I rejoined the community band

Al Stevens

Al Stevens

A while back I dropped out of community band because vision problems affected my reading. I was playing 1st trumpet when the problem occurred and had moved myself down to third. But my heart wasn't in it, so I dropped out.

Two weeks ago I returned, this time to play in the sax section. Needless to say, the vision problem is improved enough to allow that. So what did they do my first night back? They had five tenors, two baris, and five altos. So they put me on alto. I wanted to play second, but the 1st chair 1st alto was not there, the band was going over the next concert program for the first time, there were some alto solos, and the lady playing 2nd chair 1st alto did not want to play them. The conductor sat me in the 1st chair.

Now, to add to the plot, one of the clarinet players has always wanted to play 1st chair, 1st alto in that band. He is mainly a sax player who thinks of me as mainly a piano player and resists respecting my sax playing and anyone else's, for that matter. He plays clarinet in the band only because he cannot have the only saxophone chair he really wants. It would be undignified to play any chair except 1st. The guy who usually plays that part has it locked in and is very good.

The clarinet player who wants to play 1st alto sees me sitting in the 1st alto chair and gets upset. During break he goes to the conductor and demands to know why I am in that seat, a seat that should rightfully be his. The conductor calmly explains that it is only until the regular 1st player returns. The clarinet player is still not happy and glares at me across the room the whole night.

Every time I took a solo he looked more unhappy, probably because the solos were nicely written and not too difficult, and I did not make many mistakes. After rehearsal he reinforced his objection with the conductor. For the first time in a long time he did not attend the after-rehearsal hang at Applebee's.

Last week, the 1st alto player was there, but the clarinet player was not. He had a gig that night. The lead alto player thought the whole thing was funny. So he told me that next week (I'm off this week being out of town) he will sit in the 3rd chair, 1st alto seat, and I will sit in the lead position and play all the solos. Just to see what happens.

I think I better respectfully decline the honor.
 
Have you noticed that sections with relatively large populations tend to develop more severe "pecking orders" than those with relatively few members? Orchestral string players are probably the worst in this regard (apart from the violists - they know where they fit).
 
Al, It sounds like your alto leader has a good sense of humor, and the "supposed to be" has none. Go ahead and do it for a rehearsal. And get a new clarinet player to show up and take the first clarinet chair, "Since we thought you had quit." :???:

Mr clarinet obviously has some issues that need to be dealt with.


As a professional 1st violin I agree with what stefank has to say on the subject.
 
Community based organizations are frail in this regard, since all of the leadership is volunteer, and the intake comes from a wide variety of sources. Prima dons and prima donas aren't confined to the opera stage, they are everywhere in music as well as in real life.

I have avoided community groups down here since I'm an outsider, and I don't want to trod on anyone's toes. Then too, bass clarinet and baritone sax slots don't grow on trees, and I've always felt that I might be displacing someone's son or daughter who is there playing on a school horn. Instead, I worked the bass clarinet angle for local orchestras, who seldom had one on call. (Two of the community groups down here work with the Performance Fund, which means that there's even a payday in it for me.)

Folks in a slot for a long time can get comfortable and forget that there are other players out there. If you are good enough and they want to improve, you might fit in. But, if the group is a close knit one, you might find that they value long association over skills.
 
Again, I'm not getting this whole community band thing. This is like the third time this kind of topic has been raised on this board, and each time, I scratch my head, and wonder...What's going on?

My experience with community bands is many years in the past, but I don't remember dramas like this playing themselves out. Perhaps they were, and I was just blissfully unaware of them, as a tenor sax player.

Other issues in community bands, such as having to audition, or have a certain level of proficiency, are all concepts that are foreign to me. Maybe it's an American thing? Or maybe living in BC, we're just really laid back here?

I totally understand the psychology underscoring the happenings in the bands described, but if I'm going to do something for enjoyment, say for example play a musical instrument as a hobby, I would not want to expose myself to that level of stress on a regular basis. Any joy I got out of my hobby, would be overshadowed by the stress of the interpersonal stuff. Now YMMV, but for me, I don't even like that kind of stress in my paid musical life. Those are the type of bands I tend to look for a way of leaving gracefully.

Perhaps it's simply a case a me beign too Type A. Being German afterall has its downside at times. :emoji_rage:
 
I am sticking with the local band as a means to get a little playing time in each week. Playing at home is not an option.

