So I have recently become two things of which I am not particularly fond: a stage parent and a hockey parent. My perfect daughter (age 8 ½) is performing the part of Molly in the local high school production of Annie starting this weekend, and my youngest (age 5) recently started in developmental hockey, and is doing a skating program over the summer. I’ve spent a lot of time since high school playing in musical pits and a bit less time playing hockey of many varieties, so it’s fun and validating to see my kids having fun doing something I really enjoy. Now, to be fair, the kids’ mom has been doing the bulk of the heavy lifting in regards to the stage performance, which has been grueling and hugely time consuming. But even with the handful of rehearsals I have seen and chauffeured for, I am getting a glimpse of things from the other side.
I’m sure a lot of people have heard stories about crazy hockey dads starting fights over pee wee games and the like. And anybody who’s played a high school musical has run into the mom (usually!) who is rabid about getting her kid the lead whether they deserve it or not. The hockey parent who harasses the coach over playing time, or inserting some esoteric scheme that will highlight their kid. The stage dad who thinks the department should do Miss Liberty because their daughter is perfect for the Countess. (Ok, seriously for just a second- find me this dad. I want to have a talk with him.)
Maybe this should be a post about my transformation, coming to an understanding of their behaviors, maybe becoming a little more tolerant of a different viewpoint on the world, but it isn’t. I haven’t run into any really rabid stage parents here, which is a good thing. I have run into some less than ideal hockey parents, the guys that bang on the glass to tell their five year old to remember what he taught them at stick time, which doesn’t begin to explain why that dad isn’t out on the ice helping mold the rest of the next generation. I’ve seen probably a half dozen kids harassed by parents into crying fits which simply does not make for an auspicious start to activities that demand a certain amount of toughness and a lot of resilience. And if you think you know which one I’m talking about, you probably haven’t done the other.
If anything, the last couple of months have reinforced my stereotypes, and made me more likely to lash out against them by being reasonable and as affable as I am capable of with coaches and directors, and by telling the hockey dads as politely and good naturedly as I can muster to buzz off when they start telling me how I should be putting out the cones. The bottom line for me is that I have enjoyed the heck out of most of the time I’ve spent playing musicals and playing hockey, and now I figure my job is to try to maximize the enjoyment my kids are getting from them by using my experiences help guide them along the way. And I’ll keep an eye on the other parents to try to get some more examples of how not to do things, and maybe, if I’m lucky, a few examples of the right way.
Showing posts with label postcards from the mothership. Show all posts
Showing posts with label postcards from the mothership. Show all posts
1.05.2010
You only love me for my trombone parts.
A few years ago, I subbed for one of the local community symphonies. I did not enjoy the gig. It was a long, hard concert, that required me to play a lot of hard, high, music. I had to borrow a small bore horn to cheat my way to the endurance necessary to get through the concert. My performance was judged (unfavorably) by a single missed high note. I thought the orchestra, as far as an orchestra can have a personality, was haughty and condescending way beyond their collective ability to perform. And then they stiffed me on compensation on a technicality.
After that wonderful experience, I got a call from their personnel director asking me to audition for the principle trombone chair. I’m sure any rational person reading this is thinking that I would jump on the chance to ignore them, but no, being an irrational, borderline psychotic “pleaser” personality, I asked for the audition list. The first thing on the list was “Ride of the Valkyrie.”
That’s it.
Now, the trombonists in the audience (and those reading who were present for this debacle, or some portion of my rants on this debacle) know that there are no fewer than two possible excerpts from Ride that are often played at auditions. The measure numbers vary by edition, but the bottom line is, there’s a B-minor section and a B-major section, both of which are obnoxious on their own merit. I’ve seen the B-major section asked for on its own: it goes that half step higher to A-sharp, and varies in dynamic marking from forte all the way up to fortissimo. Makes you hit almost the entire compass of what is expected from an orchestral tenor trombonist, except for the whole playing at levels that don’t offend the cellos thing.
