Fancy Band: Third Concert
Oy, this week. I was stressed from home, I was stressed from work, I was stressed from personal stuff, and now let's throw in a concert, too, where weather canceled our last rehearsal-slash-recording session and was threatening to cause issues with the concert itself. I was already high-strung this week, and I warned BBC that Thursday might be extra special.
He came into play because our illustrious leader, who was gone virtually all last week, did come back from his trip on Monday, but still was hardly around, meaning BBC had to take the late shift on Thursday, at least until our boss returned to work. Thursday has become our busiest night with room renters, almost pre-pandemic-like, so it's imperative someone is there to watch the front desk, so to speak. He'd had to take some late shifts last week, too, and moseyed up front well after I could've left, and I was like, dude, I need to get out of here at 5 o'clock on the dot tonight. He did manage to get up front before then, so that was good.
But it snowed. And was still snowing. And I had to eat, and get changed, and freshen up, and oh yeah, our call time was 5:40, 20 minutes earlier than we'd normally need to be there and ready to play, and somehow I didn't catch on to that until like 5:30, at which case I went into full panic mode. And then my trunk was frozen shut, so I neither could easily chuck my stuff into there nor get at my snow brush. Thankfully my backseat folds down, so I was able to shove my work bag and garment bag in that way, and I still have the Snow Joe snow stuff in my backseat and that works pretty well, but I was rushing around and didn't have my gloves on so my hands were cold--yes, let's get frostbite on the way to the concert--and I got over there as quickly as I could. I mean, I'm five minutes away, but still. The snow did not help things. I was worried I'd have to go right into the sound check with all my gear, but I had just enough time to run downstairs, find a place for my stuff, and slap my flute together. I was panting by the time I found my seat. I was not the last one there, and in fact our second chair clarinet arrived fairly late. Dr. K was getting concerned and was having to have the third chair clarinet tune us, since our first chair doubles as our pianist.
One thing that has changed since the last time we met has to do with masks. We no longer had to wear them while playing. So, when I arrived to the front row, I was greeted by the entirety of the flute section being maskless. I chose to wear mine; I'm not about to change things up the night of the concert. Looking around, many people were not wearing masks, or were pulling them down to play, but there also was a subsection wearing them as per usual. I get it. Perhaps by our final concert this season I'll stop wearing it, but I'm not ready yet. And, again, I'm not looking to add another facet to things right now. And...I just came in from the cold. You know how your nose runs when you go from cold to hot? Yeah, had that going on. I was not about to take the mask off at that point. I also have a tendency to make faces and that's one thing I like about wearing a mask; my mouth is hidden. I'm not sure I'm ready yet for people to see all that, heh.
We did run-throughs of most of the pieces. The two long ones, that wasn't going to happen so we only did spot-checks, but the three shorter ones kind of needed it. We'd only played the march once. He also opted to do something weird during the dogfight; there were two measures, the last of a grouping of four, where he decided to take them at half speed. It was like a speed bump in the middle of the music. Like...why. We're doing a Sousa march, it's pretty classic, Sousa didn't write many clunkers. But whatever. He wants to put his spin on things, I suppose. I know at one point he tried to tell a joke, and failed, and I told him, don't quit your day job. It's not that he doesn't have a sense of humor, because he can be pretty funny, but sometimes it's so off the edge that he's in the chasm. And, he got a finger waggle. We were doing the driving song, which is in a fast three, and he decided to go into 1 right before this sax solo happens. The soloist was like, um, can you go into 3 at measure X? Dr. K went, oh, I was trying something. I shook my finger at him and went, not on concert night! He apologized. There was also a moment where he wanted the trumpets to play out more and they were like, do you want us to do that now or do you want us to save it for the concert? Dr. K was sort of like, can't you do both? I piped in, you're a trumpet player! Brass players only have so much stamina in their lips and embouchures. When they have to play long and loud and high, it takes a toll. This finally clicked in and he essentially went, yeah, as a conductor I have certain expectations and I forget the player side of it, but as a trumpet player I get it. I think he let them rest at that portion of what we were playing and didn't make them do it again. We'd already run that part three times. No need for a fourth.
