Mar. 21, 2009 - A Memorable Musical Adventure
As I wrote of our recent road trip I became rather long-winded. So for those with little time I will summarize it thusly:
1. Last minute band trip to an army base. 17 marches, most of them new. 4 practices and lots of practicing at home and on the van (silently).
2. Bus broke down (fortunately BEFORE it picked us up!) so we drove in 2 vans.
3. Officer’s Mess was very small. Therefore we played in the hallway! It felt like playing on a train, except with servers passing through the band periodically.
4. We clarinets did double duty as recon personnel, giving up-to-the-minute intel as to the progress of the dinner for those who couldn’t see into the dining room.
5. We were fed – the full meal! Soup, salad, main course and dessert! So yummy!
6. All the practicing paid off as we pulled off all 17 marches with reasonable precision.
7. Barracks were lovely and comfy. We had a great time after the gig relaxing and laughing at stories from band days of yore.
8. Breakfast at 0730 and back on the road to arrive home by noon.
9. It was the craziest mess dinner I’ve ever played at, but also one of the most enjoyable.
And now the long version, mostly for my own benefit because when I’m old and forgetful I will want to remember these things. It was quite a memorable weekend.
It was memorable first because we didn’t have long to plan for it. There was to be a mess dinner at a nearby army base (by “nearby” I mean a base that is a three-hour drive from ours) and their usual music couldn’t make it. So they called us. The short notice was not a big deal for us, it just meant my daughter had to switch her shift so we would be home in time to drive her to work.
It was memorable secondly because, being an army mess dinner, we would be required to play marches we are not familiar with. Because of the training nature of this base there were many regiments and branches of service represented at the dinner, which resulted in us playing a total of 17 marches – about three times the number we normally play at a dinner! It was later noted that we played more marches after dinner than music during dinner!
Because these were largely new to us, we met at noon every day this week for about half an hour to run through them. Some of us took our march books home to properly learn the more difficult pieces. All my other practicing took a back seat as I played a few of these marches over and over and over… Some of them still play themselves over and over in my head, having forever embedded themselves in my brain.
Now it’s time for a confession. I do not much care for the march portion of these dinners. While many of the marches are great tunes in their complete form, most of them are shortened considerably for the ceremonial purposes of a mess dinner. And though some of them we play frequently enough to be familiar with them, many of them we play rarely so that each time I am basically (and often literally) sight reading. The second clarinet book is not too difficult for this, but the first book resides largely in the uppermost register, a register that is both more difficult and less familiar than the other two. It means that while playing I have to concentrate on just playing the right notes in the right time and since the marches are all fairly quick, there is no time to think about playing well with good tone, etc. I try to add articulation as I am able, but on some of them if I can just get the correct notes I’m doing well. This week I did manage to learn all but one of the 17 marches. One was particularly difficult, but I mastered it! Ok, not quite mastered, but I learned it well enough to keep up and didn’t miss many of the notes. One other was not as difficult, but had one line that was odd and I had a hard time convincing my fingers to follow the notes on the page.
Now back to the memorable weekend. It began on Friday at 2 as we gathered in the band room to wait for our bus, and were informed forthwith that said bus had broken down and would not be available for our transport. After some arranging between the bandmaster and the transport unit, we were delivered 2 vans for our trip. The van I rode in turned out to be the sleeper van. So no conversation ensued, but I did enjoy the quiet respite from an incredibly hectic week.
In spite of the rocky start, we arrived at our destination on time and were met by our gracious host at the army base. We first unloaded the vans and learned that we could not completely set up because we would be playing in the hall – a hallway that the diners would be walking through before dinner. In the hall? Yes, in the hall. It was a lovely mess, but quite diminutive, and there was no room for us in the dining room. To complicate things, the guests would congregate initially in the bar – at the other end of the hallway – and at the start of the dinner they would navigate the hall, around the drum set that was as out of the way as we could make it, to the dining room. It was at this point that I realized this would be a memorable weekend, one that we would talk of to our children and grandchildren… Playing with a band in a hallway was a first for me!