There are a lot of better trombonists, better musicians than myself making commentary on the excerpt on the internet, although darned if I can find all the ones I’ve read. (Could they possibly have been in actual bound printing?) I think at my level of playing, the keys to the B-major section (beyond not lousing up the key of B!) come in two aspects of the piece. One is to not play it the way Elmer Fudd sings it: he gets more of a quarter/two sixteenths feel, but the actual marking is a dotted eighth/sixteenth/full eighth. This actually came up in the AWCB a number of years back, and I actually said that to the section: “Don’t play this the way Elmer Fudd sings it!” The second is in leaving yourself enough top end to get louder at the end without letting your tone get brassier than you (or whoever you’re playing for) likes. There are actually three dynamics in there: a fortissimo at the beginning, which cuts back to forte, back to fortissimo, then a rinforzando of the fortissimo at the end. The way to approach that depends as much on the ensemble as the trombone section, but in an audition setting, it’s up to you to make sure you’re placing yourself in a range that allows enough dynamic contrast to fit the intended effect.
This rankles me a bit, I have to admit. I know that’s what we do, we sit on the back row and passive-aggressively wait for our opportunity to remind people that we’re there, and we can play. And the trombonists I know revel in this: we’re all fans, to some degree, of Mahler and Wagner and Bruckner. Find me a trombonist that really likes Harold in Italy, and I’ll find you a violist who really wants to saw away unheard at the peak of Bruckner 8. And when was the last time you heard somebody rant about the trombones’ delicate, sensitive entrance in the last of Strauss’ Four Last Songs or some such?
But anyway, I called the personnel director and asked, “Which Valkyrie excerpt do you want?” and received several seconds of awkward silence on the phone. Then he said, “Well, if you don’t know that, maybe you’re not the right fit for the orchestra.”
I had a lot of things run through my mind at that point, but most of them aren’t fit to reprint. What I actually did was agree with him, thank him for his time, and politely decline the next three times he called to ask me to audition.
After that wonderful experience, I got a call from their personnel director asking me to audition for the principle trombone chair. I’m sure any rational person reading this is thinking that I would jump on the chance to ignore them, but no, being an irrational, borderline psychotic “pleaser” personality, I asked for the audition list. The first thing on the list was “Ride of the Valkyrie.”
That’s it.
Now, the trombonists in the audience (and those reading who were present for this debacle, or some portion of my rants on this debacle) know that there are no fewer than two possible excerpts from Ride that are often played at auditions. The measure numbers vary by edition, but the bottom line is, there’s a B-minor section and a B-major section, both of which are obnoxious on their own merit. I’ve seen the B-major section asked for on its own: it goes that half step higher to A-sharp, and varies in dynamic marking from forte all the way up to fortissimo. Makes you hit almost the entire compass of what is expected from an orchestral tenor trombonist, except for the whole playing at levels that don’t offend the cellos thing.
There are a lot of better trombonists, better musicians than myself making commentary on the excerpt on the internet, although darned if I can find all the ones I’ve read. (Could they possibly have been in actual bound printing?) I think at my level of playing, the keys to the B-major section (beyond not lousing up the key of B!) come in two aspects of the piece. One is to not play it the way Elmer Fudd sings it: he gets more of a quarter/two sixteenths feel, but the actual marking is a dotted eighth/sixteenth/full eighth. This actually came up in the AWCB a number of years back, and I actually said that to the section: “Don’t play this the way Elmer Fudd sings it!” The second is in leaving yourself enough top end to get louder at the end without letting your tone get brassier than you (or whoever you’re playing for) likes. There are actually three dynamics in there: a fortissimo at the beginning, which cuts back to forte, back to fortissimo, then a rinforzando of the fortissimo at the end. The way to approach that depends as much on the ensemble as the trombone section, but in an audition setting, it’s up to you to make sure you’re placing yourself in a range that allows enough dynamic contrast to fit the intended effect.
This rankles me a bit, I have to admit. I know that’s what we do, we sit on the back row and passive-aggressively wait for our opportunity to remind people that we’re there, and we can play. And the trombonists I know revel in this: we’re all fans, to some degree, of Mahler and Wagner and Bruckner. Find me a trombonist that really likes Harold in Italy, and I’ll find you a violist who really wants to saw away unheard at the peak of Bruckner 8. And when was the last time you heard somebody rant about the trombones’ delicate, sensitive entrance in the last of Strauss’ Four Last Songs or some such?
But anyway, I called the personnel director and asked, “Which Valkyrie excerpt do you want?” and received several seconds of awkward silence on the phone. Then he said, “Well, if you don’t know that, maybe you’re not the right fit for the orchestra.”
