Adventures in Student Teaching no. 543
A friend of mine from my student teacher training program at DePaul once told me a painfully funny (to me, at least) story from his middle school student teaching days:
A bassoonist by trade, this student teacher had been assigned to strong music program in a very posh Chicago suburb. The first week he was “on the job,” his mentor teacher asked him to demonstrate for new band recruits… on the tuba!
It didn’t matter that this student teacher (bassoonist, remember) couldn’t actually play the tuba–the regular teacher decided that it would be a good experience for him. Yikes!
Anyway, he muscled up and gave it the old college try, hacking through what must have been a few entertaining blats and plops of sound.
After he finished, the mentor teacher sidled up to him and, whispering in his ear in a very serious tone, said “You know, that wasn’t very good at all.”
Duh! Gotta love humiliation in music. We’re all one wrong move away from making a complete fool of ourselves in this business anyway, but still, why pile on the pain like that?
The errant percussionist
I can’t seem to keep from getting stuck playing percussion in the most random of situations.
And I’m bad at it!
As a non-percussionist, you might think that something as “simple” as whacking a drum or banging a chime is trivial (percussionists don’t think this, of course, but those violinists and violists furiously sawing away on passages of mind-numbing difficulty might think otherwise). However, I quickly discovered, after being tasked with playing gong or bass drum on a number or two, that while playing bass on a piece is akin to sending the audience subliminal messages, playing a percussion instrument is more like standing on top of a building with a megaphone and screaming into the street. Not subtle, and all eyes are on you.
I was hired to play with a quite prestigious new music ensemble (no names–I don’t want their grow popping up on Google with this story tied to it). I tend to really enjoy playing new music, and no more so than with this group. They were musically tight and picked driving and exciting repertoire. Not a lot of slow-moving 45 minute soundscapes for them–they played groovy stuff by modern composers and had quite a following.
Anyway, one of the pieces I was playing, in addition to being one of the most technically challenging things I’d ever attempted, required me to play… chimes! And I wasn’t just covering the chime part for a missing percussionist–the composer actually specified that the bass player (for who knows what reason) also play the chimes. In fact, the chime part was written as part of the bass part!
To make matters worse, the composer had written the chime part in this very rhythmically complex way, requiring me to almost never actually play on a beat, but usually on the third triplet or fourth sixteenth note of a bar… and almost nothing else was happening. Also, there was very little time for me to put my bow down and move over to the chimes to play this part.
After getting the part in the mail a few weeks before the first rehearsal, I called the conductor up, trying to clarify why a percussion part was “accidentally” written into the bass part, I found out that not only would I in fact be playing the chimes, but that I had to go pick up said chimes from Leroy’s house over on the wrong side of the tracks. I did so on my way to the first rehearsal, trying to figure out how to fit all that chime paraphernalia in with my bass and stool.
After getting set up at the rehearsal hall, I plotted a course from bass to chime, making sure that I would be able to play my bass, dong those chimes, and see the conductor the whole time. I quickly learned just how hard it was to control how loudly or softly a chime rings. When my first chime moment came, I tried to get all suave with it, just grazing the chime and making some sort of beautiful pianissimo sound. No dice–
the conductor look up at me quizzically, not hearing the note at all. I resolved to make the next one louder and ended up making this startlingly huge sound, causing much laughter among my colleagues and more than a little embarrassment for myself.
After the “real” percussionist on the gig bemusedly gave me a miniature master class on chime technique, and did a little better on subsequent rehearsals, though I still had the sense that all eyes were on me and that every little thing I did came out much clearer than to which I was accustomed.
Though that was certainly my biggest moment as a percussionist, it wasn’t the last time I would be called upon to play something back in the world of mallets and drums. Each time, it feels like epic failure followed by a little improvement and ending up as a thoroughly mediocre experience. Nothing like trying to actually play some percussion in a concert setting to giver you a whole new respect for the art of the drum, mallet, and chime!
