The 3X Repeat

March 29, 2009 at 7:14 PM

I am planning to write a thoughtful blog about a nice, fun experience performing in a string quartet for the first time. But in order to be able to do that, and hopefully stop obsessing about it, I have to get this off my chest first: I screwed up. UGH.

It was a Haydn Minuet, for goodness sakes. It never went above 3rd position and didn't even have any 16th notes. Of the two we were playing, it was supposed to be the "easier" piece.

I took a repeat 3 times, whereas the 2nd violin, the viola, and the cello only took it twice, as they were supposed to, and then they went on into the Trio, leaving me behind in the second strain of the Minuetto, in a different key. Once I realized I was supposed to have gone on to the Trio, I came in a measure behind. (At least I was in the right key at that point.) I was off for about 6 measures.

It sounded kind of interesting in a post-modernish sort of way, and most of the audience was eating dinner anyway. The food was good and there was a lot of it. There was also an ample supply of good beverages, which had been, and were still being, indulged. Several people, including the one who recorded the whole thing, told me later (politely I'm assuming) that they "didn't notice."

From Dottie Case
Posted on March 29, 2009 at 9:41 PM

Karen, they really did likely mean they didn't notice. I have a wedding story that is where I first decided that most people listening just don't have a clue.

Early in our gigging days, when we were still using a flute for our first violinist, we were booked to do a wedding in a beautiful old church. The bride requested to come in to Trumpet Voluntary, since it was what her mother had gotten married to. Everything else was our choice, they only wanted the Trumpet Voluntary. Our last communication with the bride's mother pre-wedding was about how excited she was to see her daughter walk down the aisle to the same music she had used...Trumpet Voluntary. The acoustics were marvelous in this location, with our sound ringing out clearly.

You have to know that our flutist was a bit (ok, a lot) of an airhead...good flutist, but the elevator didn't always go all the way to the top. I was playing 2nd violin.

The church had a really long aisle, and we had planned out our approach to repeats, etc. but of course, you never really know how much music you'll need until the day approaches. So, we planned a course of action...I was the person to communicate with the rest of the group, with the violist and cellist sitting blind in relation to the aisle.

So...we get the bridal party down the aisle, and begin the much-anticipated Trumpet Voluntary. In our arrangment, the A section is in D, and B section is in eminor, and once you get into the B section, you need sufficient time to replay the A section as a Da Capo, or else do some nasty and awkward ending in a very wrong key. :)The bride must have been in a hurry, as they were coming up very fast, so I told my group "repeat", meaning go back and play the A section again.

Well, half of our group heard "Repeat" and half heard B, and this is what they proceeded to do. I think the flutist went with me back to the beginning, and the viola and cello players went on to the B section. Stop for a moment and imagine the sound..... Melody and alto in D major, tenor and Bass in eminor. (pained grimace here) As we floundered just a bit, I was seeing panic stricken looks from the rest of the group, and was trying to communicate GO BACK. GO BACK. I trucked on, playing my 2nd violin harmony strongly in original key The violist just stopped playing, deciding to lessen the damage. The cellist, understanding what was wrong, wandered around on various notes trying to find one that would get us lined up. However, our airhead flutist just stopped playing, and looking at me said (out loud!), 'Something's wrong! Something's wrong!!".

Now....by then, that was fairly apparent to us all, but the solution to the problem was NOT for the person PLAYING THE MELODY to stop playing WHILE THE BRIDE WAS PARTWAY DOWN THE AISLE. This poor girl got to the front of the church to the sound of a 2nd violin line, with a cellist sort of wandering around underneath...though I do think we must have outlined some form of a D chord to end on.

As the minister began the wedding, I dropped my face behind the stand, mortified and upset. We felt sort of sick during the whole ceremony. Afterwards, we were packing up, and just happened to run into the mother in the restroom. She was positively gushing! "OH, that was SO beautiful....everything we've dreamed of for her wedding!!" (Just wait till you hear the video, is what I was thinking to myself).

