The librarians, session 21: This is *not* meant for you!
We had quite the crowd there this week: Harold was already in when I got there, thankfully, as for the first time in a while it was a seasonal (read: cold and windy) day and I did not want to wait outside if he wasn't there. Marian showed up for the first time in ages shortly after I got there. She has a daughter and nearly-year-old grandson in one state, and an elderly mother in another, and naturally they're in opposite directions. She's been visiting with them a lot. Amaryllis was a little late but that was fine, except Marian had taken her chair so Amaryllis had to fetch one from the band set up.
The band recently acquired two sousaphone wall holders; most of the band's sousas are already hanging, out of the way, but there are two more that must have come to the band after those were hung. The only problem: The best place to put them is on the wall by the table where we work, and the table not only was piled with dozens of marching-size folders, but there was also what I thought was a table behind that, also filled with marching-size folders. Yikes. Sometime between last week and this one, Harold cleared off the table and the other table, filling a couple plastic totes with the folders, and fixed the table. If you saw my camp picture of the table the dads stood on to hang garbage bags over the cafeteria's windows, that's what this table looked like to some degree; it wasn't so bowed that you couldn't work on it, though. Harold flipped the table over and put new screws in it since the old ones were stripped. Yes, that was a lot of music on that table, and it sat there for months, maybe as much as a year and a half. Meanwhile, with the other flat item cleared off, I could see that it was a long, old-time stereo cabinet sort of thing. Wow. I had no idea that's what was back there. The person who will come and hang the holders is the now-retired tenor sax player who celebrated 50 years with the band last summer. He was basically done after the summer, if not shortly after that concert. He's a good guy, though. It's nice that he'll still come do this for us.
With four of us working, we were able to get through one whole stack of music, meaning we're down to just two stacks of the full-size songs. Marian stayed for a while but finally called it early, as she's fighting a sinus infection. Harold didn't even stay until 9, but he was there before 7:20; he let Amaryllis and I close the place down. Luckily all four of us were there when I suddenly heard a voice or voices out in the vestibule. Where we work is not at all visible from the front door, but sounds carry down and around the hall. Amaryllis heard it too--Harold is hard of hearing, and I'm not sure how long it took Marian to hear it--and Marian and Harold went to check it out. Luckily it was harmless; there's a youth choir that uses the building, and a dad came to pick his child up, except he had the dates confused; the four of us were the only ones there. Phew. Harold made sure to lock the door after that, so that when Amaryllis and I went to leave, all we had to do was make sure the lights were turned off, and the gate to the area where we work was locked (it gets padlocked), and that was basically it.
Some of the stuff we're coming across is old. One song I worked on yesterday was from 1887. The quality of the paper was unusual, compared with the typical printer paper we come across now. It was decidedly thicker, and textured, and just pleasingly tactile, really. It made me think of around the turn of this century, when I would hear about people who would take their junk mail, tear it up into little pieces, and make homemade paper out of it. That's pretty cool. I still felt like I should be wearing gloves while touching it, though. It was in beautiful condition, to the point where I questioned if it was *really* that old, but there was a stamp on the back from the Library of Congress, I believe, that gave the date of printing as June 27, 1887. It could have been 1883, actually, but I remember the rest because it's my dad's birthday. (Not the year, of course. :P ) Just…wow. I have in my hands something that is 130 years old, and I didn't have to go to a museum to see it.
For the most part, we didn't come across any unusual instruments. There was one song that had a repiano Bb clarinet part, and I'm not sure what that is, but there was a regular (possibly solo) Bb clarinet part as well, so I wonder if it's like an auxiliary clarinet part. A visit to Wikipedia says it is indeed the non-solo players of that instrument, in this case clarinet. There was also one song that had a baritone part, and then a separate euphonium part. Some people consider them interchangeable. This composer did not, as underneath the "euphonium" designation on the music, there was something like this: "(This part is not to be played by the baritone)"--wow, picky much?!? Heh. I had to show that to everyone and it got guffaws all around. That was pretty amusing.
The only concern we have currently is getting Mrs. Paroo in to tackle our piles of music. She is seriously behind, to the point where the stacks on her table are several feet high, and Harold started stacking music on the cart we'd previously only been using for the songs she's cataloged. It's to the point where her table is likely on the verge of suffering the same collapse as the other one, and we'd rather that not happen. The good news is, once we do finish the last two stacks of music, we'll move into a sorting phase and it's possible to give Mrs. Paroo a few weeks to get somewhat caught up, if not all the way. But I know her new job doesn't afford her much time, and she's also the band manager now so that's an added burden, and I'm sure she'd like a life at some point. I'm curious to see how this plays out, or if she will be able to continue with this. Soon after we started, Amaryllis had offered to do the cataloging, and it might be worth bringing this up to her since she at least has the availability. We'll see.