Please Leave! – gig story from Greg Surratt
The submission date has now passed for the gig story raffle for the Upton bass pickup, and we’ve gotten a bunch of great gig stories as a result! I’ll put the remaining ones out this week and announce a winner (picked randomly from the stories entered) at the end of the week. This is the first of many Upton pickup raffles, so if you missed the entry date for the last one you can hop on board for next month’s raffle (not gig stories next month… I’ll let you know the new raffle topic soon).
Today’s gig story comes from double bassist Greg Surratt:
While loading my gear in, I randomly invited two UGA college girls to the gig. They said they might come. Cool. The gig was in the upstairs of a downtown wing bar in Athens, GA. We showed up to discover the room was packed with students at a beer tasting event. This particular venue was notorious for cover bands, which suited us fine because we were armed to the teeth with classic rock, country, funk, and a violinist from the The Russian Conservatory. Yes, we played “Devil Went Down to Georgia”.
The conditions were perfect and oh were we ready to rock some rowdy fratboys. What happened next was astonishing. People starting leaving. And leaving in droves. We jumped on stage to stop the hemorrhaging. It didn’t help. By the end of the first set, there was no one in the bar…except the two girls I invited. When the singer announced that we were going to be taking a break, the girls started clapping and left. At least we still got paid, both in free beer and money.
Welcome to Canada – gig story from Steve Pinkston
The submission date has now passed for the gig story raffle for the Upton bass pickup, and we’ve gotten a bunch of great gig stories as a result! I’ll put the remaining ones out this week and announce a winner (picked randomly from the stories entered) at the end of the week. This is the first of many Upton pickup raffles, so if you missed the entry date for the last one you can hop on board for next month’s raffle (not gig stories next month… I’ll let you know the new raffle topic soon).
Today’s gig story comes from double bassist Steve Pinkston:
In the mid-1970s, I was the bassist with a touring band that was backing up a Vegas-style singer on the hotel/nightclub circuit. Robert Kory was pleasant, always paid us on time, and had a lovely baritone voice. However, Robert was not exactly the brightest fellow I’d ever worked for. As an example, he billed himself as “Robert Kory, the Singing Baritone.” He couldn’t understand why I giggled whenever he uttered that bit of tautology.
At that time, American bands had to post a bond when they crossed into Canada to work. The amount of the bond was equal to one-third the retail value of all of your music equipment when it was new. This applied to all equipment not manufactured in Canada, and supposedly was to ensure that we would not sell our filthy American gear in Canada (My Canadian-made Traynor bass amp was exempt). As you can imagine, this created quite a hardship for many touring entertainers, and you generally had to pre-arrange the bond with a Canadian bondsman before you got to the border.
We were just wrapping up an engagement in Idaho Falls, and our next venue was a two-week stint in Lethbridge, Alberta. I had heard from other touring musicians that there was one remote border crossing called “Kingsgate” where the guards—all long-haired music fans—were sympathetic about the bond problem to the point that they would let American bands cross without the bond. The only problem was, this crossing was nearly 300 miles out of our way. I managed to convince Robert and the other guys to take a chance and give it a try.
We got to the Kingsgate crossing in our three separate cars about 6:00 in the evening. Sure enough, here were a couple of Canadian hippies in their official uniforms. They seemed really happy to see us. “Hey now! An American band, eh? Come on in and have some coffee, eh?” We started chatting with them, while Robert started filling out the considerable pile of paperwork involved in allowing us to work in Canada.
“Hey, you know we’re supposed to have you guys put up a bond on your instruments and stuff, eh?” None of us said anything, but shot nervous glances at each other. We didn’t have a back-up plan. The hippie guard went on, “But we think that’s a bunch of political baloney from those hosers over in Ottawa, eh? We never make the Yank bands do that; just don’t spread it around, eh?” We silently relaxed, and went on chatting with the guards, letting them play with our instruments and listening to their self-deprecating, eh-punctuated jokes. Robert kept on filling out the immigration and work-visa forms for all of us.
