Sweet Beautiful Drag
Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 9:20PM Previously on Have Your People Call Our Squad Leaders:
- When not marching, exaggerate the soft.
- People's usual reaction when I attempt to hug them is fear, but occasionally I can upgrade to simply inflicting physical pain.
- YOU MUST. BLOW. AIR. THROUGH. YOUR INSTRUMENT. IN ORDER. TO MAKE. SOUND
For one thing, flugelhorns are a lot heavier than they look.
For another, if you truly love somebody and want to bring that person into your family, you don't propose marriage. You share your flugelhorn mouthpiece. You thought Communion chalices were the last word in unsanitary marks of mutual devotion? You have not hung around a marching band.
And so my life education at the hands of S Row continues. As Tiggles revealed in the Tasting Room, last week I was given a horn lesson by Neutron, who was full of solid instructional advice such as "Hold out your palm like this" and "Just think about stretching out the neck of a balloon" and "Calm down." Because apparently my artistic relationship with the flugelhorn is to hold it in one hand, cover my face with the other, and laugh very hard.
The best part of this entire lesson was its location; it was on the stage of the visually spectacular, acoustically marvelous Schuster Center in Dayton. Like all the most interesting parts of any performance, it took place behind the curtain.
I sat with Neutron with the rustle of the house just beyond us, short stemmed roses swiped from dinner centerpieces scattered on the music stands. Thick binders of sheet music lay in wait on the risers, and the plumed caps of the Band sat at attention. The overhead lighting beat down on the horns, ensuring that the slightest shift of a valve reflected pure brass moxie back at the ceiling. The Band would sit for nearly an hour at a time at concert-attention in heavy wool and crossbelts; me, I occasionally bent down to smooth and curse at my pantyhose.
I've been sitting in the full blast zone of this Band since August, and the very idea of me attempting any sort of noise around them other than the sound of unconditional surrender is absurd. Those of you who have read my first book are well aware of my history as a choral singer (short version: I suck), and other than that, my only hands-on musical experience has to do with piano, at which I also sucked, but at least the piano has this going for it, other that its inherent ability to act as a deadly weapon when dropped from even a minor height: Anybody can sit down at a piano and smack a key and get a bona fide note in return. Pas si where any TBDBITL instruments outside of JI Row's are concerned: It is all work, all the time, even to make the weakest hideous noise.
You don't just blow into a brass instrument, as with a woodwind. You have to buzz your lips, and hold the mouth in such a way so that air enters the mouthpiece but your cheeks don't go all Goodyear. And you have to hold the instrument parallel. And you have to sit properly. And you have to keep your wrists straight. And you have to breathe from the diaphragm. And after about twenty seconds or so Neutron sighed and took the horn away and left me with just the mouthpiece.
When he deemed me at last worthy of the whole horn, he first took care to turn me towards the wings and away from the innocent bystanders on the other side of the curtain. "Okay," he said as I stared in astonishment at the weight of this thing, this little instrument with the wide mellow tones. "Ladies and gentlemen, the world debut." I straighened the scarlet and grey flag hanging from the horn. Positioned the instrument. Inhaled.
Tiggles delicately characterized as what happened next as "making a sound." That is correct. The flugelhorn and I made a sound. What exactly that sound was shall forever remain a mystery fit for UN-appointed teams consisting of leading theologians and Top Men of science. It was unearthly, and somewhere between an actual note and the wailing of the eternally doomed, but it was a sound. And one that I made, one I'd never created before. And one I'd have made even sooner had I not initally attempted to screw the mouthpiece into the horn backwards.
I returned my music teacher's flugelhorn, jumped up another riser, and bent to kiss the top of his head, because he was wearing a flawless uniform and I was wearing lipstick. I mean... when you've shared a mouthpiece, there are few mysteries remaining.
For brass is, after all, an alloy.
Reader Comments (18)
Wait, what th-- she's kissing S Row now?!
