Fancy Band: Veterans/Holiday Concert
Saturday. Concert time. Our call time wasn't until 1:30; I left about 12:30 so I'd have plenty of time to get there and run through Stars & Stripes a couple times and what have you. I saw trombone P in the band room and got to tell him what Dr. K had said, about P and D being cool people to hang out with, and that made his day. He's such a nice person but he's got some awkwardness--I totally get that--so for someone to see past that and get to the center of who he is, it was really appreciated. I think there's a lot of genuineness in this group. There's no point in being fake; we're just here to play music and be ourselves.
We didn't plan much for the dress rehearsal, and Dr. K had us being done by 2:30, giving us a full half-hour between the sound check and the start of the concert. I was really glad to see that--he used to do it up to 15 minutes before, and that tires us out, especially the brass players, but also makes the audience restless. That doesn't mean there weren't issues. Dr. K was off his game as we started the narrated piece, completely misconducting multiple measures as they change time signatures a lot in the beginning, and he was just kind of cranky. Plus part of the band wasn't playing that well, which was frustrating. Finally he stopped and went, sorry, we're having a lot of logistical challenges, so he and director A and trombone R had been doing a lot of running around that morning. I actually talked to him today and discovered that R hadn't been able to get any helpers for the concert; normally we use college students, but they had a playoff game on Saturday and had to be there (one of the college kids who plays in the marching band showed up after halftime, but it was still early enough that she made the rehearsal). We'd had a few ideas to get others to help out, like area high school music honors students, but that didn't pan out. R didn't admit that until Friday night, which meant that instead of doing musical prep for the concert, Dr. K and director A had to do logistical stuff, and so they were not in a great mindset and frazzled and I know at one point Dr. K flat-out asked for help, and I went, raise 'em high, and five people did volunteer to help usher and take tickets and stuff. At one point during our rehearsal I saw someone pop their head in, and I recognized the person as my college classmate Dave, and figured he was with some students. I later learned, no, it was him, his wife, and their two kids. Oh, my gosh. How kind of him. But four people aren't really enough for everything that needs to happen. In our phone call today, Dr. K said that now A and R realize just how much needs to happen to get a concert off and running, and that it's not a one-person job; a team is needed. They'll have a meeting next week to try to figure out how to move forward. I'd called for an unrelated reason but had wanted to mention maybe creating a logistics team, and that's pretty much their goal.
Back to the actual playing part of the dress, we ran through the narrated piece with Dr. C so he could work a bit more on his timing. Director A was in the audience watching him, both Thursday and Saturday, to let him know if he was timing things correctly or needed to slow down or speed up. He said he'd found a YouTube video and was practicing his timing with it and that helped a lot. Hey, we do that too. He specifically mentioned listening for certain aural cues. We finished that piece with a little time left over, so we were given the choice of S&SF or Home Alone, and collectively, we chose the movie. Yeah, I'm good enough with the march! And also we only had the medley for a couple weeks; it would be nice to get one more run-through under our fingers.
We got a surprise addition to our concert, which we found out about when Dr. K emailed everyone on Friday (after we had breakfast...he didn't even mention it then): Bassoon K, who'd been out for medical reasons this fall, would be joining us with one of her bagpipe groups and they would be opening the concert. Holy cow! When we talked today, I found out it was such a last-minute addition that it barely made the paper programs, and it did not make the online program. I had so much going on last week that it didn't even occur to me as the editor that, hey, we should add this in; oh well. But to make room for them, we had to alter the front two rows of the setup to start, meshing the first row with the second row; we'd put the chairs in the right place after they finished. And, because of the directors' stand and the podium on our side of the stage, that meant flute C's chair had to move back an extra row to allow the pipers room to walk past to exit the stage. That took a little bit of arranging, especially since I got to fit in flute L's chair; she was one of the people who volunteered to usher and left for the lobby right after we finished the rehearsal. At least her cleaning rag and music were on her chair and stand, so she'd know where to sit when she came out.