The band recently acquired two sousaphone wall holders; most of the band's sousas are already hanging, out of the way, but there are two more that must have come to the band after those were hung. The only problem: The best place to put them is on the wall by the table where we work, and the table not only was piled with dozens of marching-size folders, but there was also what I thought was a table behind that, also filled with marching-size folders. Yikes. Sometime between last week and this one, Harold cleared off the table and the other table, filling a couple plastic totes with the folders, and fixed the table. If you saw my camp picture of the table the dads stood on to hang garbage bags over the cafeteria's windows, that's what this table looked like to some degree; it wasn't so bowed that you couldn't work on it, though. Harold flipped the table over and put new screws in it since the old ones were stripped. Yes, that was a lot of music on that table, and it sat there for months, maybe as much as a year and a half. Meanwhile, with the other flat item cleared off, I could see that it was a long, old-time stereo cabinet sort of thing. Wow. I had no idea that's what was back there. The person who will come and hang the holders is the now-retired tenor sax player who celebrated 50 years with the band last summer. He was basically done after the summer, if not shortly after that concert. He's a good guy, though. It's nice that he'll still come do this for us.
With four of us working, we were able to get through one whole stack of music, meaning we're down to just two stacks of the full-size songs. Marian stayed for a while but finally called it early, as she's fighting a sinus infection. Harold didn't even stay until 9, but he was there before 7:20; he let Amaryllis and I close the place down. Luckily all four of us were there when I suddenly heard a voice or voices out in the vestibule. Where we work is not at all visible from the front door, but sounds carry down and around the hall. Amaryllis heard it too--Harold is hard of hearing, and I'm not sure how long it took Marian to hear it--and Marian and Harold went to check it out. Luckily it was harmless; there's a youth choir that uses the building, and a dad came to pick his child up, except he had the dates confused; the four of us were the only ones there. Phew. Harold made sure to lock the door after that, so that when Amaryllis and I went to leave, all we had to do was make sure the lights were turned off, and the gate to the area where we work was locked (it gets padlocked), and that was basically it.
Some of the stuff we're coming across is old. One song I worked on yesterday was from 1887. The quality of the paper was unusual, compared with the typical printer paper we come across now. It was decidedly thicker, and textured, and just pleasingly tactile, really. It made me think of around the turn of this century, when I would hear about people who would take their junk mail, tear it up into little pieces, and make homemade paper out of it. That's pretty cool. I still felt like I should be wearing gloves while touching it, though. It was in beautiful condition, to the point where I questioned if it was *really* that old, but there was a stamp on the back from the Library of Congress, I believe, that gave the date of printing as June 27, 1887. It could have been 1883, actually, but I remember the rest because it's my dad's birthday. (Not the year, of course. :P ) Just…wow. I have in my hands something that is 130 years old, and I didn't have to go to a museum to see it.
For the most part, we didn't come across any unusual instruments. There was one song that had a repiano Bb clarinet part, and I'm not sure what that is, but there was a regular (possibly solo) Bb clarinet part as well, so I wonder if it's like an auxiliary clarinet part. A visit to Wikipedia says it is indeed the non-solo players of that instrument, in this case clarinet. There was also one song that had a baritone part, and then a separate euphonium part. Some people consider them interchangeable. This composer did not, as underneath the "euphonium" designation on the music, there was something like this: "(This part is not to be played by the baritone)"--wow, picky much?!? Heh. I had to show that to everyone and it got guffaws all around. That was pretty amusing.
The only concern we have currently is getting Mrs. Paroo in to tackle our piles of music. She is seriously behind, to the point where the stacks on her table are several feet high, and Harold started stacking music on the cart we'd previously only been using for the songs she's cataloged. It's to the point where her table is likely on the verge of suffering the same collapse as the other one, and we'd rather that not happen. The good news is, once we do finish the last two stacks of music, we'll move into a sorting phase and it's possible to give Mrs. Paroo a few weeks to get somewhat caught up, if not all the way. But I know her new job doesn't afford her much time, and she's also the band manager now so that's an added burden, and I'm sure she'd like a life at some point. I'm curious to see how this plays out, or if she will be able to continue with this. Soon after we started, Amaryllis had offered to do the cataloging, and it might be worth bringing this up to her since she at least has the availability. We'll see.