After about an hour, all of the forms were filled out. The head hippie-guard said, “OK, then, all we need now is to see everybody’s ID, and you can get on to your ‘gig,’ eh?” We all pulled out our driver’s licenses and started showing them to him. Everything went smoothly until he got to Robert. The guard looked at Robert, looked at his ID, looked at him again, looked at his ID again, and said, “So… who the hell is Riley P. Farkas?”
Robert smiled in that sweet, clueless way we had seen many times before, and replied in his lovely singing-baritone voice, “Well, Riley P. Farkas is my legal name. Robert Kory is my stage name. See, it’s printed on all of these 8×10 publicity pictures. Would you like one?” Our Canadian pals suddenly were not so friendly anymore. The head hippie-guard said, with barely controlled rage (an emotion you don’t see too often in Canadians), “You stupid damn Yank! You wrote your damn stage name on all these official papers, eh? What do they teach you in school down there?” Then he grabbed the inch-thick pile of official papers—all duly signed by the fictitious ‘Robert Kory’—and tore them in half. “OK, start over; and this time, mister FARK-ASS, put down your real, legal, honest-to-God, stupid Yank name, eh? Oh, and you better see about getting that bond arranged. Since we’re gonna have to explain why we voided twenty-five official forms, we have to do this by the book, eh?”
Robert called his agent in Calgary, who found a bondsman the next morning, and drove the bond paperwork out to the lonely little Kingsgate border crossing. By the time we got across, we had been there for twenty-six hours, through two shift changes, eating candy and the Canadian equivalent of Slim Jims from the vending machine, and had to listen as each shift of Canadian hippie border guards told the story to the great amusement of the next crew of Canadian hippie border guards. We made it to Lethbridge just in time to set up and play our first set. On our first break, Robert said, “Gee, Steve, you sure were wrong about that border crossing. Those guys didn’t seem friendly at all!”
Crash! – gig story from Luis Baars
The submission date has now passed for the gig story raffle for the Upton bass pickup, and we’ve gotten a bunch of great gig stories as a result! I’ll put the remaining ones out this week and announce a winner (picked randomly from the stories entered) at the end of the week. This is the first of many Upton pickup raffles, so if you missed the entry date for the last one you can hop on board for next month’s raffle (not gig stories next month… I’ll let you know the new raffle topic soon).
Today’s gig story comes from double bassist Luis Baars:
When I was a senior in high school I was invited to play in the Area All-State Orchestra in Batavia, NY. The drive to the rehearsal/concert location was almost an hour away. Since we had several students in our high school playing in the orchestra, the school had arranged for one of those short yellow buses to take us back and forth to the rehearsals and the concert itself.
The first rehearsal day came and per usual the usual bass transportation stories we had a hard time getting the bass into the bus and into a suitable transportable position. We ended up having the bass lying on it’s side in the grimy middle isle.
I wasn’t pleased with this situation so I decided to drive myself on the 2nd day. It took a little while, but I finally convinced my music director and parents that this would be the best option. The 2nd rehearsal and the concert went flawlessly and I decided to get out as quickly as possible since a winter storm was coming in.
The only reason why I was allowed to drive was because I promised both my music director and parents that I would drive carefully. Of course, being a teenager, I was driving too fast for the conditions outside. I hit some black ice, ran into two guardrails, and ended up in the left lane of the highway facing the wrong direction. After making sure no traffic was coming, I got out of the car and got on the other side of the guard rail to wait for help (this was before cell phones). As I stood there watching, the very next car that came down the highway proceeded to do the same exact thing I did and ended up crashing into my car.
Five minutes later the state trooper was there. Five minutes after that, my parents were there. Ten minutes after that, the short bus drove by with all my friends looking at me, their mouths agape.
The car was totaled; I didn’t own another car until 4 years later. Thankfully, the bass survived without a scratch.
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