I had a lot of things run through my mind at that point, but most of them aren’t fit to reprint. What I actually did was agree with him, thank him for his time, and politely decline the next three times he called to ask me to audition.
12.30.2009
On the Prayer of Saint Gregory
Of the pieces I’m working on right now, Alan Hovhaness’ Prayer of St. Gregory is probably the least well known among trombonists, owing to the fact that it’s really written for solo trumpet. It started life as an “elegiac intermezzo” for the opera Etchmiadzin, although I have never seen a recording of the opera, or even Hovhaness’ 21st symphony of the same name. Arrangements exist for trumpet with orchestra, organ, and band, and recordings are plentiful (relatively speaking) for all three versions: it is more difficult to find a recording of anything by Hovhaness without the Prayer on it than with.
It is, I admit, a fairly odd choice for me to be working on, but from a musical and interpretive point of view, an exciting one. There are only a handful of markings on the page, and most of them simply follow the line: crescendo as the line goes up, decrescendo again as it comes down. The peak, both in terms of dynamic and pitch, happens on the root, which usually works out to A4. There is a lot of room to work here in terms of markings, and not a whole lot of guidance from the composer. The sheer number of recordings available means a lot of precedent is available. But this simply means it is up to the performer to make some choices!
There are some more interesting aspects to the piece on a slightly deeper level. The “solo” part accounts for a mere 50 bars out of 130, which seems to diminish its importance somewhat, turning the piece almost into an organ solo with trumpet accents. However, in the places where the soloist plays, the organ is holding chords: the solo becomes quasi cadenza, although there are once again scant indications of presupposed tempo variations. Another crucial aspect of the piece is in the resolution. While the solo lines always resolve to the A, either as the peak of a line or as the final resolution, the resolution at the end of a line is delayed half a beat, with a G on the downbeat resolving to A on the upbeat. This weakens the cadence and the resolution, and is repeated until the final statement of the solo part. In the last statement, the G is played at the end of the last figure leading to the resolution on the downbeat of the last measure: the resolution is more firm, grounded.
The solo and accompaniment parts taken together, the piece sounds like a journey to me, and works best slowly, with an eye towards introspection. The solo parts come through as a pause in travel for reflection, perhaps on some eternal question that St. Gregory might have carried with himself in his reputation for scholarship and contemplation. The answer doesn’t come, but the journey continues: resolution is delayed, and the moving lines in the accompaniment begin again as soon as the solo ends, and is given much more time than the solo. Or perhaps the message is that the journey, and the question, is more important than the answer, or the destination. But this is all reflected in the final note. There is no dynamic marking, and is not the high dynamic mark for the piece: once again, resolution is found, but the weight and importance of that resolution is left up to the performer.
It is, I admit, a fairly odd choice for me to be working on, but from a musical and interpretive point of view, an exciting one. There are only a handful of markings on the page, and most of them simply follow the line: crescendo as the line goes up, decrescendo again as it comes down. The peak, both in terms of dynamic and pitch, happens on the root, which usually works out to A4. There is a lot of room to work here in terms of markings, and not a whole lot of guidance from the composer. The sheer number of recordings available means a lot of precedent is available. But this simply means it is up to the performer to make some choices!
There are some more interesting aspects to the piece on a slightly deeper level. The “solo” part accounts for a mere 50 bars out of 130, which seems to diminish its importance somewhat, turning the piece almost into an organ solo with trumpet accents. However, in the places where the soloist plays, the organ is holding chords: the solo becomes quasi cadenza, although there are once again scant indications of presupposed tempo variations. Another crucial aspect of the piece is in the resolution. While the solo lines always resolve to the A, either as the peak of a line or as the final resolution, the resolution at the end of a line is delayed half a beat, with a G on the downbeat resolving to A on the upbeat. This weakens the cadence and the resolution, and is repeated until the final statement of the solo part. In the last statement, the G is played at the end of the last figure leading to the resolution on the downbeat of the last measure: the resolution is more firm, grounded.