We went back downstairs to put our stuff away while we sat in the audience. I overheard M and D talking and I heard them mention sanitizing spray. D was talking about trying one of M's instruments and I said, I have spray if you'd like to borrow it. I was thinking D wanted to try the alto flute. Nope; it was M's regular flute, which is a really nice brand. I was asking about it and he'd gone somewhere and tried it and really liked it; it wasn't a special order or anything. The headjoint blew really easily; D was impressed. D recently got a nicer flute, too, but it's still a lower-level nice flute. Hey, I was in a similar position at his age; not everyone can get the super-fancy instruments. Make do with what you have. B was having to deal with that, too. At our last rehearsal her piccolo, which she bought recently, wasn't working properly. It sounded like she had a leak in it. She was having to use a different piccolo for the concert and was a little bummed about that. Oh, I get it, but better to have an instrument that works, right? There's a repair tech within the band and I guess B had her look at it, but it wasn't a quick fix. Oh well.
She and I walked upstairs together, but once we got to the hall she started greeting someone I didn't know in one row, so I went into a different row and joined M and L the younger. We noticed a choir assembling in the loft, which was interesting. And then...is that...that's D in the choir loft! He had his flute and his music. We were really confused at first until he essentially cut through to get to the other side. I think there's only one staircase off the back hallway, though I could be wrong, and otherwise you have to go out into the lobby area to get to the other side. The balcony and choir loft do connect on the sides, so you can go all the way around if necessary, but it's kind of awkward and you're not really meant to do so. L's guess was that he was going to sit with his boyfriend during the first part of the concert.
Our opener was another area high school; both conductors are members of our group. I knew the one was, but I didn't realize his assistant was part of it, too. Having edited the program, I recalled the first two songs they were going to do but forgot the rest; I'd done it last weekend. They were playing works by two of the composers we were playing--one by the composer of the driving song, and one by the symphony composer. Those were really easy for me to pick out. The driving song composer, he is part Lebanese and had written a song partly in honor of his mother, and it started off with this really cool flute solo. I liked it a lot. The tenor player on the end got up and played soprano sax, in the middle of the band, and when he returned to his seat he got a fist bump from the girl next to him, heh. That made M and I chuckle; it was cute. The piece by the symphony composer had some trademark-y sections that immediately caused me to know it was his work. All in all, they did a nice job.
...And then we got to the fifth piece, which was very important to the school's history. I won't name the school, but it has an infamous place in Chicagoland history because it was hit by a powerful tornado over 30 years ago now. I was in 8th grade when it happened but by the time I got to college, I ended up knowing people impacted by it. One person had just started his freshman year when the tornado hit; the other's family was having a house built and it got destroyed. This was a huge deal, nearly 30 people died, and a few years later this piece was commissioned in relation to that. So, the piece starts, it's going along just fine...and about 20 measures in, with no indication that anything was wrong, the conductor stops and says, we're going to start that again. This is highly unusual. Everyone was like, what is going on? My dad would later tell me that the guy next to him asked, have you ever seen that before? And my dad told him, my daughter's in her 40s, I've been coming to concerts for 30 years, I've never seen this happen. I personally have, at least twice. Once at camp, when Mr. D was conducting, he'd had to restart B Band on a piece. And, in Regular Band, we started a piece so awfully that we did have to restart it. I'm pretty sure it was a Memorial Day performance. So, yeah, unfortunately I've been there. They restarted, and about where they'd stopped, the choir came in. Aha. They must've missed their cue. The rest of the piece appeared to go off without a hitch, at least, but nobody likes being a part of that.
