new york elaboration and tuba titan details
We were expecting 300 tubas, we got 42. A little dissapointing.
We were expecting a real music director, we got an old, angry, forgetful dolt who kept telling us we sounded great and we exceeded his expectations. I think we sounded like ass, and we didn't even get close to touching any of my expectations.
Rehearsals were chaotic, none of the tuba players knew what any of the director instructions meant, it was like we were speaking a different language. Nobody knew what the drum major's commands meant.
We rehearsed doing rediculous countermarches, and parade rests for hours, neither of which we did once out of rehearsal.
We were told we were going to have a special performance on the today show the day before Thanksgiving, we were lied to. Aparently Macy's didn't want their band revealing their somgs before the parade, you know, since they were goiong to be doing a show in the parade the day of Thanksgiving and all.
It was 40 degrees and raining the day of the parade. We had to wear ponchos for half the parade.
After marching through Herald square, the band did not stop marching, we were instructed to march into a single file line and march through traffic and pedestrians, two of which I had a conversation with while marching. They were suprised to say the least.
We rehearsed a show we were supposed to perform on NBC Thanksgiving Day. We rehearsed it for hours the first day of rehearsal, to find out it wouldn't work, and we had to RE-learn it the next day. After relearning it, and rehearsing it to the point of exaustion, and doing a dress rehearsal in front of NBC cameras at 4:30 in the morning eastern time, we marched up to Herald Square on Thanksgiving, and are told they are short on time and we cannnot perform. Therefore making us the ONLY band in the parade deprived of our assigned time space on the air. After all, America would rather see a large groups of horses for 90 seconds than a band of 42 tubas and 70 odd other musicans and colorguard, right?
After turning the corner after Herald Square where we were supposed to perform, the band marched by a building where the live broadcast of the parade was playing on a large screen on the side of the building. On that screen, was a high school band from Arkansas doing their performance. The band form Arkansas that was directly behind us in the parade. As if we weren't already pretty dissapointed, we had to watch them do their amazing show.
Just to top it all off. After the parade, transportation was not arranged to take us back to the hotel, so the few lucky people who didn't have their metro cards, got to walk back to the hotel...all 20 blocks. And that's what the group of about 6 of us did. Without directions or chaperones.and then
Hey Fran & Joe--
>>
>> Thanks for your note ... it was certainly our pleasure to have the
>> group in
>> the parade... totally fun! I'm sorry about the television time --
>> but your
>> guess is exactly right. We had about 25 minutes to go and Santa was
>> still
>> up in the 50s and NBC started to panic. In an effort not to cut
>> anyone
>> completely, there were many performances (celebrities included) that
>> were
>> cut short or got less copy than planned, etc. It was a crazy day
for
>> them
>> in the NBC truck because of the weather.
>>
>> I'm sorry it touched you guys, but I'm thankful we were at least
able
>> to
>> snag some camera time... live events are live events as you both
know
>> for
>> sure and events in the wet and cold are even more interesting. I
>> don't
>> want to live through one of those again for a long while...
>>
>> I'll ask about the extra footage, but because it's a 'live'
>> broadcast, I'm
>> pretty sure all the rehearsal footage is long gone at this point.
>> All we
>> ever get is a final copy of the telecast in BETA format months after
>> the
>> Parade. They're pretty protective of what they get on camera...
even
>> from
>> us. Hope it doesn't cause you too much grief from the parents....
>>
>> Thanks again to both of you for all your efforts in making the Tuba
>> Titans
>> such a cool and unique group.
>> Have a great holiday season and rest up :) I'll try to do the same.
>>
>> regards,
>> wesleyi blame santa clause, barry malone, and bruce woods (just because he was a jerk the whole trip and assumed since there was guys in my room it meant we were definatley having sex.)