Once backstage, I spotted our narrator in the hall near the back lobby. I'd hoped to say hello to him since, the day Dr. K left, I'd emailed him (his dean) and Dr. K's direct boss about the impact he'd had on me as an alum, and Dr. C sent me back a really lovely reply and I wanted to thank him for it. He was pretty much like, what a difference a year makes! He even said something related to how Dr. K had left but ultimately it wasn't necessary, what with the former president also having left; I forget how it was phrased. However, Dr. K is so happy where he is that the change was good, despite how it happened, but incredible that it was just about a year ago now. (Dr. K brought that up today, that we're just about at the year mark, and that everyone involved with the Stagg Bowl debacle last year either got fired or left. Oh, wow.) Dr. C said they're already making plans in case NCC does go to the championship again so that what happened last year isn't repeated. Good; from an alumni standpoint, it was so different compared to previous years. He concurred. He was talking about being nervous about doing the narration and having practiced and such, and I asked if he had any musical background. He said no, aside from playing the cello in the 5th grade, though he did start learning guitar over the pandemic...and there may have been some Zoom calls that got muted so he could play guitar instead, heh.
The concert itself went well. There weren't any major gaffes, thankfully; Dr. K got his head in the game and got through the beginning of the narrated piece. Oh, a couple times when he was doing his announcements, he skipped ahead a song and announced the wrong pieces, oops. And then, toward the end, our band itinerary had listed a choir-only piece, but it wasn't in the printed program, so when he got there and didn't announce it, we were like, he skipped one again...but director A went, no, they're not doing it. That jived with what we'd been told, that the choir had pulled out of all of their stand-alone pieces. That's fine.
The opening was pretty cool. The first and second rows were enmeshed, ABAB style, so I was sitting between clarinet M (male) and clarinet C. M was running through S&SF at one point and I said, trade you! For some reason he said no. I tried that with a few people and nobody took me up on that offer, rats. He also saw me finger through the runs in our Hanukkah fanfare, though vertically, and asked if I wanted him to move over so I could play through it. Realize flutes need a lot of room horizontally and our chairs basically were touching. I said no; I just needed to finger through it and it was fine. Then the pipers came out, and I have never been so close to bagpipes before. They're loud. As in, had I realized how loud they were in close proximity, I would've grabbed my earplugs. My ears were ringing a little for a bit. Still, I know that bassoon K is very into piping and plays with four different groups, so it was cool to see her doing one of her passions--and I hadn't realized she's actually the leader of that group. How cool. At one point one of the pipers walked offstage, which was odd, until eventually we realized he was doing an echo. My vision was blocked a bit since, again, I had a piper directly in front of me (his pipes had three stems coming off of them; I feel like I've mostly seen four), but eventually I spotted him up in the balcony. Ah, cool. It was neat to see them using their arms to create a bellows for their air bladders. (I am not using any sort of correct terminology, FYI.) It was pretty moving, too, probably because when we see pipes and drums, it's for a police funeral or the firefighters are performing for Memorial Day.
S&SF also went well. Now that I'd wrapped my head around having to stand, I was in the mindset of doing it from memory. Flute C had said, why not just raise your stand? Because I wouldn't be able to see the music regardless, unless I put it all the way up, and that would look dumb when flutes B and K weren't doing that. Like, let's point out to everybody that I'm the remedial player of this group. And I've been playing this piece for 30 years and have done it from memory numerous times. It's doable; I just have to prep properly for it. Getting a chance to run through it a couple times before the concert really helped, and aside from a couple blips I think it went well--and the blips weren't anything the audience would notice. And, well, now Dr. K has heard me play it; check that off the list. I got to stand as a soloist for once. That was cool.
Also, with the armed forces medley, I was keeping an eye out for his dad. I thought I'd spotted his parents in the audience but wasn't entirely sure. I'd only met them the one time. Dr. K ended up being the narrator for that piece, announcing when the different service songs were starting (Dr. T was conducting), and the guy I thought was his dad stood up when the Navy was announced. Oh...maybe that's not him. And then the Air Force theme played, and he was still standing, and I know for sure he was in that. Fast-forward to the end of the concert and I'm trying to catch Dr. K to give him a hug--it took a couple minutes--and then I go out to the main lobby to find my parents. I thought I saw Dr. K's parents on a bench against the inner wall of the lobby, where the wall curves. He popped his head out of the concert hall, looked around, and went back inside. Something told me he was looking for his parents and didn't spot them, so when I went to put my flute away and I spotted him on stage, I told him, hey, I think your parents are sitting the lobby. Yep, that was in fact them, so he did thank me for that.
