I Volunteer for This?

Last night, I survived my first summer band rehearsal of the season (it's The Greco Band, should you care to explore the link in the sidebar). This band is a hodge-podge mix of people from the community, at least 70 of them at varying levels of musical ability. The key players sit first chair, but from second chair down, it's any body's guess. I sit second, but sometimes I think I should sit last given my apparent inability to count swing rhythms.

I have read Peahen's descriptions of her community band--they have a CD, they wear snappy jackets, they play well--we are none of those things. We are a big bunch of sweaty, noisy, obnoxious musicians. We are the ones you hope don't embarrass you at family gatherings. We are the ones you cross the street to avoid having to greet. We are the ones you seat at the back table so the mess we make doesn't disturb your other guests. And after we leave, you have to employ a team of industrial workers to clean up the crumbs and spilled beer.

I volunteer for this band every summer--only God knows why, but I love every minute of it. At last night's rehearsal, the trumpets played triple forte with every note right or wrong, the percussionists lost half the music, the conductor directed more like a creature with wings and less like a human with one arm that is meant to clearly provide a down beat, and I sat in the middle of it all with a big, fat smile on my face.

Here's a joke from the mechanic who plays trombone. When the conductor was trying to work through a piece, he said something like "there are two kinds of transitions." And the trombone player says, "There's automatic and there's manual." ka ching.

To finish the evening, we played Stars and Stripes Forever (by the way, this song serves well when someone is saying something you don't want to hear--cover your ears and hum it until they stop talking). My stand partner turned the music upside down, and we played it through, nearly perfect.

Yep, that's my band. That's what I volunteer for every summer.