From that experience, we learned a few things.

1- We plan repeats for Trumpet Voluntary is detail in advance, and never get near the B section for processionals.

2-We realized that people really have no clue. They hear the sound of well played strings and just hear beautiful....they are truly clueless about much else.

3-We didn't play with the flute player much after that. This was a sort of camel's back experience for us, on top of many other sorts of 'issues' . We were a group of Type A's paired with a Type 'Airhead"...wasn't a good professional blend. :):)

From sharelle taylor
Posted on March 30, 2009 at 8:03 AM

Type A _irhead . Useful if you're going to blow a flute I suppose. Fun story, Dottie. Karen, unless people really really know what they should be hearing (like they're on a judging panel or something) they really don't know if what they hear is what should be heard or not. And that's supposing that they actually listen note by note without any other distraction. Even in a concert setting, that's unlikely.

And even if they do notice, if they're like me, it doesn't even slightly diminish the pleasure of hearing music played live. We all adjust our expectations to the setting, but even hearing Salvatore Accardo bork the Tchaik didn't stop us enjoying the night and understanding that he really can play.

From Karen Allendoerfer
Posted on March 30, 2009 at 3:03 PM

Dottie, that's a great story! The piece where I played 2nd violin went better; I played 1st on this particular one because the other violinist couldn't make the rehearsal where we picked it out. She's a music teacher and has had much more chamber music experience. So I think that in the near future I'll stick to second, for a little while at least until I build up more experience and comfort with chamber music. At least none of the instruments self-destructed, which happened the only other time I tried to perform chamber music ;-) (It was a Brahms piano trio, and the pedal fell off the piano in the middle of the performance of the 4th movement--which was more traumatic for the pianist than for me, but still, very exciting!)

From Tom Holzman
Posted on March 30, 2009 at 4:28 PM

Karen - in an article with the program notes from a concert I went to yesterday, the person doing the article questioned Repin, Harrell, and two conductors about flubs they had had. Harrell told about playing a Bach cello suite and accidentally skipping a couple of movements so that he shortened a 20+ minute piece into 8 minutes. Happens to everyone. However, I suspect in most cases you hardly notice it. The easy solution, of course, is to limit your repertoire to stuff like Webern where it doesn't matter because it sounds the same whether you flub or not.

From Karen Allendoerfer
Posted on March 30, 2009 at 10:34 PM

It feels like someone must have read my "violin shopping" blog, because I just got a postcard in the mail from Shar, telling me that their representative will be in my local area in a couple of weeks. I know this is the time of the year for sales, and it's probably just a coincidence, but still, sometimes you ask and the universe provides . . .

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on March 31, 2009 at 8:23 AM

Karen, people from the business world really do read our blogs, or they have a computer search the Internet for mention of their products or players. A long time ago, I wrote about Clarity rosin, and one of the people who developed it wrote to me directly. Last year, just after I wrote a blog about Leon Fleisher, someone from Sony (Fleisher's "publisher") contacted Laurie Niles with new information on Fleisher and suggested that we write something else about him. Laurie passed the request on to me and told me that I could decide whether or not to write followup blogs. Big Brother and Homeland Security are watching you, too.

From Terez Mertes
Posted on March 31, 2009 at 6:33 PM

>It sounded kind of interesting in a post-modernish sort of way, and most of the audience was eating dinner anyway. The food was good and there was a lot of it.

This line just cracked me up! Good for you for 'fessing up. : ) Always entertaining to hear about other ppl's foibles.

From sharelle taylor
Posted on April 1, 2009 at 9:14 AM

I commented here on a discussion about strings regarding my experience with a Warchal set, and the company was very quick to contact me and see if it could assist AND sent out a complimentary set. I continued to use Warchal's on that violin.

This entry has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.

The 3X Repeat

Subscribe

Laurie's Books