Music to Their Ears

         I guess you could say I'm retired, at least musically.

         Retired?

         I bet that word comes as a shock to you when you realize I'm only in my early twenties. However, I have stopped partaking in any sort of musical performance for the time being, and it always plays on my mind during the holidays. For a good portion of my life, the holidays were a hectic time filled with musical performances. The areas and capacities in which I performed changed, but the prospect of holiday performance was always a delight in my eyes.

         Experiencing that delight began when I was in kindergarten. During that time, I was part of a chorus composed of twenty to thirty special education students (called the Friends chorus), and all of our songs were performed in sign language. Due to various physical disabilities, only about half of us could sing. I was one of them, but I didn't get the solo for this particular holiday performance.

         About two weeks before Christmas, we were scheduled for a brief performance at Saint Jude's Catholic Church in Jupiter, Florida, a town that's twenty miles from my home town (Stuart). Interestingly, this wasn't a live performance with people in the church watching us. As a matter of fact, the performance was being taped at the church to be shown on the local ABC affiliate on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Also, we only performed one song for this taping: "Frosty the Snowman".

         Now before I go any further in discussing the performance, I ought to point out two important facts; I have always been a fan of snowmen, and when I was a kid, I loved watching commercials. Now back in 1990 (the year of this performance), Sprite aired a commercial with a kid building a snowman. He put on the magic hat and then put a full can of Sprite on the outer branches of the snowman's arm. What did the snowman do? He started to drink the Sprite! That was my favorite commercial that holiday season, and it would end up influencing my performance.

         For the most part, the performance wasn't that bad, especially considering that some of the kids could get agitated very easily. Once the cameras were rolling, though, everyone was able to go into performance mode. For me, performance mode was synonymous with showing off regardless of cameras being around. I was located quite literally front and center of the chorus. I was on the bottom row and clearly visible to the camera crew filming the soloist. Everything proceeded normally up until the point where were to sing about Frosty dancing after the hat was placed on his head. In American Sign Language, the sign for dancing involves circling two fingers on the right hand (imitating legs) over the left palm. Now I had to have been practicing that for weeks, but that night I decided that instead of singing "dance" I'd imitate someone drinking a can of Sprite! That was no accident, and even when one of the instructors was showing me the correct sign I brushed it off and continued with the routine. Of course, I had no idea that they were going to include that in the final cut for the television special. I didn't find that out until Christmas Eve when my parents and I watched the first airing. My parents were a little embarrassed that I did such a thing, but now it's a great holiday comedy anecdote.

         After first grade, I had no holiday performance opportunities until I was in fourth grade. The year before, I got to play on little chromatic bell sets in music class, and we got to use them again in fourth grade. Being the quick musical learner that I am, I became quite adept at playing the bells and was among the few fourth graders that could play "Minuet in G" by none other than Johann Sebastian Bach, the most difficult piece we were assigned. Around this time, Mrs. Cooper (my music teacher) organized a Christmas pageant in which the fourth and fifth graders could participate, with singing being the main component. However, bells were featured, and I immediately signed up. The pageant program was composed of mostly Christmas tunes, but "Minuet in G" was also a part of the program. There were to be three performances of this pageant with the various participants from the fourth and fifth grade classes in different groups. In my group there were a handful of people that could play it, but in another group, only one girl could play the song. Guess who got asked to join that group. I ended up in two out of three performances, all of which took place during school hours. Thus, as a bit of an early Christmas gift, I also got to miss class for the first time in my education for a musical performance. Little did I know it wouldn't be the first time.

         Those childhood performances were simply a prelude to the hectic performance schedule that would dominate my adolescent holiday seasons. In sixth grade, I had taken up alto saxophone. The next year I found myself marching in Christmas parades, a ritual that I eventually repeated all the way through high school. My saxophone playing also led to Christmas concerts for concert and jazz bands, and when I joined the handbell choir in seventh grade, I had a multitude of performances over the holidays. In spite of all the dates to juggle and missing class on numerous occasions, I relished these performances and all the hijinks that ensued.

         The parades were more interesting during my middle school years than my high school years. I think that's because we practiced for them more in middle school. Though we never won awards for our marching performances, it was still loads of fun to march. We were allowed to decorate our instruments, and I had a tendency to put lots of garland on my saxophone. Usually, the bell would look like a furry animal was emerging from it, as I put several strips of garland on it. My favorite combination was red and silvery white, as I concocted a candy cane theme for my instrument. Other decorations included Christmas lights (I marched in two night parades), snowman ornaments and red bows. On a couple occasions, I even got heckled for having an overdressed saxophone!