The solo and accompaniment parts taken together, the piece sounds like a journey to me, and works best slowly, with an eye towards introspection. The solo parts come through as a pause in travel for reflection, perhaps on some eternal question that St. Gregory might have carried with himself in his reputation for scholarship and contemplation. The answer doesn’t come, but the journey continues: resolution is delayed, and the moving lines in the accompaniment begin again as soon as the solo ends, and is given much more time than the solo. Or perhaps the message is that the journey, and the question, is more important than the answer, or the destination. But this is all reflected in the final note. There is no dynamic marking, and is not the high dynamic mark for the piece: once again, resolution is found, but the weight and importance of that resolution is left up to the performer.
12.15.2009
Update from the mothership
So those of you who read this blog regularly (all three of you) may remember that about six weeks ago, I posted a list of goals. Those of you who don't read the blog regularly can click the link! Anyway, I've been cracking on these pretty hard the last couple of weeks, and I just knocked off a pretty solid practice session, so I thought hey, let's update the mothership goals!
1. The trombonery is actually going fairly well. I've been paying close attention to beginnings and ends of notes, and while I'm not completely happy with them, I think they're getting better. I think I could almost perform the Prayer of St. Gregory, although I would need some time with an accompanist. I think the Tuba Mirum is coming along nicely, I can play it well enough to play it for an audition for the level of ensemble I usually play for probably six out of eight times I practice. Still a little ways to go on those!
The Grondahl is coming along, but is not perfect. I still have trouble with endurance, especially with popping out the E-flat in the ossia in the third movement consistently, and with that lovely string of high Cs at the end of the piece. But if I'm careful about where in the practice session I work on them, I can get through any of the movements straight through and play most of the notes in the right place with some vague semblance of musicality. Much better than it was!
I am still having some note issues with the Ride excerpts. That's probably because of my general dislike of the excerpts; I'm just not taking them as seriously as I should be. But I've been trying to pay attention to things like accents and dynamics, so I'm making progress anyway. I've been thinking a lot about whether I like a brassy, brash tone for the B-major section, or just an oppressively large fortissimo. I've been working on trying to play it both ways, as well as trying to play it like comic relief on horseback. That's definitely an interesting mental exercise!
Bolero's a pain in the neck. I used to knock this off all the time and get ridiculed for being a showoff, and now I just can't pull it off. At least I'm having problems with the hard parts. I added some more lip slurs in the high range to try to help with the string of D-flats, and have been working slowly through the falling sixteenths to try to get that down.
2. I've gotten through Blood+ (which I really liked), Romeo x Juliet (which I also really liked) and the first Evangelion movie (which I thought was not as good as the tv show, which I didn't really like in the first place). I've started His and Her Circumstances which is fantastic and a complete surprise for a Gainax show, and Spice and Wolf, which I am really liking. Victory on the sitting around watching cartoons front!
3. I've cleaned most of the mothership, but have not yet ventured into the hold. Still some work to do there!
4. I haven't even started FFVIII yet, but I've been working on Half-Life 2. Does that count for anything?
1. The trombonery is actually going fairly well. I've been paying close attention to beginnings and ends of notes, and while I'm not completely happy with them, I think they're getting better. I think I could almost perform the Prayer of St. Gregory, although I would need some time with an accompanist. I think the Tuba Mirum is coming along nicely, I can play it well enough to play it for an audition for the level of ensemble I usually play for probably six out of eight times I practice. Still a little ways to go on those!
The Grondahl is coming along, but is not perfect. I still have trouble with endurance, especially with popping out the E-flat in the ossia in the third movement consistently, and with that lovely string of high Cs at the end of the piece. But if I'm careful about where in the practice session I work on them, I can get through any of the movements straight through and play most of the notes in the right place with some vague semblance of musicality. Much better than it was!
I am still having some note issues with the Ride excerpts. That's probably because of my general dislike of the excerpts; I'm just not taking them as seriously as I should be. But I've been trying to pay attention to things like accents and dynamics, so I'm making progress anyway. I've been thinking a lot about whether I like a brassy, brash tone for the B-major section, or just an oppressively large fortissimo. I've been working on trying to play it both ways, as well as trying to play it like comic relief on horseback. That's definitely an interesting mental exercise!
Bolero's a pain in the neck. I used to knock this off all the time and get ridiculed for being a showoff, and now I just can't pull it off. At least I'm having problems with the hard parts. I added some more lip slurs in the high range to try to help with the string of D-flats, and have been working slowly through the falling sixteenths to try to get that down.
