Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

Just returned Friday night from a week in frigid Milwaukee, where temps hovered in the single digits. I once again schlepped my trumpet along, but this time I added a bit of technology that I learned about a couple of weeks ago (click to engorge):

It’s from Yamaha, called “Silent Brass”. The black mute in the bell of the trumpet almost completely silences my playing, a mercy to anyone in adjoining rooms. A pickup wire from the mute runs through an amplification device, and I can hear myself as if I were playing with an open bell. I had to remove an earbud a couple of times to be sure I wasn’t actually peeling the paint at full volume. Yamaha makes an assortment of these devices for various brass instruments, including tubas!

It’s a good thing that I got to play during the week, because we got the music for our March concert over the past month, and it’s pretty daunting. The theme of the concert is From Russia With Love. Yes, we’re playing a Bond theme or two, but the meat of the concert is:

• Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition
• Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture
• Stravinsky’s Danse Infernal and Finale from The Firebird
• 4th movement of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony
• Scheherazade - Rimsky-Korsakoff

There’s a lot of trumpet-playing there, and a lot is at high volume. The 1812 and the Shostakovich are each close to 15 minutes long. Mrs. Perils says I should be doing push-ups with my lips. But then, she’s been saying that for decades.

So one night we’re about to rehearse Firebird, and I turn to the guy beside me, who’s younger than I but past his 30s for sure, and ask him if he knew that Yes used to play a recording of the Firebird finale as a prelude to taking the stage. Well, he’s heard of Yes, of course, and liked them, but had never seen them live as I had several times in the 70s. We’re stopped for a bit before playing the last several ecstatic bars, and I tell him this is the point where Rick Wakeman swirls behind his bank of keyboard in his cape and blends in with the crescendo. Blank stare.

The Yamaha kit does one other cool thing - it lets you plug in an mp3 player and play along with music. I’ve obtained this recording by the US Army Field Band of the Shostakovich, and have been curious if it’s the same arrangement we’re playing. Last night, I wired up with my iPod, put my music on the stand and played along, including counting all the rests. This is indeed the same arrangement:

[audio:http://phil2bin.com/sounds/09%20Finale%20from%20Symphony%20No.%205.mp3]

The trumpet part consists of two pages with enough rest bars that we should probably put in leave requests; the clarinets, on the other hand, have 8 pages.

Here’s a video of the OSU Marching Band singing, playing and performing a drill to the 1812 (this is definitely not my band - it’s the 21st century version). There are fireworks, of course, but the interesting thing here is the choral excellence, and the fact that, despite being strung across 90 yards, they’re right on the beat:

When I was in the OSU band, we played a version of the Firebird finale.  If I can find it on my moldering vinyl collection, I’ll rip it and post.

The return leg of our evening walk to Green Lake generally takes us past one of those generic neighborhood bars, no ferns in sight, more patrons on the sidewalk smoking (even in the rain) than inside watching WWF.  As we walk past, we can often hear tantalizing bits of conversation, as often spoken to a cell phone as to a live person.

A couple nights ago as we walked past, a nice-looking woman was saying into her cell phone, “..it involves a big, muscular guy, some alcohol and a handshake…”  It took some discipline to keep walking nonchalantly.

The next night we were walking past again as a group around the butt-bin was talking and laughing.  As we approached, they went absolutely silent.  Mrs. Perils cupped a hand to her ear as we passed, and they burst out laughing.  Someone said, “You just made my night.  We quiet down when real people walk by.”  Our disguise endures.

I’ve needed a haircut for the past couple of weeks (or more), and Saturday night was pretty dead around here, so I walked over to 45th to the sort of “alternative” salon I’ve been patronizing lately.  I go there mostly because I can almost always just walk in and get a decent haircut.  I used to patronize a perfectly fine and professional woman at a regular salon, but I increasingly find it impossible to make an appointment for non-work activities and actually show up.

I’ve been perfectly happy with the haircuts from the “alternative” place.  I usually end up with the same woman despite the lack of an appointment.  She’s pretty cute, and my haircuts with her begin startlingly like a lap dance (Not that I’ve ever had one - ED).  She stands directly in front of me, legs slightly apart, but that’s where the fantasy ends.  She’s totally focused on how my head looks from the front, and how she can possibly do anything positive with it.  I don’t envy her that task.

Well, Saturday night was a different kettle of fish.   The sign said “open” when I arrived, but the guy at the desk looked like he was getting ready to leave.  “Do I have time for a haircut?”, I asked.  He hesitated, and I turned to head for the door, but he called me back and said he could do it.  Once I was this close, I had to follow through, cuz it might be weeks before I got myself back there.

