Concert #3: Howdy, partner
Welcome to summer. In Chicago this year, that means lots of rain and temps in the 60s. Unfortunately, when you have a concert in these sorts of conditions, things do not bode well. But we soldier on.
Wednesday evening was on the cool side, but it was dry so we were able to have the big door open for our practice. This was the first assistant director's concert, and he always has extra groups or soloists or special guests. To wit, both the sax quartet and double reed ensemble would be playing, plus we'd have a couple soloists. I found out we'd have two guests for the concert when AD1 called me over and said I'd be sharing my stand with one of them. I recognized the couple; they're friends of his from Texas, who had been sort of our point people for our trip to San Antonio a few years back. I think they're both band directors and I know the wife had conducted a piece with us, which we'd just done with AD2 last week. (I happen to mark my music with when it's performed and if something special had happened with it, which is how I knew that offhand.) I think the husband plays trombone and sat back there.
The rehearsal didn't have anything major happen, though it did run long; it was close to 9:30 when I got in my car. There were a few notable moments, though. First, our flute section leader is back after her most recent surgery (knee). I hadn't had a good chance to work on the band setup, in part because the two extra groups were rehearsing in our area, so she ended up sitting in the end chair in the front row. However, this was not far enough out, but given her situation, she wasn't about to move. I ended up bringing an extra chair out, thinking it was needed in the front row, but while the double reeds were rehearsing, I couldn't put the chair by them and set it next to the flutes. The section leader then used it for her stuff, and once the double reeds finished, I went to grab the chair to put it on that end...and found out we'd only have one oboe player this concert, not two. The chair wasn't necessary after all. Oh well. Speaking of chairs, my contrabass clarinet friend came back with his chair blocks, and they're super-fancy now. His dad must be a woodworker of sorts because he now has four blocks of wood with, like, trim and stuff, and they're all connected with rope, likely for ease of carrying and to help in case the chair shifts. It sort of makes him look like he's up on a throne, but they're pretty cool, to be honest. I then joked, watch, now the band will put in for new chairs and replace all of them. I'm pretty sure he went pale at that thought. Dude, I'm kidding. And the amusing moment--this young guy in a white car was driving through the adjacent parking lot while we practiced. He had his driver's door wide open and was slowly crawling along and basically headbanging or otherwise getting *really* into it. Hilarious, because we weren't playing a hard-driving number at the time. Well, whatever, thanks for listening!
Thursday...was not great. It rained hard enough on my way to work that I got to use the little back windshield wiper on the Juke, and I was concerned that the notorious intersection by work would be flooded. Since this isn't my car, I decided to take no chances and used an alternate route, only to discover the intersection was fine. Oh well. But it rained steadily, and on the heavy side, for much of the day. ...This does not bode well. And then, of course, I ended up running home to get my car. My mom was all, oh, you should stay home! Uh, no! I have a concert to play, and I'd brought home a couple songs to copy them (we'd gotten a different arrangements of one of the soloist songs we were playing, plus one piece we hadn't had at all) and, at the very least, my stand guest would need them. It was cloudy and cool when I got there but wasn't raining...yet. My stand partner had gotten one of our shirts, and she'd brought along a jacket in case she needed it, which she did. It was warm in the band room prior to the concert, but shortly before the door opened we put our warm clothes on (I'd had on a cami for work and kept it on under my band shirt, figuring I'd need it) and we were glad we did. It was that chilly outside. And it's the first day of summer. HA!
When the door did open, there were in fact people sitting out there, but not many. I estimated there to be about 200, which was confirmed when we did the raffle and they said they'd toss any number over 250. That part was funny--the grandson, I believe, of our publicity person picks the numbers, and if he picked a high number, he'd immediately pick another one. But he picked SO many high numbers that he got told, you know, just look in the box and find a low number. We don't know who has what program; it doesn't matter. The highest number he picked was 202, which got claimed, so we handed out at least that many programs. The lowest was 6, which is supremely low. After the four regular raffle prizes were handed out, this week's sponsor had a special extra gift for anyone with a program ending in 00, like 100, 200, etc. Had the weather been nicer, we'd have been able to go higher than that; they'd had enough for ten people to win, but that wasn't going to happen. Partway through, we could see a portion of the audience putting up umbrellas, but not everyone; a bit later, a bunch more opened up. That happened to be during the memorial song to the bassoon player who recently passed away, so to me it seemed fitting, actually, like the sky was crying in her memory.
