More from the world of brass

As I mentioned last night, I’ll be playing alto horn for the foreseeable future with the band.  This is due to many factors, not least among them (I suspect) being Bob.

Yeah.  That guy again.

I’m not going to specifically blame him or anything (and “blame” isn’t a good word to use, because it’s not like I’m dreading the horn switch or anything), but you should know by now that he caused a lot of bad feelings on the board last year.  Rich, who was installed as the band’s secretary in December, quit abruptly last Tuesday afternoon.  Quit not just from the job of secretary, and not just from the board, but quit the band completely.

The reasons he gave were fairly vague – he couldn’t commit the time to the band, he wasn’t sure if his playing was good enough, he needed to spend more time on his business, etc – but knowing what I know, I tend to read between the lines that he just didn’t want to be involved because he’d started to hate everything about the way the band runs.

Rich was one of the founding members of the band.  He was in large part responsible for getting the original musicians together in 1999 – I’m fairly certain that the only reason Joe called me was because Rich knew me from another group and suggested me for this one.  Rich was also the band’s personnel manager and equipment manager.  What that actually means is that he maintained our attendance records and he was the guy who made frantic phone calls looking for subs whenever anybody told him that they were going to miss a rehearsal.

He and I have disagreed about various things over the years, he’s annoyed me a few times (and I’m sure I’ve done the same to him), but he’s a good guy and I consider him a pretty good friend.  In fact, had I not met him in 1991, I probably wouldn’t be playing anything other than my piano today.  At that time, I didn’t own a tuba (when I graduated from school in 1987, my access to the school’s horns went away).  I joined a community band at the request of another friend and, after playing one horrible rehearsal on an ancient bell-front Conn, I was ready to pack it in completely.  But I got a call later that week from Rich saying that he’d found a beaten-up old Zeiss that was in playable condition and that I could buy it for $500.

So I did.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Anyway, Rich was also one of those guys like me (I say modestly) who could move around the band and play various instruments whenever there was a hole that needed to be filled.  He’s primarily a cornet player, and he’d play any of the parts if there was a need; but he also did a few stints on alto horn, baritone, and possibly flugel.  I’m not sure how he would have done if he’d attempted to move any lower down the brass totem pole (it takes a special breed of freak to play trombone and tuba).

For quite a while, we’ve had a terrible time finding anyone to regularly play the 2nd alto horn part.  It’s a stupid hard horn to play with any feeling, and the 2nd part is pretty monotonous.  Because we’ve not been able to keep anybody on the part for more than one concert at a time, Rich has been filling in a lot on it.

And then he quit.

So on Tuesday night, Joe made an announcement that we were in desperate need of a full horn section and asked if anybody knew anybody who might be able to play it.  Well, I played it for about two years when the band was first formed (actually, I played the 1st part, but you get the idea), and I haven’t been particularly fond of my own (tuba) section for the last year.  On the side, I’ve been bitching to Rich and Betsy that I’d really like to play some baritone or horn – but, to be totally honest, that was mostly just something for me to bitch about.

Fact is, I’ve improved quite a lot on my tuba over the last couple of years, and I think I’d continue to do so.  I enjoy playing it, I like the way it sounds, and I generally like the parts that the Eb tubas have.  However, I’ve gotten pretty tired of having one of the guys in my section – who is an extremely talented tubist – constantly taking little shots at me whenever I miss a note or move a tuning slide or ask a question or anything else.  And there’s this other guy on Eb who sits between me and the guy who picks at me, and I’m becoming convinced that he’s got not sense of pitch and not much of a sense of rhythm.  I keep him between me and the picky guy so that the picky guy has less opportunity to pick, but then I’ve got to try to figure out where my own pitch center is when I’ve got the pitchless guy playing into the side of my head.

So you can imagine that it was with very mixed feelings that I raised my hand on Tuesday night and quietly announced that I’d play horn if no one else would.  I got an email from Joe yesterday asking me if I was serious, and, after giving him a very short version of the story that I just gave you, I told him it was up to him.

I picked up the horn this afternoon.  Played it a little bit, and I sound terrible.  It’s going to be tough to relearn it, but I’ll figure it out.  And I’ll continue to practice my tuba, because eventually one of those two guys who annoy me is going to quit – at which point I’ll ask to move back to the tuba section and the band will again be looking for a decent horn player.

So in the end, we’ve got a good guy and a good musician who quit.  We’ve got a pretty decent guy and an okay tubist who is now playing a stupid hard horn with boring parts.  And we’ve got an Eb tuba section that consists of one guy who hasn’t quite grown up yet and another guy who’s just not very good.

I blame Bob.

TWD