As for my parents, mom realized there's a Five Guys nearby and wanted to have dinner there. Dad went, if you're paying, sure! Mom thought it was a pizza place, but it's burgers. They were tasty but greasy, and we hadn't realized that we got two patties with each burger. I requested a small fry, but we got twice as many fries as fit in the cup; the bag had a bunch of them in the bottom. They also had a Freestyle drink machine so I got a peach lemonade. Pretty good. Mom enjoyed that they had free peanuts and was snacking on those while we waited for our food. All told, it was a pretty good day and it ended up okay overall.
We didn't plan much for the dress rehearsal, and Dr. K had us being done by 2:30, giving us a full half-hour between the sound check and the start of the concert. I was really glad to see that--he used to do it up to 15 minutes before, and that tires us out, especially the brass players, but also makes the audience restless. That doesn't mean there weren't issues. Dr. K was off his game as we started the narrated piece, completely misconducting multiple measures as they change time signatures a lot in the beginning, and he was just kind of cranky. Plus part of the band wasn't playing that well, which was frustrating. Finally he stopped and went, sorry, we're having a lot of logistical challenges, so he and director A and trombone R had been doing a lot of running around that morning. I actually talked to him today and discovered that R hadn't been able to get any helpers for the concert; normally we use college students, but they had a playoff game on Saturday and had to be there (one of the college kids who plays in the marching band showed up after halftime, but it was still early enough that she made the rehearsal). We'd had a few ideas to get others to help out, like area high school music honors students, but that didn't pan out. R didn't admit that until Friday night, which meant that instead of doing musical prep for the concert, Dr. K and director A had to do logistical stuff, and so they were not in a great mindset and frazzled and I know at one point Dr. K flat-out asked for help, and I went, raise 'em high, and five people did volunteer to help usher and take tickets and stuff. At one point during our rehearsal I saw someone pop their head in, and I recognized the person as my college classmate Dave, and figured he was with some students. I later learned, no, it was him, his wife, and their two kids. Oh, my gosh. How kind of him. But four people aren't really enough for everything that needs to happen. In our phone call today, Dr. K said that now A and R realize just how much needs to happen to get a concert off and running, and that it's not a one-person job; a team is needed. They'll have a meeting next week to try to figure out how to move forward. I'd called for an unrelated reason but had wanted to mention maybe creating a logistics team, and that's pretty much their goal.
Back to the actual playing part of the dress, we ran through the narrated piece with Dr. C so he could work a bit more on his timing. Director A was in the audience watching him, both Thursday and Saturday, to let him know if he was timing things correctly or needed to slow down or speed up. He said he'd found a YouTube video and was practicing his timing with it and that helped a lot. Hey, we do that too. He specifically mentioned listening for certain aural cues. We finished that piece with a little time left over, so we were given the choice of S&SF or Home Alone, and collectively, we chose the movie. Yeah, I'm good enough with the march! And also we only had the medley for a couple weeks; it would be nice to get one more run-through under our fingers.
We got a surprise addition to our concert, which we found out about when Dr. K emailed everyone on Friday (after we had breakfast...he didn't even mention it then): Bassoon K, who'd been out for medical reasons this fall, would be joining us with one of her bagpipe groups and they would be opening the concert. Holy cow! When we talked today, I found out it was such a last-minute addition that it barely made the paper programs, and it did not make the online program. I had so much going on last week that it didn't even occur to me as the editor that, hey, we should add this in; oh well. But to make room for them, we had to alter the front two rows of the setup to start, meshing the first row with the second row; we'd put the chairs in the right place after they finished. And, because of the directors' stand and the podium on our side of the stage, that meant flute C's chair had to move back an extra row to allow the pipers room to walk past to exit the stage. That took a little bit of arranging, especially since I got to fit in flute L's chair; she was one of the people who volunteered to usher and left for the lobby right after we finished the rehearsal. At least her cleaning rag and music were on her chair and stand, so she'd know where to sit when she came out.
Once backstage, I spotted our narrator in the hall near the back lobby. I'd hoped to say hello to him since, the day Dr. K left, I'd emailed him (his dean) and Dr. K's direct boss about the impact he'd had on me as an alum, and Dr. C sent me back a really lovely reply and I wanted to thank him for it. He was pretty much like, what a difference a year makes! He even said something related to how Dr. K had left but ultimately it wasn't necessary, what with the former president also having left; I forget how it was phrased. However, Dr. K is so happy where he is that the change was good, despite how it happened, but incredible that it was just about a year ago now. (Dr. K brought that up today, that we're just about at the year mark, and that everyone involved with the Stagg Bowl debacle last year either got fired or left. Oh, wow.) Dr. C said they're already making plans in case NCC does go to the championship again so that what happened last year isn't repeated. Good; from an alumni standpoint, it was so different compared to previous years. He concurred. He was talking about being nervous about doing the narration and having practiced and such, and I asked if he had any musical background. He said no, aside from playing the cello in the 5th grade, though he did start learning guitar over the pandemic...and there may have been some Zoom calls that got muted so he could play guitar instead, heh.