With the gear unloaded and tucked as close to the walls as possible, we left for our rooms. We were to stay in barracks, which my trumpet player and experienced barrack-stayer suggested to me might have only single beds…and might be segregated. We fully expected to have our own rooms, that is one for him and a separate one for me, and were prepared that bunking together may not be possible. I suggested that it would be just like when we were dating! (No, I’m not normally one to make the best of any situation, but once in awhile I come through.) However, we were pleasantly surprised to find that while we were given our own separate rooms - and not only that, but they were in different buildings! – the rooms were not segregated, and each had a queen sized bed. To make things even more pleasant, the rooms were as nice as any hotel room I have stayed in – and a far cry nicer than many!
After changing and getting my hair up, uniform style, we met the van out front and were taken back to the mess to warm up. Only we discovered that there was nowhere to warm up where we would not be heard by those who had already gathered for the dinner. So we figured out how we would set up in the 10 foot-wide hallway, and then stood out of the way.
At this point, with nothing to do but wait, I decided to go over the one troubling line of that march that was still eluding me. I had been singing it over silently in the van on the way down, but now I could also practice the fingering, also without sound. The march books were piled by the wall, so I found the march to make sure I was remembering it right. It is quite remarkable how beneficial practicing without any sound can be!
When it was time to play “Roast Beef of Old England” (band members may now groan in unison at the thought of the repeated strains of this piece) we set our stands up in the lounge and played, standing up, facing the doorway to the hall. Since they were moving through the hallway, we could not set up there just yet. Now we’re playing…now we’re not…now we’re playing! And yes, we finally played Roast Beef but with far fewer repeats than usual.
Once they were all safely tucked away in the dining room, we brought out chairs and set up in the hallway. It couldn’t have been more than ten feet across. We sat facing the doorway of the dining room, we two clarinets in front with two trumpets behind, the saxophones behind the trumpets and the drums brought up the rear. The trombone and the bandmaster, playing the French horn, sat against the opposite wall, facing us so there would be room for the servers to walk between us. This arrangement put the trombone and the bandmaster around a bit of a corner, so they could not see into the dining room. So the capable clarinet players doubled as recon, giving up-to-the-minute intel regarding the status of the meal.
Never before have I played in a hallway. And never before have I played in a band with servers walking through the band! Equally memorable was how much those attending the meal appreciated our music. At these dinners we provide background music, occasionally eliciting some applause for a particular piece here and there. But on this evening our music was obviously enjoyed.
When the main course was served we took our usual break. Normally we are not fed dinner at these affairs, but on this occasion we were. It was especially nice to be given dinner since we hadn’t had time to eat between our arrival and the start of the dinner, but we did not expect anything more than the main course. To our surprise and delight, we were served first soup, then salad, and then the main course of roast lamb and a wonderful mix of turnip, carrots & cabbage! Following that they brought us dessert – a delicious strawberry cheese cake! A memorable meal, indeed!
After dinner comes the marches. This dinner was memorable for me because I nailed those marches! Well, ok, I didn’t nail them, but I played them better than I generally do, especially when I have the first book because this book is primarily in the third register… But I did well on this night, proving the old adage that though practice may not make perfect, it certainly makes a whole lot better! The one march that gave me so much consternation did trip me up in exactly the bar I knew it would. But because of the extensive non-playing practice I had done earlier that day, that was the only bar I really messed up. The rest was…well, passable. Unfortunately my trumpet player (whose part is very similar to mine when he plays first, which he did on half of these) also messed up the same bar of the same march. I told him afterwards that he had a lot of nerve messing up the same piece that I messed up! We really need to coordinate that better next time so at least one of us is carrying every march!
Once we were finished the marches, had received our hosts’ gracious thanks, and had packed up all our gear, we headed back to the barracks where we changed and then met, as is our custom, in one of the rooms. There we were regaled with stories from band trips past, which are always humourously entertaining and make me wonder all over again why it took us so long to join the band in the first place!
After a short and somewhat restless night (through no fault of our most comfortable bed) we met for breakfast at 7:30 and headed out of town at 9, to arrive home right on schedule at noon. As this road trip came to a close, one more memorable excursion passed into the band folder portion of my memory.