They get to the end, and I hear the people in front of me going, should we go now? And they all get up and start leaving. Oh, okay, must be our turn to get on there and we should get our stuff and get ready. L and M and I all stand up, but nobody else in our row is standing. I start gesturing and the gal a couple seats over, the oboe player, says, there's another song. ...Oh. Oops. She was holding a program so she at least knew, and at that point I remembered the high school band was ending with a march and our low brass section was joining them. Well, okay, guess the high schoolers aren't the only ones with an embarrassing moment tonight. L and M and I sat back down. It was at this point I felt *really* badly, because the director was explaining to the audience that, you know, sometimes you have to do that, and it's a learning experience, and as it turned out the choir wasn't even from their high school; it was from another school in the district, and the only rehearsal they'd had together was Monday night. Okay. This is now understandable as to why they had an issue, but at the same time it raised all sorts of questions. Like, why didn't they use their own school's choir? I guess I could see sharing the love since it's written for the entirety of the town and there are multiple high schools in the district (the town really got built up in the subsequent years after the tornado), but band directors and choir conductors have different techniques, and it's not just that this was a different director than they're used to, this is someone they don't even know in passing, basically, and who knows how well he cued them or how well they were watching, and just, I felt really badly for the kids. There had to have been other ways to go about that and I'm sure in hindsight the conductor realized it.
Our turn. I got onstage and started scanning the audience. I'd seen my parents up in the balcony, having just gotten into the hall, as we were finishing the sound check, but I hadn't seen where they sat. They ended up on the far end, to my left, only a few rows back. I'd also checked my phone during intermission and knew Laura had made it, and eventually I spotted her in the back. Good. Glad to know everyone made it okay. Dad had been threatening not to come due to the snow.
Our first song was the driving one, which went well. The second was the symphony, which honestly had a number of places where it could've gone wrong, but I think overall it went really well. Dr. K appeared to make all the downbeats, which is crucial to its success. I'm glad we'll be getting another shot at it, though; it's on the docket for our final concert to fill it out. This means I get another shot at my solo. I gave it my all and it mostly went fine, but I ran out of air on one note and basically had to stick a rest in the middle of it where there wasn't one. The general audience would have no idea, but a purist would catch it, I'm sure. Plus, I want to talk to D about the flute choir section. He's not counting it correctly. I think he's trying to do what the firsts are doing and their part is different. Since he's to my left, he's in my ear (and I even had to ask him to turn his chair a little because he literally was *right* in my ear when I first got there) and I can hear him. If he wants to go into flute performance, he'd better be solid in whatever he plays, and he's not there yet.
Anyway, the whole of it came off really well and the audience was really appreciative of the performance. I looked up in the balcony and my parents were standing, heh. There was a smattering of people doing that. My dad was like, I've never heard anything like that. Yeah, it's something. It's easily the longest piece I've ever performed. It also led to a funny moment on Friday; I hadn't gotten to talk to Dr. K after the concert and texted him that everyone liked the show, and I put, "esp the symphony." He mistook what I wrote for "except the symphony" and was like, really? My mom cried! ...Aw! No, no, they enjoyed it! (Also, I had no idea his parents were there again. That's really nice.) After that came the slow, pretty piece and the gospel one. It looks like we're getting a second crack at that as well, which is good--there were just so many notes that I couldn't play them all, not if he wanted us to dance, too. I played what I could but tried to get into it, and it is a song that makes you want to move, truthfully. I just wish I could move while sitting. That makes my life easier. And Laura, afterward, mentioned that she heard the Family Feud theme in there, too. See?! It's totally a thing. The march went well and then all was over.
I could see Laura standing in the back and went to go talk to her as soon as we were done, but I had to wait for all the high school students to come up the stage and go back to the band room to get their stuff first. By the time that happened, she'd disappeared out into the lobby, only to quickly reappear with my parents. I got to talk to them for a bit and get their thoughts on things, until my dad not only said, I need to get home and shovel, and eventually he started miming it. (Note: The driveway was not shoveled at all when I got home.) At that point mom was like, guess I gotta go! And here I was about to say, hey, do you want me to grab Dr. K? They've all expressed interest in meeting him, and he was standing on the opposite side of the stage from where we were, but dad's actions put the kibosh on that, and Laura was tired; she'd had a hard time finding parking once she got there and had to drive around for a bit. She said I was keeping her up past her bedtime. She's also got some stuff going on at home, too, so yeah, maybe next time. But it was super awesome to have her there, and she sent me multiple long texts yesterday with her thoughts. The general consensus between her and my parents is that our lead alto sax player is awesome. She really is very talented, as is our tenor player; both had extensive solos this concert. ...And they'll get to do them again next time. At least we'll get to fine-tune things more before we do record everything. That's actually not a terrible thing, as annoying as having to cancel last week's session was.