D Row, to arms! Or... batons! Whatever!
Bwahahahaha Neutron gets action. Well done S Row.
The ending of this post is terrific.
What a sweet, reflective moment.
This Band is changing you MB, and you are letting it. Brava.
Because apparently my artistic relationship with the flugelhorn is to hold it in one hand, cover my face with the other, and laugh very hard.
This must have been just about the cutest thing ever. That's it, I'm taking up the flugelhorn.
"And one I'd made even sooner had I not initally attempted to screw the mouthpiece into the horn backwards."
Aaaahahahahaha.... I love you MB!
Neutron, my man, you are a pimp, a PIMP. Like, on course to out-pimp one Stew Kitchen with this mouthpiece-sharing bit. BRILLIANT.
MB-
I am a student at Ohio State and a great admirer of TBDBITL. This quarter has been quite difficult (that is a major understatement), but your posts make it a little more bearable. Thank you for doing what you do. We are glad to have you here.
"That's it, I'm taking up the flugelhorn."
taps fingers together in a villain-like fashion our following is growing...gooooooooood
People like you are why I do what I do, Anon. Hang in :)
TIGGLES! yayayayayayayayay
git some Neutron
other that its inherent ability to act as a deadly weapon when dropped from even a minor height
Heh.
HI TIGGLES
taps fingers together in a villain-like fashion our following is growing...gooooooooood
S Row WORLD DOMINATION!!!!!!!!!
Oh good, we haven't scared off Ms. Tiggles.
Friends, Family and Fans of TBDBITL,
The weekend's game promises to be an unforgettable one, especially for the seniors in the crowd, in the band and on the football field. Unfortunately, the athletic department has made the decision that a pregame video and the playing of canned music through the speakers is more important than the playing of our alma matter after Script Ohio. Anyone who has been fortunate enough to be in Ohio Stadium on game day knows there are few moments more special than when 105,000 people sing and sway to the melody of Carmen Ohio. For our seniors, the last chance they had to have that experience as members of TBDBITL has been stripped from them at the request of the athletic department. This is only one of many times this season when marching band has been forced into eliminating part of our show at the order of Athletics, sending hours of hard work on arrangements, drill design, and rehearsal down the drain.
In addition, the band has been bullied into not playing during the game. Last week, when this request was made, we sat in the stands and watched as the Indiana band continued to play songs and cheers to excite their fans. While we stood in the stands and cheered and sang our songs loudly instead of playing them, the stadium was still eerily empty of one of the most important additions to the game day atmosphere: the music of the band. There is no substitute for the sound of "Fight the Team" after a big play or the pounding of a bass drum to signal the start of the "Lets Go Bucks" cheer. A band that has been such an essential part of game day for longer than most fans have been alive should not be shoved to the side and expected to stay silent.
In a year that has been shrouded in scandal and negative commentary from those outside the Buckeye family, TBDBITL has done nothing but support the team. We show up every evening and practice for Saturday. We show up every game day morning and stop cheering only after Carmen Ohio at the end of the game. And after a day of rest we get up and do it again--because we love our team and we love our University. This is not just about the removal of a song, or being asked not to play. This is about being told time and time again throughout this season that what we do is not important enough to deserve respect. We are The Best Damn Band in the Land and we called such not only because of what we are able to do, but because of who appreciates it. Without our fans, we are nothing. Please, on behalf of the band and those who love it, email the athletic department and tell them that there is no place for disrespect to the band at a University as fine as Ohio State.
Email Gene Smith, Diane Sabau and Mark Penne at the following...
LASTNAMEFIRSTINITIAL@buckeyes.ath.ohio-state.edu
(Ex. SmithG@buckeyes.ath.ohio-state.edu
Thanks guys. And Go Bucks!
I almost fell over laughing at this post and the comments! Neutron the pimp and flugels taking over the world. So much win!!! Flugelly goodness and Srow love!!!