Once I was seated, he asked me what size clipper, #2 or #3.  I had no idea ( “Elena” never used clippers), but instinct told me to choose #3, presuming it would leave me with longer hair.  He snapped on his clippers and started mowing my head.  After the first stroke, I knew I was getting more of an amputation than a haircut, but after two strokes there was really no alternative to letting him finish, unless I wanted a mullet.

“You’ve got really thick hair, mister!”, he said.  I replied, “It’s thick on the sides, but thinning way too much on top.”

“I don’t really talk much when I cut hair - sorry.”  A few seconds pass, and he ventures, “What’s your name?”

“Phil,” I reply.  “What’s yours?”

“Blue Bear.”

Uh-oh.

Although the guy was pasty white with assorted head piercings, my mind immediately flashed to Blue Duck, the lithe Indian villain in Lonesome Dove.  We were alone in the shop, and even though it was next door to the wildly popular Molly Moon ice cream store, it was still the middle of January, and the street was deserted.

Despite these misgivings, my haircut ended uneventfully, I paid and left without further harm.  But a look in the mirror confirmed my initial suspicions - he’d cut it preternaturally short - shorter, perhaps, than it’s been since junior high.

When I arrived at my client’s office this morning, people were taken aback at being able to see my ears. They both insisted that it made me “look younger”, which might have seemed flattering if the corollary didn’t immediately present itself: they thought I “looked older” before.

This would have caused me much more angst when I was in high school, college or even a young adult.  These days, I’m only concerned about how much heat I’m losing through my skull.  Old age can be liberating.

The world finally slowed down a tad, before turning on its heel and hurtling into 2010.  I’ll recap December a bit, then turn and face the new year head (and blog) on.

The month started, I think, with a cold, enough of one to make me postpone a business trip to eastern Washington.  It was still lingering a bit on a Friday afternoon when I boarded a plane for a week away from home, first to visit my mom in Toledo for a weekend, then on to Milwaukee for a week of work.

We had a really pleasant visit.  I did something over that weekend I hadn’t done in about 40 years - practiced my trumpet in the basement of the house I grew up in.  See, I’ve been hauling it on my business trips since I’ve been playing in this band, because laying off for a whole week would just kill any progress I’ve been making all fall, and our holiday concert was coming up the next weekend.  (In the hotel rooms, I put my cup mute in, sit on the floor and point the horn under the bed. On a good day, it might sound to anyone in adjacent rooms like space alien sex.)

We made a trip to visit the Toledo Art Museum.  It’s one of those venerable old civic institutions endowed by industrial barons of the gilded age (in this case, Libbey Glass), and has a surprisingly extensive collection.  I would say it’s easily twice the size of Seattle’s.  Toledo was known for a long time as the Glass City, owing to its housing the corporate headquarters of Libbey Glass, Owens Corning, Owens-Illinois and Libbey-Owens-Ford.  It’s no surprise, then, that one of its featured collections is glass art and artifacts, dating from ancient Egypt.  They opened a Glass Pavilion annex a few years ago, and we watched a glassblowing exhibition and perused the exhibits (Click any photo to enlarge):

On Sunday, I did a few odd jobs, including hanging some curtains, that required me to go out to the garage and riff through my dad’s tool shelves. They are laden with tools that date from the 40s and 50s, and the sight of them stirs some of my oldest memories. My dad was a delegator, and when he was doing some job around the house, he always wanted one of us there with him - ostensibly to learn the particular task or skill, but more to the point, to run to the garage and retrieve tools as he needed them. As I touched them, I could hear his words: “electric drill; brace-and-bit; 3-in-one oil; Phillips screwdriver (this one confused me for a while, as they called me “Philip” in my early years). The tools remain there even with the infrequent use they get now, a shrine to a doggedly resourceful DIY guy.

Christmas arrived like a summer storm, and I’ve been running a little ragged.  I’ll be back here soon.  Meantime, here’s a nice number from our holiday concert last Sunday.  I’m in the group of trumpets on the right of the stage. (turn it UP!):

More videos from the concert collected here:

http://vimeo.com/album/159297

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas day.

So I continue to play in a concert band.  We’re busily rehearsing for a holiday concert on Sunday, 12/20, and the trumpets just have a ton of playing to do.  Stamina could definitely be an issue, so I’ve been practicing at home a little bit longer, and working to extend my comfortable range a bit higher.  The basement spiders should be hibernating now, so I don’t think I’m disturbing their ecosystem.

Another amusing director quote: Anita, the associate director, was rehearsing a piece we’re playing called Three Klezmer Miniatures.  In places there are intricate rhythms that need to be traded back and forth between sections, and the other night we started out a little out of sync.  She stopped the band and said, “If anyone were dancing to you guys, they’d be hurting themselves.”