He came into play because our illustrious leader, who was gone virtually all last week, did come back from his trip on Monday, but still was hardly around, meaning BBC had to take the late shift on Thursday, at least until our boss returned to work. Thursday has become our busiest night with room renters, almost pre-pandemic-like, so it's imperative someone is there to watch the front desk, so to speak. He'd had to take some late shifts last week, too, and moseyed up front well after I could've left, and I was like, dude, I need to get out of here at 5 o'clock on the dot tonight. He did manage to get up front before then, so that was good.
But it snowed. And was still snowing. And I had to eat, and get changed, and freshen up, and oh yeah, our call time was 5:40, 20 minutes earlier than we'd normally need to be there and ready to play, and somehow I didn't catch on to that until like 5:30, at which case I went into full panic mode. And then my trunk was frozen shut, so I neither could easily chuck my stuff into there nor get at my snow brush. Thankfully my backseat folds down, so I was able to shove my work bag and garment bag in that way, and I still have the Snow Joe snow stuff in my backseat and that works pretty well, but I was rushing around and didn't have my gloves on so my hands were cold--yes, let's get frostbite on the way to the concert--and I got over there as quickly as I could. I mean, I'm five minutes away, but still. The snow did not help things. I was worried I'd have to go right into the sound check with all my gear, but I had just enough time to run downstairs, find a place for my stuff, and slap my flute together. I was panting by the time I found my seat. I was not the last one there, and in fact our second chair clarinet arrived fairly late. Dr. K was getting concerned and was having to have the third chair clarinet tune us, since our first chair doubles as our pianist.
One thing that has changed since the last time we met has to do with masks. We no longer had to wear them while playing. So, when I arrived to the front row, I was greeted by the entirety of the flute section being maskless. I chose to wear mine; I'm not about to change things up the night of the concert. Looking around, many people were not wearing masks, or were pulling them down to play, but there also was a subsection wearing them as per usual. I get it. Perhaps by our final concert this season I'll stop wearing it, but I'm not ready yet. And, again, I'm not looking to add another facet to things right now. And...I just came in from the cold. You know how your nose runs when you go from cold to hot? Yeah, had that going on. I was not about to take the mask off at that point. I also have a tendency to make faces and that's one thing I like about wearing a mask; my mouth is hidden. I'm not sure I'm ready yet for people to see all that, heh.
We did run-throughs of most of the pieces. The two long ones, that wasn't going to happen so we only did spot-checks, but the three shorter ones kind of needed it. We'd only played the march once. He also opted to do something weird during the dogfight; there were two measures, the last of a grouping of four, where he decided to take them at half speed. It was like a speed bump in the middle of the music. Like...why. We're doing a Sousa march, it's pretty classic, Sousa didn't write many clunkers. But whatever. He wants to put his spin on things, I suppose. I know at one point he tried to tell a joke, and failed, and I told him, don't quit your day job. It's not that he doesn't have a sense of humor, because he can be pretty funny, but sometimes it's so off the edge that he's in the chasm. And, he got a finger waggle. We were doing the driving song, which is in a fast three, and he decided to go into 1 right before this sax solo happens. The soloist was like, um, can you go into 3 at measure X? Dr. K went, oh, I was trying something. I shook my finger at him and went, not on concert night! He apologized. There was also a moment where he wanted the trumpets to play out more and they were like, do you want us to do that now or do you want us to save it for the concert? Dr. K was sort of like, can't you do both? I piped in, you're a trumpet player! Brass players only have so much stamina in their lips and embouchures. When they have to play long and loud and high, it takes a toll. This finally clicked in and he essentially went, yeah, as a conductor I have certain expectations and I forget the player side of it, but as a trumpet player I get it. I think he let them rest at that portion of what we were playing and didn't make them do it again. We'd already run that part three times. No need for a fourth.