Entirely too much drama to be musically satisfying.

Now the local symphony is a different matter. There are a couple oddballs, but they generally work towards the same goal and keep their ego in check.
 
I don't get your wanna be 1st chair guy??? I mean, every community band has enough or too many soprano clarinet players (my last band over 20!). Why doesn't he move to the sax section and earn the seat instead of bitchin' for it? If he's so good, he's got nothing to worry about right? Maybe he really likes being burried in the clarinets. I don't know.

For me, being in the band was a lesson in playing for the team. I switched from alto to tenor only cause we needed it. Not 'cause it was what I wanted. We had five altos already, But only one tenor. Except for some swing stuff we did, I found I liked alto better. We needed more bottom in the sax section. The one tenor player played so softly you'd barely know she was there. So I was happy to do what was needed.

The real question is what ever happen to idea of giving with and through the band while getting the chance to do what you love. The don't call it a "Community" band for nothing.
 
tjontheroad said:
... every community band has enough or too many soprano clarinet players.
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I play in one with a total of three soprano clarinets. We're outnumbered by the flutes, the trumpets, the horns, the trombones, tied by the saxes, and sometimes almost matched by the tubas. Fortunately, we're a loud, projecting trio.

A director I know says you can never have too many clarinets in a band.
 
Yah. The clarinets burn longer than saxophones.

:p

Seriously, there is a point where you can have to many.

There's a Peter Schickele piece called "Monochromes III" for 9 clarinets. Schickele plays off on the fact that you have a slight delay on some of the "doubled" parts and that gives the piece a lot of tonal power.

But say you had 60 playing the same part ....

Intonation problems alone could be staggering.
 
retread said:
I play in one with a total of three soprano clarinets. We're outnumbered by the flutes, the trumpets, the horns, the trombones, tied by the saxes, and sometimes almost matched by the tubas. Fortunately, we're a loud, projecting trio.

A director I know says you can never have too many clarinets in a band.
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I guess you guys didn't fight over what chair you sat in and/or mind picking up the bar tab ;) That's a first time I've heard of clarinets being outnumbered by the 'bones. Flutes on the other hand...

Rock on dude!!!
 
I read about these community band dramas with great interest. The music majors, semi-pros, and professionals in the three bands that make up our org don't care what part they play. It's amazing, they can outplay 90 percent of the band members and on multiple instruments, but they play whatever is required. Maybe we're just lucky.

Because our directors are so good, which hasn't always been the case, we are challenged with very difficult music. So the better players tend to get the harder solos. It by natural selection. Usually the section leader selects the soloists based on the solo and the player. So where I'd assign a hard solo to our semi-pro alto sax player, I'd assign an easier one to a middle player. Being the section leader, I have to not choose myself unless I am asked by the section, hey it happens, or I have a unique instrument like the soprano or bass sax.

We recently changed to band charter to officially give the band director the right to pick soloists, especially if there is a conflict the section leader can't handle. And at my recommendation we've instituted an audition for new players because we were getting too big. It used to be if you had an instrument you can play. Now the few openings we have we don't want to give to someone who wasn't really invested.

So our audition has a sight-reading component, intonation check (make sure the candidate has an ear), and then a discussion about the time commitment both to rehearsals and practices. We have used this audition for two positions so far that I know of.

In the five years I've been in this band, the biggest disappointment is not in the quality of the players, but in the area of personal responsibility. Just playing 'well enough' shouldn't be enough. I mean we don't expect it to be perfect, but it'd be nice to either be close or at the very least show improvement. Many, many of the old guard only practice when they show up for the formal band practice sessions. The dedicated musicians practice and/or take lessons.

As baby boomers start to swell the ranks of the retired, we are finding more musicians than we have bands for. As of last year we added a third and final band to the organization. Right now, all positions are filled and we have to turn down people almost every month.
 
I generally choose not to be involved in ensembles that require a formal audition. I prefer a nomination process, done by members who think the new guy would be a positive addition to the ensemble. (If the nominating party makes a very poor recommendation, they get looked at. Nominations are not made lightly.)

I do well on auditions, but don't care for them. They just show who has had the most time to work on the audition materials, not who will show up and be able to play whatever you throw at them whenever you throw it at them.