         Dressing up my saxophone was only one of many Christmas parade memories I hold dear. Probably the highlight of all the Christmas parades was the opportunity to hang out with my friends, as nearly all of them were in band as well. As we swarmed around free food offered after the parades and rode around the county on somewhat cramped school buses, we gossiped, flirted (well, not me; I usually just watched people flirt), joked and attempted to sing Christmas carols. Needless to say, all attempts to sing were pretty horrid mostly due to a dire lack of kids with vocal talent. Still, those attempts proved to be plenty amusing, as it gave my friends and me something to talk (or yell and scream) about while enduring bus rides and waiting our turn to march (which became longer with each passing year). In seventh grade, my friend Michelle spent much of the downtime flirting with Aaron (one of the drum majors), and I tagged along as "moral support". I ended up getting more involved in the conservation than she was. That made the rest of the parade a tad tense, to say the least. It doesn't help that the following year, she had a Christmastime crush on a percussionist that was more interested in talking to me (and borrowing my money).

         Christmas concerts and gigs are as ubiquitous as presents and long lines in the stores during the holiday season. Between concert band, jazz band and pep band I've had more than my share of holiday performances. In my opinion, concert band performances tend to be the least exciting but nonetheless have their own sort of charm. The two concert performances that stand in my mind the most date back to eighth grade and twelfth grade. In eighth grade, my band director had the brilliant idea of having us play the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah. Technically, it's not that difficult, but it's not a piece written for seventh and eighth graders with only a couple years of instrumental experience. I remember the alto sax part was a lot more involved than what I had been used to seeing at that time. That said, during the concert, half of the band was getting lost. Surprisingly, we made it through the song and knew when we really needed to play. While it may have sounded like parts of the songs were missing, it was easily recognized as the Hallelujah chorus. As for twelfth grade, it was a completely different story. For some reason, well written and challenging Christmas pieces for wind ensemble are nearly impossible to find (and/or buy), so the wind ensemble (the top group) played a couple non-Christmas songs. Easily my favorite song on our program was one such song, "Molly on the Shore" by Percy Grainger. I liked it because it was a song I had to practice a lot. Normally, I'm not a stickler for practice, but this song made me want to practice because the part was fast, both tempo-wise and for moving my fingers. I saw the piece as a dare for my little fingers on a fairly large tenor sax (which dwarfs me when I play/wear it), and it was a challenge that I was able to meet. For some people, it was a bit too much for them, and they didn't want to practice. Still, come performance time, we were able to successfully perform the song, which featured three very demanding (and wonderfully executed) clarinet solos. The experience I had with that song has made it one of my new Christmas favorites even if it's not a traditional Christmas carol.

         Holiday jazz band and middle school handbell gigs were a little more relaxed and involved plenty of traveling. Also, the two musically different mediums had some similarities when it came to performances. Both required extensive setups, flexibility on the players' parts (since we never knew exactly where our performance was going to be) and sometimes free food (because we musicians love to eat!). It's hard to pick favorite holiday performances because they were all enjoyable. In both groups, the number of people participating was smaller than with a marching band, so there was a greater feeling of camaraderie. For me, handbell gigs were more fun because at the time, I had a couple close friends in handbells. It was fun hanging out with them on the bus and poking fun at the holiday commercialism while we travelled from gig to gig. I remember one week in seventh grade when I had three handbell performances during the day, a parade that night, a parade the following day and a handbell performance the day after that. It was quite a full schedule! However, I enjoyed it immensely. We had the handbell performances at the local Barnes and Noble (my overall favorite performance), the Elliot museum on Hutchinson Island and an assisted living facility. We may have been given free food at the Elliot Museum, but the gig at Barnes and Noble was my favorite because of the relaxed atmosphere and the awesome audience. We performed in an area right by the children's section, so the kids were ecstatic. After the performance, they were even trying to hold the bells. As it turns out, one of the bells had to be fixed due to it getting chipped after that performance.

         Jazz band was a slightly different situation. While I could get along with most of my fellow musicians, I felt out of place because I was easily the shyest member of the jazz band, and I ended up in the band under unusual circumstances. See, as opposed to everyone else, I hadn't auditioned. I ended up in the jazz band due to a schedule conflict due to block scheduling and a desire to take band both semesters of my sophomore year. So, I was invited to join, and I ended up a member of the jazz band. I never had any solos, and that was okay by me. Our performances were adventures in themselves, and my favorite adventure was a holiday gig in downtown Stuart on the Riverwalk stage. It was a pleasant day in December with comfortable performing temperatures, but it was also very windy. That said, the first few minutes of the performance were hampered by flying sheet music. After going through clothespins, clips and even cell phones, we managed to get our music to stay on the stands, and the performance continued without a hitch. The audience enjoyed our performance, and to celebrate a successful gig, we grabbed lunch from Luna's, a femous and tasty Italian restaurant in the downtown area. Though we had to pay for our meals, the pizza, garlic knots and what not were scrumptious, especially after a performance. The combination of holiday cheer, good performing weather, being on the Saint Lucie River and delicious food made this jazz band performance more vivid in my memory, one that I allow to linger whenever I go to downtown Stuart.

         Nowadays, I'm out of the performing spotlight and am in the audience for holiday performances. As I sit on the curb and watch the bands march by, I can't help but think about the days when I was in their shoes. Those were fun days, if perhaps hectic and susceptible to quarreling. Sometimes I miss that exhilarating chaos and pine to return to the holiday performing schedule that was once a big part of my life. For now, though, it's time to sit back and enjoy the music.