One song in, our emcee introduced our two guests. I realized what was happening and touched my stand partner's arm, telling her, prepare to stand up! She was not thrilled and was like, no, no, no...but she stood up (really briefly) and was glad to get back to playing. While we were complaining about the weather, she thought it was refreshing--they're from El Paso, where it was 107F. She'll gladly take the 60s! Heh. And, we talked a bit about the bugs, especially how rainy weather seems to bring out the mosquitoes, and I mentioned that I wear a bug band. She was not familiar with them at all, so I lifted my pant leg to show her the band around my ankle. She was pretty impressed by that. She did say that she tends to be a bug magnet, and the Eb clarinet player and I said that we are, too, and the Eb player likes that I wear said band because she reaps the benefits. :)
One of our soloists, who went earlier in the concert, did the jazzy nocturnal song that had the "snore" typo in it. After that was the encore, where the sax quartet came out and did a piece...and then promptly did a second piece, "That's All Folks," which none of us expected. ...Which is why we *really* didn't expect it when the entire trombone section then stood up and played it right back to them. Holy cow. Well, that was amusing. The regular song they'd done was the Pink Panther theme, and when we came in on Wednesday, we all had these little slips of paper with the top part of the alto sax music on our stands. Uh...what? Well, the alto snaps at the beginning, and the rest of the band was entrusted with snapping along. Aha. We can do that. A different surprise came after the first or second song--possibly when my stand partner and her husband were introduced--when one of the band members walked off the stage and started walking through the park. What's up with that? Is everything all right? He just kept walking, and I followed his path. He made his way to a car in the parking lot that had backed into a space and was facing us--headlights on. The lights must have been shining right at the euphoniums, hence the walk. The guy started walking back to band, but he'd only gotten a few yards away when he turned around and went back; the lights were still on. I'm guessing whoever was in the car must have had the car on, and it must be one where the lights are permanently on. The car ended up driving away. Wow. Well, you know, it's something you need to realize. And then when my stand partner and I were watching the whole thing, we realized how annoying that must be, because we ended up staring at the car and then had the light image burned into our eyes for a couple minutes. It's kinda hard to read your music when that happens. The other thing I'd noticed had to do with the Eb player. She'd run into a former student before the concert, and he was with an unfamiliar boy. She felt bad for not knowing who he was, if he'd been a student at the school. The student commented something like, I hope it doesn't rain and ruin date night! The Eb player...was not aware of the situation and felt kind of honored to be let in on that, but also was like, am I the last to know? Hmm. She told the story prior to the door opening, and when it opened and I saw two teenage boys sitting in the front row, and eventually holding hands, I asked if that was her student and his date; she said yes. They were cute together. At one point after some of the umbrellas opened up, they got up and left; oh no, their night did get ruined! But they had just gone to the bake sale and came back a few minutes later with plates of goodies. It was only when the rain really started coming down that they got up for good. The other audience member I noticed was the contrabass player's mom--when she and her husband got up after the concert ended, she was using a walker. Oh, gosh, what's going on with your mom? She's having her own knee issues, and he said she normally uses two canes, but given the weather she wanted the stability of the walker that night. Oh, okay. Sorry to hear about that.
One last song note--the full band did a song from the original Pink Panther movie, and being a Mancini tune it's got a fair amount of syncopation. Most of it is in a pattern that's easy to figure out and get into a groove with, but there was a two-measure segment that was not like anything else. It's also in cut time, which further throws things off. I know I'd worked on that while practicing last week, and I made sure to count it, and even write in the counting, during the rehearsal--it didn't seem like a lot of people were getting it and were just not playing. Sure enough, we get to the concert, and I swear, it sounded like I was the only person playing the lick until we hit the long tone at the end. Well, cool, guess I got a solo in this concert.
Finally, I checked my email this morning and had a note from someone in the clarinet section. The subject was something like, guess who's in the TV ad? She had forwarded an email from the local cable access channel, and there in the advertising for the summer programming was my picture of all things. I'm locally famous! Heh. I thanked her for passing it along. I needed a laugh this morning and that sufficed.