But you do have to do something, don't you.
 
I'm roughly 400 miles SE of the center of North America by road, that is. I'm probably the closest to the center, so far.
 
I skipped Wednesday of last week because I was in Virginia. This past Wednesday I was the only 1st alto player there--the other two took the night off--so I played all the alto solos again. I glanced across the room at the clarinet section from time to time. Deja vu.

One of the selections is "Festival of American Spirituals" arranged by Jerry Nowak. The second tune in the medley is an alto solo on "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child." That's blues to me and my kind of music. It only made matters worse when the band congratulated me for my bluesy interpretation. Actually, it wasn't an interpretation. I doubt that I could have played it any other way. Rumor is they're going to ask me to play that particular solo in the concert. I half hope so and half hope not. The clarinet player is a good friend. You have to know him to understand.

Another selection is "Cajun Folk Songs" by Frank Tichen, and the first movement is an alto solo end-to-end. That was a challenge for me because it's a free mix of 2/4 and 3/4 time signatures, and I'm a 4/4 kind of guy. I got through it, but it doesn't have the blues feel of the other one. The regular lead alto guy does a much better job with it, but I sure did enjoy understudying it.
 
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It is pretty amazing how you can get wedded to a given time signature if all that you play over a long period is that particular signature. Much of what we play is straight up 4/4 pop and dance music, and when we make the shift to a fast swing tune (Caravan comes to mind here) it takes most of the guys time to switch into 2/2 mode again.

Waltz time used to be one of my favorites, particularly Viennese waltzes in the grand orchestral style, but other than a pass through Moon River or The Star Spangled Banner now and then, we seldom dip our toes into the waltz pool. At a wedding, there might be one or two couples there who will waltz, but last New Year's Eve, the four waltzes that I programmed saw the dance floor empty out in a hurry when the first three were played (I skipped over the fourth).

Now that the spring musical season is here, I'll get a full dose of the traditional time signatures, and that's usually enough to last through to the next year. But, it always takes a little getting used to.
 
In the words of our bari player -- an accomplished musician, now in his 80s, who did a lot of touring in his youth -- on the rare occasion a waltz is called, "(sigh), I hate 3/4."
 
I've heard that very same sentiment from my saxophone folks, and from saxophone folks in other bands which which I have played. So, it's not an isolated phenomenon. And, that's usually a function of spending too much time in any one meter.

Some swing-enabled folks have trouble playing rock in straight four. I've encountered long time concert band folks who love 2/4 time and have troubles elsewhere (and who have real trouble functioning without someone waving a stick in their faces). And, there is the tale of the drummer I hired out of the union hall many years ago who only knew two rhythms, 2/4 and 3/4. She functioned just fine within those two meters (although she could not shift from one to another within the confines of one number), but confronted with 6/4 (in the opening number of Bye, Bye Birdie!), she literally "locked up". Not something you want to find out about in dress rehearsal, I assure you.

And, it's not only naive players that have this problem. Most of us have encountered string players of the highest musical education imaginable confronted with swing the first time in their lives, and were witness to the muddle that resulted. (Suffering through the tortured notations in some of the West Side Story arrangements that are out there is one of the prices that we pay for the deficiencies in the education of classically minded string players.) Similarly, the occasional excursion of saxophone players into the symphonic world (where they are seldom needed) is fraught with dangers, as many of these worthies have a hard time shifting from the swing idiom when confronted with the likes of the Lieutenant Kijie Suite.

People of all stripes can get stuck in a rut (or, in the case of the above drummer, never leave the rut (polka bands were her forte, according to her father, the BA for the AFM local) in which they started). And, it's hard to avoid this if all you play is one type of music to the exclusion of all others. Saxophonists, due to their position in the "jazz ghetto", tend to be more prone to this than, say, trumpet or clarinet players.
 
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retread said:
I have no problem with 6/4, except when counting multi-measure rests. My brain wants to recycle after four.
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8/8 is funnier. :cool:

I wonder why no one mentioned 6/8 - about a third of our repertoire is in that meter.
OTOH, these meters usually reduce themselves to be "in 2" or "in 4" or even "in 1" (mostly 3/4 waltzes). No big deal, however I frequently have to pencil in the beats, at least till I have the stuff up my ear.
 
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