January 11, 2005 at 9:54 AM

Any violinist who hasn't taken the opportunity to join a pit orchestra for a musical should reconsider.

My first venture into the pit was now fifteen years ago. My, has it really been that long? I still smell the drying paint on the stage props.

Everything about the pit was an adventure. We only had room to squeeze four violinists between the drum set and the piano. Huddled, we managed to move our bows by tilting the angle of our instruments this way and that to avoid eye gauging and sudden hiccups in the phrasing due to collisions with the wall. The dim, yellow stand lights created ambiance, but offered little in the way of lighting. However, this was not an issue, since we were a mere three inches from the large, hand-scrawled manuscript.

We were four young girls up against a Goliath of a brass section, armed with nothing but little wooden sticks. It didn't matter which social circles I kept outside the pit; down below, we violins bonded instantly in order to stay alive.

Hours of rehearsal would pass, yet still we would worry, wondering if it would all come together for opening night. Sometimes it didn't. "Ad-lib" measures could stretch into an entire movement in order to keep the show rolling.

I always admired and envied the stars on the stage, the ones that accepted the ovations and bouqets. Glory is not rewarded to the lowly pit musician. Rather, we were to hide our faces like the Phantom of the Opera, making mysterious noises in anonimity and leaving the audience wondering, "What exactly was that haunting wail in the middle of the interlude?" A violinist can make valiant efforts at multiple key changes and challenging solos without risk, for no one will ever know it was him if he screws it up.

So even though I wished for the attention of the spotlight, at the same time, it terrified me. I preferred to keep myself safely secret, along with my crush on the boy who played the piano so well all those years in the school musical, never once telling a soul, and happy to leave it that way.

That's what I liked most about the pit. A shy girl could participate, unobserved, from the same vantage point as that of a Degas painting, there beneath the lights of the show.

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January 11, 2005 at 9:54 AM

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