Concerts

Did you know that classical musicians are adrenaline junkies? Underneath the neatly groomed exterior of a brass player--okay, neatly groomed might be an exaggeration--there is a daredevil who sits onstage in tails, holding a metal tube as several thousand people look on. As the rests click by and the strings saw away up front playing whatever it is that they're doing (mostly just filler material until the brass come in again) we sit in the back row thinking "in about ten seconds I need to somehow buzz into this metal tube and get a pitch to sound at exactly the right moment without any sort of impurity in the attack, and it has to be exactly in tune with whatever the strings are doing, and the tone needs to be powerful but beautiful, and to do this I'll have to mash my lips into the mouthpiece in a particular shape that, if it varies even by a nanometer, will produce the wrong note, and I need to do this in a way that somehow sounds effortless, and if I screw any of this up then some viola player will turn around and give me a dirty look and a snooty man in a bowtie will write mean things about me in tomorrow's paper.

It can be a stressful job.

I tried to convey the problem of performance nerves to my high-school aged students, and I don't think they believed me. Mostly they were giggling at the spit valves and developing ephemeral romances. Despite my concerns about their nerves, they did very well at their concert yesterday. A little stage fright does wonders for the general level of focus on the task at hand. Special thanks need to go out to:

Lux, who despite forgetting about the concert until an hour and a half before it started, managed to get himself down to Lima without a working vehicle or cell phone. He arrived with a tuba, but I fear that it was procured by illegal means.

Pax, who also did not have a working vehicle at the time. Congratulations, by the way, on your new Toyota Yaris.

Kylie, who watched a very VERY fussy James D Bear while everyone else was performing.

our friend David, who nailed all the horn solos in the Rossini

and J, who not only read down the piccolo solo in Stars and Stripes with no rehearsal and an unfamiliar instrument, but also sight-read the choral accompaniments in the concert.

I'm glad it's all over.

The most stressful part of the past 24 hours for me, though, was the Steven incident. We celebrated Steven's first birthday (and James' year and a half birthday) on Tuesday. We had cupcakes, candles, and a hat for the birthday bear. James thought this was great. This afternoon J texted me: I can't find Steven.

She knew he didn't come inside from the concert the night before, and presumed he'd been out in the car. But she looked there and didn't find them. Without letting on to James (who was completely oblivious to his absence) what she was doing, she searched all over the house for Steven.

Once I got the news, I went back to teaching and made a mental note that I'd have to help her look once I got home.

Just kidding, of course. I immediately ran out to the parking lot and looked under all the cars to see if he'd fallen out of the PT Cruiser the night before and spent the night outside. I also looked under all the pews in the sanctuary and dug through the lost and found box. (There were lots of sweaty boy's gym clothes in there. I think that some of the boys just "lose" their clothes when they reach a certain stink because they don't want to worry about bringing them home to launder them.)

As soon as I got home I searched the car, the laundry room, under the furniture, inside the furniture, and under his crib. When J came in I was digging through the kitchen garbage. (Sometimes James will throw things in there.) As I separated moldy avocado halves from the remains of old yogurt containers she glumly informed me that she'd already looked there.

He turned up in the garage. J had moved the stroller in there yesterday to make room for Lux's stolen tuba, and Steven was sitting on the little footbar where James will sometimes put him when he wants to go for a walk. He hardly even noticed when I brought him back inside. He even gave a look as if to say "What were you guys so worried about? I knew where he was the whole time."

I'm glad that stressful ordeal is over. Back to practicing Zarathustra calls.