Mediocrity and the Anticipation of Autumn

The office smelled sterile today, like an exam room in a doctor’s office. A lot of my co-workers gave blood, and returned from the vampire bus parked outside with a brightly colored bandage on their arm. Being recently tattooed, I could not join them. Some people had bandages that matched their clothes. There was something so analogous about it, in a “Stepford Wives” sort of way.

The concert band has another performance this coming Wednesday. Because of the hectic schedule, we haven’t had many rehearsals. We will be bringing at least two songs into rotation that are practically sight-reads. I am certain that there is some merit in playing a song for the first or second time in front of an audience, if you can pull it off. Otherwise, it seems like a pity-fuck of a performance. Yes, they’ll clap. Some might not care that the brass section ignored the key signature for half the song. But it’ll suck, and I’ll know it. This is why Conte invented the pencil, so musicians could mark their sharps and flats. Admittedly, I have issues following my own advice in this matter. At rehearsal I played an incorrect note so loudly, you would’ve thought I had never been more certain of anything in my life. I understand what the expression “daggers for eyes” means now, because I think I felt physical pain as a direct result of the glares from the people in my section.

There’s not many performances left for the season. This makes me happy in a way, because I prefer the music we play in the Autumn-Winter programs. I love the acoustics of the auditorium, how the music sounds as if it’s being played with an endless breath, though it is filled with many.

I'm listening to the Confutatis from Mozart's requiem (K. 626) and it's going so slowly that it's driving me mad. I actually want to push them along as I imagine Daffy Duck would, screaming "Go, go, go!!!" the entire time.

A Concert Musician's Take on Outdoor Performances and Other Musical Nerdity

Throughout the summer I have been playing at several venues with a local community band. I joined last December and have experienced my share of joy and utter frustration.

I started playing the Clarinet when I was 10 years old and after a brief hiatus, have started playing again. Until my high school years, I had little comprehension of the influence a musician has on their audience. This naturally does not just apply to the individual musician, but to the groups in which they often perform. I decided to pursue a degree in Music Education, but sadly never followed that dream to fruition. It's not too late, I know. I continue my studies through rehearsal, instruction and performance. This is a part of my life that I could never abandon, no matter how hopeless I may feel about my career at times. It happens, and to deny it would be simply unrealistic.

We started our summer program in February, sightreading several works, getting a feel for what we would be playing that summer. There were no performances until May. We selected 15 pieces that we would rotate through our various performances, mostly of a patriotic genre. There were also some showtune medleys that our audiences would be able to relate to. I love Sousa, but the WWII songs and the showtunes have always been my favorite for as long as I can remember. It gives me a chance to play a little jazz, which I really haven't been able to do in previous years. There were never any clarinets in the jazz bands of my past, which makes little sense to me.

The lot of our performances this summer have been at retirement communities and outdoor festivals. Frankly, I do not care for the dynamics of these venues. That's probably being a little picky, but unless you're a marching band the music doesn't normally carry as it should.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard the joke "But they're hard of hearing, what does it matter?". It frustrates me to no end. I've learned over the years that the success of a performance is a balance of two things: How well you play, and how you are received. If the music is not heard as it is intended to be heard, it may as well fall on deaf ears. If the band is not well disciplined, the music can fall apart. If the conductor is too casual, the band will not strive to be great.

My current director is a fantastic one, but I have had difficulty at times trying to understand why he is so relaxed in his rehearsal style. In earlier years, the directors of the bands I participated in were feared. You had a motivation to practice almost ritualistically, because you would be called out if you did not. If a section missed a key signature, they'd have to play the section by themselves. If the director caught you personally making the error, you would play alone, in front of everyone. This caused a lot of people to become upset and leave the organization, as if it were musical darwinism. This made us great. We were students then, and received grades on how we performed. Perhaps it was this as well, that motivated us to be great.

The first 10 concerts we have had were okay, but there were a few that left me feeling disappointed in how I, and the rest of the band had performed. Musicians would be late or not show up at all. Sunday, we had no saxophone section. I joke that they must've gone out drinking the night before. It destroyed several of our pieces. The admission of the venue ($11) also prevented many people from attending. I could easily say it was one of our worst concerts.

The absolute worst, however...Was a night that our director fell ill and we were led by a person who did not know our program at all, and we fell apart on several occasions. That night, I wanted to leave the band and seek out a new one that had a little more skill. After a while, I realized that this would've been foolish. It wasn't our fault that the interim director didn't hold his hands high enough, and that he couldn't follow time signature changes.

Today, we performed at an alumni organization for a local high school that has since been closed and transformed into a remedial school designed as a "last resort" for those who were expelled from their normal schools, an indoor venue. Today, was our best performance yet.

The way the sound carried through the concert hall, the way the audience cheered after a song...Sousa be damned, this made my day. As cliché as it sounds, the music is only as good as you make it, with a little help from your friends.