We went back downstairs to put our stuff away while we sat in the audience. I overheard M and D talking and I heard them mention sanitizing spray. D was talking about trying one of M's instruments and I said, I have spray if you'd like to borrow it. I was thinking D wanted to try the alto flute. Nope; it was M's regular flute, which is a really nice brand. I was asking about it and he'd gone somewhere and tried it and really liked it; it wasn't a special order or anything. The headjoint blew really easily; D was impressed. D recently got a nicer flute, too, but it's still a lower-level nice flute. Hey, I was in a similar position at his age; not everyone can get the super-fancy instruments. Make do with what you have. B was having to deal with that, too. At our last rehearsal her piccolo, which she bought recently, wasn't working properly. It sounded like she had a leak in it. She was having to use a different piccolo for the concert and was a little bummed about that. Oh, I get it, but better to have an instrument that works, right? There's a repair tech within the band and I guess B had her look at it, but it wasn't a quick fix. Oh well.
She and I walked upstairs together, but once we got to the hall she started greeting someone I didn't know in one row, so I went into a different row and joined M and L the younger. We noticed a choir assembling in the loft, which was interesting. And then...is that...that's D in the choir loft! He had his flute and his music. We were really confused at first until he essentially cut through to get to the other side. I think there's only one staircase off the back hallway, though I could be wrong, and otherwise you have to go out into the lobby area to get to the other side. The balcony and choir loft do connect on the sides, so you can go all the way around if necessary, but it's kind of awkward and you're not really meant to do so. L's guess was that he was going to sit with his boyfriend during the first part of the concert.
Our opener was another area high school; both conductors are members of our group. I knew the one was, but I didn't realize his assistant was part of it, too. Having edited the program, I recalled the first two songs they were going to do but forgot the rest; I'd done it last weekend. They were playing works by two of the composers we were playing--one by the composer of the driving song, and one by the symphony composer. Those were really easy for me to pick out. The driving song composer, he is part Lebanese and had written a song partly in honor of his mother, and it started off with this really cool flute solo. I liked it a lot. The tenor player on the end got up and played soprano sax, in the middle of the band, and when he returned to his seat he got a fist bump from the girl next to him, heh. That made M and I chuckle; it was cute. The piece by the symphony composer had some trademark-y sections that immediately caused me to know it was his work. All in all, they did a nice job.
...And then we got to the fifth piece, which was very important to the school's history. I won't name the school, but it has an infamous place in Chicagoland history because it was hit by a powerful tornado over 30 years ago now. I was in 8th grade when it happened but by the time I got to college, I ended up knowing people impacted by it. One person had just started his freshman year when the tornado hit; the other's family was having a house built and it got destroyed. This was a huge deal, nearly 30 people died, and a few years later this piece was commissioned in relation to that. So, the piece starts, it's going along just fine...and about 20 measures in, with no indication that anything was wrong, the conductor stops and says, we're going to start that again. This is highly unusual. Everyone was like, what is going on? My dad would later tell me that the guy next to him asked, have you ever seen that before? And my dad told him, my daughter's in her 40s, I've been coming to concerts for 30 years, I've never seen this happen. I personally have, at least twice. Once at camp, when Mr. D was conducting, he'd had to restart B Band on a piece. And, in Regular Band, we started a piece so awfully that we did have to restart it. I'm pretty sure it was a Memorial Day performance. So, yeah, unfortunately I've been there. They restarted, and about where they'd stopped, the choir came in. Aha. They must've missed their cue. The rest of the piece appeared to go off without a hitch, at least, but nobody likes being a part of that.
They get to the end, and I hear the people in front of me going, should we go now? And they all get up and start leaving. Oh, okay, must be our turn to get on there and we should get our stuff and get ready. L and M and I all stand up, but nobody else in our row is standing. I start gesturing and the gal a couple seats over, the oboe player, says, there's another song. ...Oh. Oops. She was holding a program so she at least knew, and at that point I remembered the high school band was ending with a march and our low brass section was joining them. Well, okay, guess the high schoolers aren't the only ones with an embarrassing moment tonight. L and M and I sat back down. It was at this point I felt *really* badly, because the director was explaining to the audience that, you know, sometimes you have to do that, and it's a learning experience, and as it turned out the choir wasn't even from their high school; it was from another school in the district, and the only rehearsal they'd had together was Monday night. Okay. This is now understandable as to why they had an issue, but at the same time it raised all sorts of questions. Like, why didn't they use their own school's choir? I guess I could see sharing the love since it's written for the entirety of the town and there are multiple high schools in the district (the town really got built up in the subsequent years after the tornado), but band directors and choir conductors have different techniques, and it's not just that this was a different director than they're used to, this is someone they don't even know in passing, basically, and who knows how well he cued them or how well they were watching, and just, I felt really badly for the kids. There had to have been other ways to go about that and I'm sure in hindsight the conductor realized it.