The concert itself went well. There weren't any major gaffes, thankfully; Dr. K got his head in the game and got through the beginning of the narrated piece. Oh, a couple times when he was doing his announcements, he skipped ahead a song and announced the wrong pieces, oops. And then, toward the end, our band itinerary had listed a choir-only piece, but it wasn't in the printed program, so when he got there and didn't announce it, we were like, he skipped one again...but director A went, no, they're not doing it. That jived with what we'd been told, that the choir had pulled out of all of their stand-alone pieces. That's fine.
The opening was pretty cool. The first and second rows were enmeshed, ABAB style, so I was sitting between clarinet M (male) and clarinet C. M was running through S&SF at one point and I said, trade you! For some reason he said no. I tried that with a few people and nobody took me up on that offer, rats. He also saw me finger through the runs in our Hanukkah fanfare, though vertically, and asked if I wanted him to move over so I could play through it. Realize flutes need a lot of room horizontally and our chairs basically were touching. I said no; I just needed to finger through it and it was fine. Then the pipers came out, and I have never been so close to bagpipes before. They're loud. As in, had I realized how loud they were in close proximity, I would've grabbed my earplugs. My ears were ringing a little for a bit. Still, I know that bassoon K is very into piping and plays with four different groups, so it was cool to see her doing one of her passions--and I hadn't realized she's actually the leader of that group. How cool. At one point one of the pipers walked offstage, which was odd, until eventually we realized he was doing an echo. My vision was blocked a bit since, again, I had a piper directly in front of me (his pipes had three stems coming off of them; I feel like I've mostly seen four), but eventually I spotted him up in the balcony. Ah, cool. It was neat to see them using their arms to create a bellows for their air bladders. (I am not using any sort of correct terminology, FYI.) It was pretty moving, too, probably because when we see pipes and drums, it's for a police funeral or the firefighters are performing for Memorial Day.
S&SF also went well. Now that I'd wrapped my head around having to stand, I was in the mindset of doing it from memory. Flute C had said, why not just raise your stand? Because I wouldn't be able to see the music regardless, unless I put it all the way up, and that would look dumb when flutes B and K weren't doing that. Like, let's point out to everybody that I'm the remedial player of this group. And I've been playing this piece for 30 years and have done it from memory numerous times. It's doable; I just have to prep properly for it. Getting a chance to run through it a couple times before the concert really helped, and aside from a couple blips I think it went well--and the blips weren't anything the audience would notice. And, well, now Dr. K has heard me play it; check that off the list. I got to stand as a soloist for once. That was cool.
Also, with the armed forces medley, I was keeping an eye out for his dad. I thought I'd spotted his parents in the audience but wasn't entirely sure. I'd only met them the one time. Dr. K ended up being the narrator for that piece, announcing when the different service songs were starting (Dr. T was conducting), and the guy I thought was his dad stood up when the Navy was announced. Oh...maybe that's not him. And then the Air Force theme played, and he was still standing, and I know for sure he was in that. Fast-forward to the end of the concert and I'm trying to catch Dr. K to give him a hug--it took a couple minutes--and then I go out to the main lobby to find my parents. I thought I saw Dr. K's parents on a bench against the inner wall of the lobby, where the wall curves. He popped his head out of the concert hall, looked around, and went back inside. Something told me he was looking for his parents and didn't spot them, so when I went to put my flute away and I spotted him on stage, I told him, hey, I think your parents are sitting the lobby. Yep, that was in fact them, so he did thank me for that.
As for my parents, mom realized there's a Five Guys nearby and wanted to have dinner there. Dad went, if you're paying, sure! Mom thought it was a pizza place, but it's burgers. They were tasty but greasy, and we hadn't realized that we got two patties with each burger. I requested a small fry, but we got twice as many fries as fit in the cup; the bag had a bunch of them in the bottom. They also had a Freestyle drink machine so I got a peach lemonade. Pretty good. Mom enjoyed that they had free peanuts and was snacking on those while we waited for our food. All told, it was a pretty good day and it ended up okay overall.