High School Band Tuning up: A Short Poem
High School Band
The Band Tunes Up
Rumble roar, the great bass drum;
Tinkle-tink of bells, a shimmer of flutes; throaty clarinets.
Glare of trumpets now joined by seductive voice of saxophone.
Then all together, bits and parts
of exercises, scales and tunes.
All play at once, but not together!
And then, oh lawdy, and then
They put them in ...the gym!
Bounce and echo off concrete walls,
A melange of dissonant sounds!
This is not for audience ears!
Bad enough, this cacophony of sound;
Not made better when the choir joins, oh no.
Two music teachers; who ought to know better!
At performance time,
Each directs their own group,
Independent of the other!
This is not musical; not in sync!
Next time, bring earplugs!
Backstory
When my younger daughter was in high school, she was in the choir. The band was already in the gym, practicing, when everyone arrived. Mistake #1 on the part of the instructors. This should have been done prior to letting the audience (mostly parents) in to the concert.
Cardinal sin mistake #2 was the way the concert was handled, between the band and the choir! It was the worst possible musical misery anyone has ever been asked to endure!
It was evident that there had never been any joint rehearsals between the two groups, or if there had, they were as badly managed as the performance! Two music instructors should have known better!
When I got home, this prose poem was the result. It was originally written in May of 1988, with a minor revision in May of 2010; the last revision was in February of 2018.
I find it incidentally interesting that a great number of my first edits seem to occur, however many years later, in the same month of the year as the original work. Something strange is afoot in the universe!
© 2010 Liz Elias