Wednesday evening was on the cool side, but it was dry so we were able to have the big door open for our practice. This was the first assistant director's concert, and he always has extra groups or soloists or special guests. To wit, both the sax quartet and double reed ensemble would be playing, plus we'd have a couple soloists. I found out we'd have two guests for the concert when AD1 called me over and said I'd be sharing my stand with one of them. I recognized the couple; they're friends of his from Texas, who had been sort of our point people for our trip to San Antonio a few years back. I think they're both band directors and I know the wife had conducted a piece with us, which we'd just done with AD2 last week. (I happen to mark my music with when it's performed and if something special had happened with it, which is how I knew that offhand.) I think the husband plays trombone and sat back there.
The rehearsal didn't have anything major happen, though it did run long; it was close to 9:30 when I got in my car. There were a few notable moments, though. First, our flute section leader is back after her most recent surgery (knee). I hadn't had a good chance to work on the band setup, in part because the two extra groups were rehearsing in our area, so she ended up sitting in the end chair in the front row. However, this was not far enough out, but given her situation, she wasn't about to move. I ended up bringing an extra chair out, thinking it was needed in the front row, but while the double reeds were rehearsing, I couldn't put the chair by them and set it next to the flutes. The section leader then used it for her stuff, and once the double reeds finished, I went to grab the chair to put it on that end...and found out we'd only have one oboe player this concert, not two. The chair wasn't necessary after all. Oh well. Speaking of chairs, my contrabass clarinet friend came back with his chair blocks, and they're super-fancy now. His dad must be a woodworker of sorts because he now has four blocks of wood with, like, trim and stuff, and they're all connected with rope, likely for ease of carrying and to help in case the chair shifts. It sort of makes him look like he's up on a throne, but they're pretty cool, to be honest. I then joked, watch, now the band will put in for new chairs and replace all of them. I'm pretty sure he went pale at that thought. Dude, I'm kidding. And the amusing moment--this young guy in a white car was driving through the adjacent parking lot while we practiced. He had his driver's door wide open and was slowly crawling along and basically headbanging or otherwise getting *really* into it. Hilarious, because we weren't playing a hard-driving number at the time. Well, whatever, thanks for listening!
Thursday...was not great. It rained hard enough on my way to work that I got to use the little back windshield wiper on the Juke, and I was concerned that the notorious intersection by work would be flooded. Since this isn't my car, I decided to take no chances and used an alternate route, only to discover the intersection was fine. Oh well. But it rained steadily, and on the heavy side, for much of the day. ...This does not bode well. And then, of course, I ended up running home to get my car. My mom was all, oh, you should stay home! Uh, no! I have a concert to play, and I'd brought home a couple songs to copy them (we'd gotten a different arrangements of one of the soloist songs we were playing, plus one piece we hadn't had at all) and, at the very least, my stand guest would need them. It was cloudy and cool when I got there but wasn't raining...yet. My stand partner had gotten one of our shirts, and she'd brought along a jacket in case she needed it, which she did. It was warm in the band room prior to the concert, but shortly before the door opened we put our warm clothes on (I'd had on a cami for work and kept it on under my band shirt, figuring I'd need it) and we were glad we did. It was that chilly outside. And it's the first day of summer. HA!
When the door did open, there were in fact people sitting out there, but not many. I estimated there to be about 200, which was confirmed when we did the raffle and they said they'd toss any number over 250. That part was funny--the grandson, I believe, of our publicity person picks the numbers, and if he picked a high number, he'd immediately pick another one. But he picked SO many high numbers that he got told, you know, just look in the box and find a low number. We don't know who has what program; it doesn't matter. The highest number he picked was 202, which got claimed, so we handed out at least that many programs. The lowest was 6, which is supremely low. After the four regular raffle prizes were handed out, this week's sponsor had a special extra gift for anyone with a program ending in 00, like 100, 200, etc. Had the weather been nicer, we'd have been able to go higher than that; they'd had enough for ten people to win, but that wasn't going to happen. Partway through, we could see a portion of the audience putting up umbrellas, but not everyone; a bit later, a bunch more opened up. That happened to be during the memorial song to the bassoon player who recently passed away, so to me it seemed fitting, actually, like the sky was crying in her memory.
