The Banned Concert

A friend recently posted on Facebook that her grandchild had taken up a musical instrument and was practicing in the house. It reminded me of a newspaper column I wrote several years ago when the children were still in the house. I thought my friend would enjoy reading this. This Sunday is my little musician's birthday.

 

I was on vacation and visiting my sister in Kentucky. My daughter Jackie called to remind me that the Spring Concert, the final concert of the year, the night awards are given, would be held at 7:00 PM the next evening at the high school auditorium. “Or course,” she said, “you don’t have to come home for it.” They called it The Spring Band Concert, but I knew it should have been the Banned Concert.

Sometimes subtle works with me. Usually not. But the next evening my wife discovered me in the high school auditorium, fourth seat over about half way down on the left.  She was surprised to see me. I have no idea why. She heard the conversation. Nobody tells Jackie no. I am sending her to negotiate my next contract.

Other than Jackie’s power of persuasion, two very different things motivated me to be in the audience that Thursday evening.  First, it is the parental thing to do.  We parents have been taught it is important to support our children in their endeavors.  If the "super-father" on the television commercial can fly home early from an important business trip and take a cab in the rain through big city rush hour traffic to see his kid be a sunflower in the school play, I can get come home early to see my future Doc Sevrenson play the trumpet. So, I was principally motivated by guilt. Guilt and the desire to have my wife romantically inclined toward me for the following week.

The second motivating factor was almost as strong. Curiosity. I was just plain curious. For the past few months I had heard, emanating from my basement during practice time, what I could best describe as the sounds of an elephant in heat that was also in the process of dying. The sound was horrible, but at the same time, tantalizing. And I was interested in what a whole herd of these dying elephants would sound like. Where better to hear this than a beginner band concert? Just as I had thought, it was amazing.

The place was packed. Extra chairs had been brought in and people were standing around the walls. From the size of the crowd one would think a highly respected entertainer was going to appear on stage that evening.

Instead, it was the fifth grade first year band students in winter concert. I had been listening to my young trumpet player practicing for the past three months but had come anyway. But why had all these others come? Had their children been practicing out of ear shot? We certainly didn't come because of our love of music. We had very little chance of hearing what could honestly be defined as music.

Expectations were running high. I have no hint as to why, but they were. My child's two older brothers even showed up. The room was full of cameras and camcorders. Parents were jockeying for position to get the best camera angles. Many came early to get a "good" seat up front. What was wrong with these people? Had they not been paying attention during their young musician's practice time at home? For whatever reason, excitement filled the air.

The concert started with the fifth grade band. They were awful. They were wonderful… cuter than anyone has a right to be. Moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas had spent the final few pre-concert seconds standing and waving at their little “stars.” There was a lot of love in that room. One could almost taste it and smell it. It was so appealing. It was wonderful.

Mr. Meeks, the music teacher and band director, took his place and got the children’s attention. (Not an easy task, there was a lot of waving still going on.) The children fired up their instruments and off they went. In several different directions. It was much like taking a joy ride in a Porsche with an eleven year old at the wheel. It was a ride in a car, but you had no idea where or how it might end up.

The tunes sounded vaguely familiar. Notes came firing out at us from all directions. Some died premature deaths, lodged in the throats of the instruments. Some sadly limped to the edge of the stage, dropped over the edge and were never heard from again. Some screeched and screamed as they torturously exited the instruments, ricocheted off the walls, bounced wildly around the room and wounded several of the concert goers. Many were almost perfect.

Just as we had been playing at home, the audience played NAME THAT TUNE® during the concert. Most of us cheated and looked at the playbill that listed the names of the pieces the band would be playing. When the band started playing, it was all I could do to keep from shouting out, "I can name that tune in five notes!" Fortunately, I restrained myself. Really, my wife, who can read my mind, restrained me by giving me one of her most effective glares. Her look told me, "Go ahead, buster, and try it and see what happens next." With such powerful motivation, I managed to control myself. And I would have looked rather foolish trying to name the tune in five notes, when, in fact, it only had two notes, repeated over and over again. As a matter of fact, I really did recognize a couple of the songs.

While leaving the graciously short concert, it was interesting to listen to the concert goers' comments. Misty-eyed moms and grandmothers were gushing on about how WONDERFUL the children were. The fathers were carefully mute. They possibly didn't see it as the stellar performance the mothers did, but were kind and wise enough to just keep quiet.

I must be honest with you. The music wasn't great.  But for first year students, the band did pretty good. But my daughter, now that is a different story. She was MAGNIFICENT!

Copyright © 1992 by William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved