It was the early 1990’s. I was a music student at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY. Here I was in my mid-thirties, working on a degree that I failed to finish more than a decade before. Like any college student, I had challenges put before me, and deadlines to meet.
On top of that, I now had a “young family” that I needed to devote at least some of my attention to. This was an added dimension that I didn’t have in my earlier days in music school. I believe I share the sentiment of many of us as I reflect from present-day (2019) back to those 1990’s second-round-of-college days.
Such thoughts as,”How did I pull that off? Where did I get the energy to do it all? Was it really worth it?” all come to mind. I would have to answer the first two questions,”Dunno.” As to the third question (Worth it?), I would say “Yes,” but there were prices to pay both in (literally) money and (figuratively) sanity.
The Nuts and Bolts of Orchestration Class
The goal of orchestration class was to give you the ability to arrange a piece of music for a large music ensemble like an orchestra or concert band (a.k.a. Wind Ensemble). Our school had its own Wind Ensemble, and so it was established that by the end of this course, they would “field-test” our music arrangements.
Now keep in mind this was around 1990. AOL was the “in thing” on our clunky micro computers. Music writing software was in its infancy, and I had never seen or heard of this new gadget called a “Mouse.”
Given that scenario, we did our assignments putting pencil to staff paper one measly note at a time. Even Gutenberg had a better deal back in the mid 1400’s with his movable type. Our tools of the trade were a pencil and a ruler. If you needed a sharp (#) symbol, you used a ruler to make sure it was nice and straight. And when it came to flat (b) symbols, they were nothing like the small “b” you just saw. RIDICULOUS!
Note stems had to be a certain height and drawn with the ruler. Note heads had to be a certain size for quarter notes and “a little bigger” for half notes. Needless to say, a short little song like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” might take you 20 to 30 minutes to put together this way. By the end of one assignment, I swear the Grand Canyon was probably gouged out another fathom or so deeper!
Starting Small – Working up to HUGE
Our preliminary assignments leading up to The Big Enchilada were to pick various classical melodies and arrange them for an ensemble of 4 of the same instrument. One would involve 4 flutes, the next would involve 4 trumpets, and on and on the assignments went. This way we were getting used to writing for each section of the full Wind Ensemble (ultimately about 60 instruments).
The most memorable of these “mini” arrangements was writing “Gift to be Simple” for a Euphonium Quartet (a euphonium is a small tuba-like instrument that I once played myself in my earlier 1970’s college days). I could not believe that there were FOUR AVAILABLE EUPHONIUM PLAYERS in one music school! To me, this was like having The Beatles come to my school to demo my arrangement!
Anyway, at the end of all these mini-assignments, I had quite a collection of quartets that I have kept ahold of to this very day. Meanwhile, after all the time I spent with this homework, the Grand Canyon probably eroded away another 100 feet or more!
Surrender Your Life, Your Health and Your Well-Being
As rewarding as these arrangements were to hear, they really took a toll physically on all of us in the class. It wasn’t like we had nothing else to do besides these time-sucking assignments. I myself played in two ensembles, and also was working on a recording project. Not to mention music history class and other various and sundry responsibilities.
This class took place three times a week at 9:00 AM in the morning. The night before every class was nothing short of an all-nighter! It usually meant working from 6:00 PM the night before to 6:00 AM the day of the class. You’d sleep for a couple hours, throw some water on your face and run out the door with your charts in hand.
I had a good friend,”Mark”, who was in the class with me. He always looked the way that I felt, and probably looked as well…Unshaven, red-eyed, messed up hair, and a slept-in wrinkled shirt. There was No Time for health or hygiene. Just get the work done, sleep for what seemed like a minute or two and get the heck out the door!
And so, as the semester went on, this life-style took its toll. I was due for my “every-seven-year” bronchitis attack anyway. It just so happened to coincide with the really big deal assignment.
Pick a Tune, Any Tune
First we had to pick a piece to create a score and sixty separate parts for our Wind Ensemble final project arrangement. I was trying to think of a piece that was interesting to listen to, yet simple enough that it wouldn’t be too much of a nightmare to take on. I began looking through some of my many rock band folios that I had picked up over the years- The Beatles; The Beach Boys; The Monkees (Wait…What?); Pink Floyd; Woodstock; Tommy, The Who…Hey, wait a minute! I began to muse, “Tommy is a Rock Opera! Classical overtones, yet simple harmony.”
Leafing through the Tommy book, I came across “Underture.” It was an instrumental with a classical feel and it had a built-in tympani (kettle drum) part, which was a prominently-utilized instrument in a Wind Ensemble set up! I had Friday, Saturday and Sunday to get this ready for a Monday-morning performance!
A Good Start…NOT!
So my next step was to…go to bed! I was sick as a dog with the flu and coughing my freakin’ brains out! On Saturday, I went to the “weekend doctor” to maybe get some relief so I could at least partially function. The rest of Saturday, I managed to sketch out the Underture score in its entirety between coughing fits and boxes of Kleenex. But now the task lay ahead to do a “neat score” with all the perfectly straight lines and “pretty” notes using my ancient Neanderthal tools – a pencil and wooden ruler.
“To stand in the rain and catch cold ’til you die”
Artist credit: Mike McInnerney http://mikemcinnerney.com
Saturday was fading away. The current “scratch score” that I had completed, looked worse than one of Beethoven’s, but at least I knew how to read it. So Saturday night, I tried to have my last “good” sleep. I knew that Sunday into Monday was gonna be nearly 24 hours of writing the neat score, along with all the parts for 60 instruments.
Sunday morning came, and I was awakened by a nice coughing fit. My “bed” was now a desk with several pillows on it. If I slept lying down like a “real person” the coughing wouldn’t stop. So I had to sleep like I was back in elementary school, putting my head down on the desk like it was “rest period.”
The Final Count-Down…The Marathon Begins
I had no appetite, so I just drank some water and went to work in my “little music room” around 8:00 AM that Sunday morning. I couldn’t have felt more like a curmudgeon if I had tried. Since all I did was work and cough, I felt totally isolated from my family that was moving about the house right outside my door. I was a prisoner of my own making, living on water and cold medicine. Feeling like crap had become the new normal. And yet, I plodded on, finishing the “good score” by around 7:00 PM Sunday evening.
At this point, I decided I needed a nap, so I set the alarm to go off in an hour, and then laid down on my “desk-bed” coughing myself to sleep. Upon the alarm going off, I jumped up and like a programmed, defective Lost In Space robot (DANGER, DANGER!), I set to work on the 60 parts for the players of the Wind Ensemble. Like the score, I did scratch versions first, and then turned right around and made the “ruler-perfect” copies after that.
It was now 6:00 AM Monday morning. I was delirious and dehydrated, but DONE! Hopefully, I transposed all the instruments correctly, though I really didn’t care anymore! I gathered up all the important papers I would need, and then settled down for a 2-hour (2-minute? NO difference!) nap.
The Darkest Corner of The Twilight Zone
artist credit: Mike McInnerney http://mikemcinnerney.com
As I was trying to settle down, an absurdly paranoid thought started boring a hole in my already spent brain…Conducting! That’s right – I just remembered that I had to conduct the Wind Ensemble for the maiden voyage of my arrangement! I thought back to my time a decade before this (1977 or so). I was recalling conducting class from my days back in New England Conservatory. No two ways about it. As a conductor…I really STUNK!!!
Teaching me how to conduct was like Sargent Carter teaching Gomer Pyle how to march. My professor had various complaints. My motions were too choppy. Also, I wasn’t hitting the (imaginary) “table” that a conductor is supposed to picture. I suppose I wouldn’t be a very good at mime artist either, what with fake walls and imaginary tables!
That said, I managed to pull off a C+ in the course and with that on my transcript, I had been exempted from having to take conducting all over again at St. Rose. Then came the paranoid thoughts. What if these various professors in the room watching me conduct, noticed what a freakin’ hack that I really was? They’ll all be whispering, ”How did this yahoo get out of taking conducting? We’ll fix his wagon and send him back to conductor’s kindergarten!” Then, like a Witches Coven, I heard uproarious laughter! That was my little morning nightmare that I awoke from.
Get Up! Get Up! And Get Out the Door!
I was up! Drank water. Gargled. Ran a comb over what was left of my hair. Grabbed my papers, my lucky conductor’s baton, and ran out the door.
Upon my arrival at the rehearsal room, the Wind Ensemble was already seated and warming up. My friend Mark was already there looking his usual haggard, burnt-out self. Not that I would hold it against him. I wouldn’t dare look in the mirror at my horrid image either.
The room quieted down and the professor gave the parameters of the playing of the arrangements. Each arranger would be allowed two run-through’s of their piece. Between these two takes, you had 3 minutes to make any suggestions or comments to the ensemble that might make your second take more successful. Both takes 1 & 2 would be recorded for later review by the professor, along with the neatness factor in your written score and parts.
There were a few arrangements that went before mine. For the most part, I wasn’t really paying attention as to what they sounded like. I heard some good notes and I heard some clunkers as well. It certainly wasn’t for me to judge anyone’s work too harshly. We were all in this together and all of us no doubt had been through our own form of personal hell to make this thing happen! If I could just get through my piece without falling off the podium, I’d be perfectly happy.
Step Right This Way…Maestro?
Finally, it was my turn. With shaky legs and feeling kind of faint, I hobbled up to the podium, lucky baton in hand. The parts were passed out, which took quite a while to get to all 60 players. It gave me time to recall my semi-waking nightmare about conducting. I decided then and there just do 4/4 time the best way I knew how and forget about how dumb it might look.
(Silence fell) I counted off the piece with 4 (probably stupid-looking) gestures. Off we went! The woodwinds started off nice and mellow and then a gradual build. When the trumpets and lower brass came in, I felt this amazing feeling of exhilaration come over me. I suddenly had “Smile-itis” like folks who win the lottery get.
For the first time in my life, I was in total control of this gigantic musical engine that was running on 60 cylinders! And to this day, as I was conducting Underture, I swear a healing process was underway for my tired, wretched body. As that Wind Ensemble continued to play with me at the helm, my perpetually smiling face and healing body did everything but levitate!
This Soul is Cleansed!!!
By the time the piece was over (at least the first take of 2), it was like I had never had the flu, and that whole sleepless life in a “prison of my own making” had never happened. It was just me, this amazing group of musicians and pure music magic that seized the day and shined this brilliant light on nearly four days of darkness.
In all this musing going on in my head, I had forgotten that there was an audience (a dozen or so) watching this event, and the applause (to me) was as thunderous as if 500 people were in the room! As I said before, Underture was recorded for the professor to review, and I will share the recording with you today. Granted, as far as an orchestration, it’s probably rinky-dink. Also I had to take it at a slower tempo than I really wanted since, after all, they were sight reading this for the first time.
All that “Amateur Hour” stuff aside though, I came out of a nightmare and for one shining moment, lived a dream! I went back to my family that day and gave them all a big hug – something I hadn’t done in a while. I experienced an amazing accomplishment under extremely adverse circumstances, and came out the other end as a musician who had grown a little stronger and a little wiser. Even better, no one seemed to notice what a hack I was as a conductor! I don’t mean to brag, but why not… after all this s—t I’d been through…I got an A!
Do any of you have similar college or school nightmare assignment scenarios? Please share them in the comments. We can all get out the “sad violins” and “Boo-Hoo” with each other.
