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Show band practice.
16 years ago
By the way, I play guitar for my school's show band, which is the band that accompanies the show choir. Anyway, today was a rehearsal for the only song for which we have music, "Got to Get You Into My Life" by Earth, Wind & Fire. I think it's coming along pretty well - I can't read standard notation fluently, but I memorized specific phrases and chords and read just the timings off the sheet music. The guitar solo is pretty fun to play.
Seven-thirty, we're supposed to meet in the jazz room to practice. I get there early, maybe seven-twenty, and hang out for a while. Seven-forty, nobody else is there. I walk around, looking for people who might know where I'm supposed to be, and run into the show band's bassist, who tells me he's practicing with the drummer in one of the practice rooms but he thinks that just the rhythm section is supposed to be there for the performance.
... What? It's a performance? The choir director said for everyone to be here for the rehearsal at seven-thirty. Nothing about the performance that's supposed to be at eight.
So we spend the rest of our allotted practice time finding and setting up an amp for me, as well as confirming with the choir director that I'm supposed to be there. It's during this time that I'm supposed to discover that I'm out of tune, but I don't until we're all onstage. Right before we all walk on, I ask the bassist if I was supposed to wear a uniform or something, and he says we're supposed to be in all black, but what I have is fine and it doesn't matter anyway.
We go onto the stage with the show-choir, and I set up my amp. It's really quiet - everything seems to be. Except the drums and piano. I pick a few quiet notes as a sort of soundcheck, and the choir director leads me in along with the pianist. I'm still surprised about the performance and haven't had any time to practice directly beforehand, so I can't think of the right notes and ultimately decide that playing nothing is better than playing the wrong notes. Then the piano and horns (where are the horns? they weren't there) have a short segment after that, and I stop to appreciate how nice the piano part is - bad mistake. I'm caught off guard by the lack of guitar notes that I was supposed to play.
So I wait for the next part where I have notes, just some simple chords - GM, GM, am, am, GM, GM, etc - and then I finally find out that I'm out of tune. I turn off my amp and attempt to tune up, but between the drums and bass I can only barely hear and tune the highest three strings acoustically, so most of my part's shot, except for the solo. I turn the amp back on but remain silent until the guitar solo.
The solo, surprisingly, goes really well for me. I hit almost every note, and the ones I don't get fudged in such a way that it still sounds alright.
And that's the end of the song. We all walk offstage, and some of the people in show choir congratulate me for playing so well. This really irks me, as while they're really good sounding sincere, all they could possibly have heard were a few out-of-tune chords and a short (eight bars), exceptionally quiet, rather simple solo.
Now that we're offstage, I suppose it's time to call my dad and let him know I'm ready to be picked up. This is when I realize that I don't have my phone with me - I forgot it at home. I have to ask the bassist to use his. Now, I'm actually not so great with unfamiliar technology, especially cell phones. I have trouble dialing a number, and have to have him do it for me.
The song I "played" for was apparently the last one of the show. While I'm waiting for my dad to pick me up, people shuffle out of the school, mostly little kids (twelve, thirteen years old, maybe; we must have been playing for middle schools) and who seem to be their parents, many of them telling me how well I played. Ugh. I endure maybe five minutes of this, and wait ten more for my ride home to arrive. I get in the car with my guitar and finally I'm leaving. It seems like almost everything that could possibly have gone wrong, went wrong.
Better luck next time, I guess.
Seven-thirty, we're supposed to meet in the jazz room to practice. I get there early, maybe seven-twenty, and hang out for a while. Seven-forty, nobody else is there. I walk around, looking for people who might know where I'm supposed to be, and run into the show band's bassist, who tells me he's practicing with the drummer in one of the practice rooms but he thinks that just the rhythm section is supposed to be there for the performance.
... What? It's a performance? The choir director said for everyone to be here for the rehearsal at seven-thirty. Nothing about the performance that's supposed to be at eight.
So we spend the rest of our allotted practice time finding and setting up an amp for me, as well as confirming with the choir director that I'm supposed to be there. It's during this time that I'm supposed to discover that I'm out of tune, but I don't until we're all onstage. Right before we all walk on, I ask the bassist if I was supposed to wear a uniform or something, and he says we're supposed to be in all black, but what I have is fine and it doesn't matter anyway.
We go onto the stage with the show-choir, and I set up my amp. It's really quiet - everything seems to be. Except the drums and piano. I pick a few quiet notes as a sort of soundcheck, and the choir director leads me in along with the pianist. I'm still surprised about the performance and haven't had any time to practice directly beforehand, so I can't think of the right notes and ultimately decide that playing nothing is better than playing the wrong notes. Then the piano and horns (where are the horns? they weren't there) have a short segment after that, and I stop to appreciate how nice the piano part is - bad mistake. I'm caught off guard by the lack of guitar notes that I was supposed to play.
So I wait for the next part where I have notes, just some simple chords - GM, GM, am, am, GM, GM, etc - and then I finally find out that I'm out of tune. I turn off my amp and attempt to tune up, but between the drums and bass I can only barely hear and tune the highest three strings acoustically, so most of my part's shot, except for the solo. I turn the amp back on but remain silent until the guitar solo.
The solo, surprisingly, goes really well for me. I hit almost every note, and the ones I don't get fudged in such a way that it still sounds alright.
And that's the end of the song. We all walk offstage, and some of the people in show choir congratulate me for playing so well. This really irks me, as while they're really good sounding sincere, all they could possibly have heard were a few out-of-tune chords and a short (eight bars), exceptionally quiet, rather simple solo.
Now that we're offstage, I suppose it's time to call my dad and let him know I'm ready to be picked up. This is when I realize that I don't have my phone with me - I forgot it at home. I have to ask the bassist to use his. Now, I'm actually not so great with unfamiliar technology, especially cell phones. I have trouble dialing a number, and have to have him do it for me.
The song I "played" for was apparently the last one of the show. While I'm waiting for my dad to pick me up, people shuffle out of the school, mostly little kids (twelve, thirteen years old, maybe; we must have been playing for middle schools) and who seem to be their parents, many of them telling me how well I played. Ugh. I endure maybe five minutes of this, and wait ten more for my ride home to arrive. I get in the car with my guitar and finally I'm leaving. It seems like almost everything that could possibly have gone wrong, went wrong.
Better luck next time, I guess.
