was describing a recital that was "so perfect it was boring." My points were 1.) doesn’t that imply that the only way to create musical interest is to make a mistake? And 2.) isn’t boredom an imperfection? In other words, if it was boring, was it really perfect?²

I set my standards high, I know.³ In my practice I’m lucky if I achieve "well, I can’t hear anything wrong," and even if I could reliably reach this tepid form of supposed perfection I couldn’t settle for it. Ultimately I will never match my idea of how I ought to sound. Trying to explain this to others makes me appear slightly unbalanced.

So what is it I want, anyway?

...

I want the audience to be wide-eyed and awestruck. I want to break them and remake them, all in the space of an hour-long concert. I want tears and euphoria and rage and fear. I want people that are passing by, people that don’t even like the trombone, to stop in mid-step when the music starts, and I want them on their knees by the time it finishes. I want to reach straight through their conscious mind into the primal center of their brain, and I want their souls to tremble.

I want to make music that shines so brightly it hurts.

I might possibly be asking too much.⁴

...

See? I have somehow managed to take what should have been a perfectly innocuous discussion of musicality and turn it into the megalomaniacal ramblings of a mad scientist.⁵ I am not sure how this happened. As it stands it reads less like casual entertainment and more like something that would make a psychiatrist raise an eyebrow and reach for the panic button.⁶

I will drive myself crazy trying to achieve this. I can’t learn to settle for what is "good enough," even if it’s good enough to get me a real job.⁷ Instead I will wear though the threadbare fabric of my sanity while sitting in a practice room for hours upon hours, struggling towards an ideal I can’t really describe and can only barely imagine.

No, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Maybe I just need to drink more.

1. (as I am wont to do)[↩]


2. Thanks to all my teachers for putting up with what is clearly obsessive insanity on my part, by the way. Clearly I am not the easiest student, and you all have my profoundest sympathy.[↩]


3. Stop laughing.[↩]


4. Let's not even mention the clichés I've abused here.[↩]


5. I'll show them all, though. Fools.[↩]


6. I don’t actually know that psychiatrists have a secret panic button that summons doctors in white coats to throw you in a straitjacket and carry you off, but it seems like something they ought to have, doesn’t it?[↩]


7. And right now I am so far from this that I shouldn’t even be considering what lies beyond it any time soon.[↩]

i get the best gigs

So I wrote this post about musicality the other day, and it took a different path than I was expecting, and I’ll need just a little more time to edit it into something resembling sanity.

Meanwhile, this happened.

...

I played a pops concert recently. Pretty basic pops concert fare, which is all that needs to be said about that. It was an outdoor concert, in a field overlooking the water. I wasn’t familiar with the singer we performed with, but apparently she has a significant following. It should have been a wholly unremarkable concert.

So, how many things can go wrong with an outdoor gig?

Transportation. The original plan was to have us park in a cemetery parking lot a few miles away and then bring us in on shuttle buses, because there was no parking at the venue (although a few people questioned this once we saw the venue). Anyway, the shuttle buses were an hour late.¹

Rain. We’re in the northwest, so this is a contingency that must always be planned for. The stage was covered, but was not properly equipped to deal with the possibility of both rain and wind. It was okay at first when it was barely a sprinkle, but then it started pouring, and the brass players got soaked, and the roof started dumping water on the timpani, and the string players around the edge of the stage huddled desperately over their instruments, and then the orchestra manager stopped rehearsal and sent us all to seek sanctuary in the tent that had been set up behind the stage.² We resumed rehearsal once the deluge had passed, but we watched the sky for the rest of the day, and I had to play a concert while sitting on a wet chair.

I started learning about union rules that day. I was unsurprised to learn that no one can make union musicians play in the rain, but I also learned about the minimum temperature for an outdoor gig.³ This subject came up during the performance, when I started to wish I had worn a heavier concert black.⁴ The woodwinds got little heaters to keep their instruments safe, but the brass had to tough it out. Not unbearable by any means, just a little chilly.

Also? Train tracks running behind the stage, with trains that went by at inopportune times during both the rehearsal and the performance, loud enough to drown out the music. The audience took it in stride, and I tried really hard not to laugh too obviously.

Good times.

1. Yes, this means there was a large group of people dressed in all black loitering in a cemetery parking lot. No, the irony was not lost on us.[↩]


2. A tent with a grass floor, even. I didn’t mind, but apparently people with allergies were suffering a bit.[↩]


3. It was either 60° or 65°, depending on who you asked. I’ll have to look it up one of these days.[↩]


4. If I had been smart and looked at a map I’d have seen we were next to the water and dressed appropriately.[↩]

walking the line between mockery and self-deprecation

I've been losing taking auditions lately. And while most have been unremarkable, I've come across a few things that were... peculiar. Orchestra names have been omitted to protect the innocent.¹

1. A lot of auditions have been opening with a solo lately. I had been led to believe that this was more of a semifinal/final round thing, but apparently times are a-changing. It's kind of refreshing, actually.²

2. Why would any orchestra take their audition materials out of an excerpt book? I mean, it's a good resource for students, but one would think an orchestra would want the actual parts for an audition. It just makes me uneasy when I pull out my copies of the original parts and the organizer starts to look worried.

3. In my (admittedly limited) experience, the first round of most auditions is usually less than five minutes. Between five and ten minutes seems a bit long, but certainly not unreasonable. Twenty to thirty minutes is right out.³

4. When there aren't very many people auditioning, I can see how there might only be one round. Deciding to e-mail everyone the results later instead of making a decision that day was a little unorthodox, but didn't really bother me. Announcing that the finalists from that first round will each play a trial concert with the orchestra before a final decision is made isn't unheard of, but seems a little odd for a small per-service group. When all of this adds up to an acknowledgment that a final decision probably won't be made until close to a year after the audition? Man, I dunno. I'm not complaining, just... baffled.⁴

All of these observations are made purely in a spirit of love and compassion and personal amusement, I swear. And if anything mentioned here is actually perfectly common and normal and I've been horribly misled? Please, let me know so I can be prepared for the next time it happens.

1. I mean, so far they've all been really nice people, and I don't want to imply that any of these things caused me to lose any auditions. No, that was all my doing.[↩]


2. I'd probably be happier about it if I didn't hate our solo literature so much.[↩]


3. Honestly, I should have been cut after the first five.[↩]


4. Yes, I am one of the finalists, which is how I know about this. I really wasn't expecting it after how I played.[↩]