To get you in the mood, here’s the piece we’ll be starting our concert with (again, not our band):

[audio:http://phil2bin.com/sounds/31733.mp3]

Ducking in here to see if any pipes have burst during this cold wave.  Since the door was frozen shut, I’m thinking the property manager has neglected it (as have I).

I just looked up my last post.  I’d completely forgotten what I wrote about last.  In retrospect, it looks like my Macbook battery died and never recovered.  Well, it’s still sick, but I’ve been mostly plugged in, so it’s on life support.  Federal death panels may soon intervene, as I’m traveling again Friday.

We had a nice, relaxing time in South Carolina, aided greatly by the Buckeyes’  continued dominance over Michigan.  It’s been so long since they’ve beaten us that I wonder if we should invite counselors to the oyster roast in mufti, to cosset us in the event that we ever lose to them again.

The weather was cool, but mostly sunny.  On Friday, we embarked on a cruise out to Fort Sumter, where the Civil War began when the Union garrison there was forced to surrender it.  It seems the fort’s significance was more symbolic than strategic, though it did help guard the mouth of Charleston harbor.  It seems to have spent most of its existence as rubble.  What you see in the pics below is brickwork in interesting patterns, mostly the result of a rebuild after the Civil War (click to enlarge):

On Saturday, the game was watched, some fish were caught in my brother’s pond, and oysters were finally roasted.  Another pleasant November weekend in the Low Country.

I just have to do this.  I’m using the internet for the first time in flight -Delta is offering wifi service on some of its planes, and has a free promotion going.  I’m impressed with  the speed/bandwidth - I really wasn’t expecting much more than dial-up speed.

I’m on my way from Seattle to Atlanta, and then on to Charleston for our annual oyster roast and Ohio State-Michigan gamewatch at my brother’s place, so this is pretty much the All-Buckeye Blog for the rest of the weekend.  The weather in Charleston looks to be high 60s/low 70s, maybe a little rain on Saturday.  Sounds good compared to the conditions we were walking around in last night - high winds and chilly rain driving horizontally at us.

While paging through some photos of my OSU marching band reunion game on the band’s website, I came across this one of me as my row enters the stadium.  I’m the one with sunglasses and the fanny pack laden with my camera.  I’m chagrined to be leaning forward a little too much (click to enlarge):

I’ve got my horn along on this trip, and my youngest brother and I just might find ourselves playing fight songs in our middle brother’s back forty.

OK, my dang Macbook battery is dying after only an hour.  It’s the only thing I dislike about this thing.  Better post this.  More from the Low Country.

At practice last night, we exchanged our TVLand music for the first burst of music for our holiday concert on December 20. The two pieces we sight-read were pretty challenging, and I think that brought us out of a post-concert daze.  One of the pieces was a movement from Gustav Holst’s Winter Suite.  It features antiphonal fanfares from the trumpets, and we experimented with placing pockets of trumpet players in various places around what will be the stage.  It was really exhilarating.  If you go here, there’s an icon you can press to hear the piece (note: that’s not our band).

I’m usually pretty late getting down with the holidays, as my slap-dash gift-giving attests, and look with disdain on the desperate cacophony of holiday commercials that seems to start right after Halloween.  But, after this last practice, my head is in December already.

Also, I finally pieced together photos and video from the OSU band reunion in September here.  It’s taken me a while to get used to the Mac multimedia stuff, iMovie and iPhoto.

My Rainbow City Band had its fall concert Friday night.  The theme was TVLand, and we played music from several decades of television shows.  You wonder what kind of petri dish that earworms incubate in?  Look no further:

• Muppet Show Theme
•  Star Wars Through The Years
• West Wing
• Brady Bunch
• Olympic Fanfare
• Mission Impossible
• Golden Girls
• Sitcom Medley

We had a “technical rehearsal” at the concert venue the previous Tuesday, in order to get used to the tighter seating, its effect on what we could hear, and to coordinate various announcements and multimedia.  I was a little worried, as it seemed our numbers only sounded good the second time we played them, and there were some technical glitches that I didn’t think actually got fixed.

I was also a little dismayed that, at that point, we’d only sold 150 of the 300 seats in the hall.

Not to worry on either count.  We had a surge of walk-up business, and had to turn a lot of people away.  And, once the curtain opened and the baton came down, we were very tight and focused.  I was thrilled with the entire enterprise.

There was one moment of peril on the night of the performance.  During intermission, the people preparing for an Archie and Edith Bunker skit discovered that no one had bought beer, which apparently was a featured part of the skit.  I volunteered to run up the street and buy a can, and off I went.   As I was running at a dead flat sprint out of the convenience store on the corner of Broadway and Madison with a pair of Budweiser tallboys dangling from my hand, I passed an idling SPD squad car, and my skin started to crawl.  I’m pretty sure that it was the tux that saved me.