One song in, our emcee introduced our two guests. I realized what was happening and touched my stand partner's arm, telling her, prepare to stand up! She was not thrilled and was like, no, no, no...but she stood up (really briefly) and was glad to get back to playing. While we were complaining about the weather, she thought it was refreshing--they're from El Paso, where it was 107F. She'll gladly take the 60s! Heh. And, we talked a bit about the bugs, especially how rainy weather seems to bring out the mosquitoes, and I mentioned that I wear a bug band. She was not familiar with them at all, so I lifted my pant leg to show her the band around my ankle. She was pretty impressed by that. She did say that she tends to be a bug magnet, and the Eb clarinet player and I said that we are, too, and the Eb player likes that I wear said band because she reaps the benefits. :)
One of our soloists, who went earlier in the concert, did the jazzy nocturnal song that had the "snore" typo in it. After that was the encore, where the sax quartet came out and did a piece...and then promptly did a second piece, "That's All Folks," which none of us expected. ...Which is why we *really* didn't expect it when the entire trombone section then stood up and played it right back to them. Holy cow. Well, that was amusing. The regular song they'd done was the Pink Panther theme, and when we came in on Wednesday, we all had these little slips of paper with the top part of the alto sax music on our stands. Uh...what? Well, the alto snaps at the beginning, and the rest of the band was entrusted with snapping along. Aha. We can do that. A different surprise came after the first or second song--possibly when my stand partner and her husband were introduced--when one of the band members walked off the stage and started walking through the park. What's up with that? Is everything all right? He just kept walking, and I followed his path. He made his way to a car in the parking lot that had backed into a space and was facing us--headlights on. The lights must have been shining right at the euphoniums, hence the walk. The guy started walking back to band, but he'd only gotten a few yards away when he turned around and went back; the lights were still on. I'm guessing whoever was in the car must have had the car on, and it must be one where the lights are permanently on. The car ended up driving away. Wow. Well, you know, it's something you need to realize. And then when my stand partner and I were watching the whole thing, we realized how annoying that must be, because we ended up staring at the car and then had the light image burned into our eyes for a couple minutes. It's kinda hard to read your music when that happens. The other thing I'd noticed had to do with the Eb player. She'd run into a former student before the concert, and he was with an unfamiliar boy. She felt bad for not knowing who he was, if he'd been a student at the school. The student commented something like, I hope it doesn't rain and ruin date night! The Eb player...was not aware of the situation and felt kind of honored to be let in on that, but also was like, am I the last to know? Hmm. She told the story prior to the door opening, and when it opened and I saw two teenage boys sitting in the front row, and eventually holding hands, I asked if that was her student and his date; she said yes. They were cute together. At one point after some of the umbrellas opened up, they got up and left; oh no, their night did get ruined! But they had just gone to the bake sale and came back a few minutes later with plates of goodies. It was only when the rain really started coming down that they got up for good. The other audience member I noticed was the contrabass player's mom--when she and her husband got up after the concert ended, she was using a walker. Oh, gosh, what's going on with your mom? She's having her own knee issues, and he said she normally uses two canes, but given the weather she wanted the stability of the walker that night. Oh, okay. Sorry to hear about that.
One last song note--the full band did a song from the original Pink Panther movie, and being a Mancini tune it's got a fair amount of syncopation. Most of it is in a pattern that's easy to figure out and get into a groove with, but there was a two-measure segment that was not like anything else. It's also in cut time, which further throws things off. I know I'd worked on that while practicing last week, and I made sure to count it, and even write in the counting, during the rehearsal--it didn't seem like a lot of people were getting it and were just not playing. Sure enough, we get to the concert, and I swear, it sounded like I was the only person playing the lick until we hit the long tone at the end. Well, cool, guess I got a solo in this concert.
Finally, I checked my email this morning and had a note from someone in the clarinet section. The subject was something like, guess who's in the TV ad? She had forwarded an email from the local cable access channel, and there in the advertising for the summer programming was my picture of all things. I'm locally famous! Heh. I thanked her for passing it along. I needed a laugh this morning and that sufficed.