2. I've gotten through Blood+ (which I really liked), Romeo x Juliet (which I also really liked) and the first Evangelion movie (which I thought was not as good as the tv show, which I didn't really like in the first place). I've started His and Her Circumstances which is fantastic and a complete surprise for a Gainax show, and Spice and Wolf, which I am really liking. Victory on the sitting around watching cartoons front!
3. I've cleaned most of the mothership, but have not yet ventured into the hold. Still some work to do there!
4. I haven't even started FFVIII yet, but I've been working on Half-Life 2. Does that count for anything?
11.03.2009
Greetings from the mothership: a partial manifesto
This one technician who formerly worked for me used to joke that I would end up in my basement writing a manifesto someday. Well, I'm in the attic, but otherwise, here we are!
So I'm on the mothership. It's nice here, except somewhat filthier than I had imagined, a little more Vogon than Federation of Planets. But I'll get to that. We get pudding every now and then, if we're good, and colon scrubs from the head reptoid if we're bad. (I don't like the head reptoid, but don't tell, because I like the colon scrubs less!) And we've got wifi, which is pretty cool, although I'm not completely sure that the wifi isn't also some sort of mind control. I mean, you've got to have a pretty serious business router to get any sort of decent connection from low orbit, but that thing looks like it could double as a thoroughly impractical troop carrying tank like thing.
Anyway, I have a few things I want to accomplish while I'm here, and I was thinking, hey! I ought to blog about some of them! In public even! So, here's the list of things I want to do that might actually end up on this blog, although I do not guarantee that they will.
1. Prepare the Grondahl Concerto for Trombone, Hovhaness Prayer of St. Gregory, and excerpts from Bolero and Ride of the Valkyie as if I've got an audition coming up. Expect ruminations on these. I know, everybody plays the Grondahl, and yes, I'm thinking about Bolero because I'm a showoff, but there actually have been auditions for community-level groups around here that asked for Ride and Bolero, so it's practical.
2. Chew through some of my anime backlog. I've got a ton of dvds sitting around wondering why I don't love them anymore. And since I've been reduced to my cd and dvd collection by some people (cough) I might as well deserve it, right? Expect some driveby reviews.
3. Clean the mothership from stem to stern, from keel to topsail. With fire, as necessary.
4. Start, and maybe finish, Final Fantasy VIII. And beat that lousy bastard in the undersea research complex.
There are some other, broader, more important goals, but I think those are the ones I'm likely to talk about here. So without further ado... I'm going to go do something.
See you next time the reptoids aren't looking!
So I'm on the mothership. It's nice here, except somewhat filthier than I had imagined, a little more Vogon than Federation of Planets. But I'll get to that. We get pudding every now and then, if we're good, and colon scrubs from the head reptoid if we're bad. (I don't like the head reptoid, but don't tell, because I like the colon scrubs less!) And we've got wifi, which is pretty cool, although I'm not completely sure that the wifi isn't also some sort of mind control. I mean, you've got to have a pretty serious business router to get any sort of decent connection from low orbit, but that thing looks like it could double as a thoroughly impractical troop carrying tank like thing.
Anyway, I have a few things I want to accomplish while I'm here, and I was thinking, hey! I ought to blog about some of them! In public even! So, here's the list of things I want to do that might actually end up on this blog, although I do not guarantee that they will.
1. Prepare the Grondahl Concerto for Trombone, Hovhaness Prayer of St. Gregory, and excerpts from Bolero and Ride of the Valkyie as if I've got an audition coming up. Expect ruminations on these. I know, everybody plays the Grondahl, and yes, I'm thinking about Bolero because I'm a showoff, but there actually have been auditions for community-level groups around here that asked for Ride and Bolero, so it's practical.
2. Chew through some of my anime backlog. I've got a ton of dvds sitting around wondering why I don't love them anymore. And since I've been reduced to my cd and dvd collection by some people (cough) I might as well deserve it, right? Expect some driveby reviews.
3. Clean the mothership from stem to stern, from keel to topsail. With fire, as necessary.
4. Start, and maybe finish, Final Fantasy VIII. And beat that lousy bastard in the undersea research complex.
There are some other, broader, more important goals, but I think those are the ones I'm likely to talk about here. So without further ado... I'm going to go do something.
See you next time the reptoids aren't looking!
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