Our turn. I got onstage and started scanning the audience. I'd seen my parents up in the balcony, having just gotten into the hall, as we were finishing the sound check, but I hadn't seen where they sat. They ended up on the far end, to my left, only a few rows back. I'd also checked my phone during intermission and knew Laura had made it, and eventually I spotted her in the back. Good. Glad to know everyone made it okay. Dad had been threatening not to come due to the snow.
Our first song was the driving one, which went well. The second was the symphony, which honestly had a number of places where it could've gone wrong, but I think overall it went really well. Dr. K appeared to make all the downbeats, which is crucial to its success. I'm glad we'll be getting another shot at it, though; it's on the docket for our final concert to fill it out. This means I get another shot at my solo. I gave it my all and it mostly went fine, but I ran out of air on one note and basically had to stick a rest in the middle of it where there wasn't one. The general audience would have no idea, but a purist would catch it, I'm sure. Plus, I want to talk to D about the flute choir section. He's not counting it correctly. I think he's trying to do what the firsts are doing and their part is different. Since he's to my left, he's in my ear (and I even had to ask him to turn his chair a little because he literally was *right* in my ear when I first got there) and I can hear him. If he wants to go into flute performance, he'd better be solid in whatever he plays, and he's not there yet.
Anyway, the whole of it came off really well and the audience was really appreciative of the performance. I looked up in the balcony and my parents were standing, heh. There was a smattering of people doing that. My dad was like, I've never heard anything like that. Yeah, it's something. It's easily the longest piece I've ever performed. It also led to a funny moment on Friday; I hadn't gotten to talk to Dr. K after the concert and texted him that everyone liked the show, and I put, "esp the symphony." He mistook what I wrote for "except the symphony" and was like, really? My mom cried! ...Aw! No, no, they enjoyed it! (Also, I had no idea his parents were there again. That's really nice.) After that came the slow, pretty piece and the gospel one. It looks like we're getting a second crack at that as well, which is good--there were just so many notes that I couldn't play them all, not if he wanted us to dance, too. I played what I could but tried to get into it, and it is a song that makes you want to move, truthfully. I just wish I could move while sitting. That makes my life easier. And Laura, afterward, mentioned that she heard the Family Feud theme in there, too. See?! It's totally a thing. The march went well and then all was over.
I could see Laura standing in the back and went to go talk to her as soon as we were done, but I had to wait for all the high school students to come up the stage and go back to the band room to get their stuff first. By the time that happened, she'd disappeared out into the lobby, only to quickly reappear with my parents. I got to talk to them for a bit and get their thoughts on things, until my dad not only said, I need to get home and shovel, and eventually he started miming it. (Note: The driveway was not shoveled at all when I got home.) At that point mom was like, guess I gotta go! And here I was about to say, hey, do you want me to grab Dr. K? They've all expressed interest in meeting him, and he was standing on the opposite side of the stage from where we were, but dad's actions put the kibosh on that, and Laura was tired; she'd had a hard time finding parking once she got there and had to drive around for a bit. She said I was keeping her up past her bedtime. She's also got some stuff going on at home, too, so yeah, maybe next time. But it was super awesome to have her there, and she sent me multiple long texts yesterday with her thoughts. The general consensus between her and my parents is that our lead alto sax player is awesome. She really is very talented, as is our tenor player; both had extensive solos this concert. ...And they'll get to do them again next time. At least we'll get to fine-tune things more before we do record everything. That's actually not a terrible thing, as annoying as having to cancel last week's session was.