I don’t talk much about music on the blog, which is actually rather odd, considering how saturated my life has always been with the practice and study of music. So today I hope you’ll bear with me as I share a musical story that came to mind while Christian and I were watching National Treasure 2 the other night.
My senior year of high school, I worked tons of close shifts at Taco Bell to save the money to go on a three-week European tour with the U. S. Collegiate Wind Band.
We played concerts almost every day: in the Amsterdam zoo, in a park in Paris (where I had a halting conversation in French with a lovely old man), as part of a German kinderfest, in Salzburg standing beside Mozart’s piano, in Gothic churches and places I can’t even remember. One of the last concerts–perhaps the very last–was at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, the church where Charles and Diana were married.
Our big show piece was a band arrangement of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Lots of finger work for the woodwinds, with a really big brass finale. And the brass section could not seem to cut off with the conductor. They’d been scolded for it many times over the course of the tour.
St. Paul’s was a disorienting space to play in. Flute players like live rooms–they make us sound good–but that day I learned there’s such a thing as too much reverb. It also didn’t help that there was a lot of crowd noise: groups on tours and other individual tourists chatting it up. (The famous houses of prayer in Europe, by and large, are not prayerful at all.) It was hard to hear the sections farthest away from me at all, much less play in concert with them. The simpler pieces weren’t so bad, but that fugue was something else to keep together. I just had to shut off my ears and watch the conductor’s hands.
I breathed a sigh of relief as we finished our complicated finger work and slowed down into the big, brassy finish. The conductor gave us the final cutoff…and the brass kept playing. And playing. Irritated, I turned around to glare at them (because flute players are know-it-all busybodies–I can own my instrument’s personality)–and as the brass note went on and on, I was shocked to see every instrument in resting position, even while the full brass sound rang on and on.
Speaking of instrument personalities…if you aren’t a musician, you might think I’m making this up, but it really is true that certain instruments equal certain personality types. I don’t know if the instrument attracts certain personalities or shapes them after the fact, but for example, you can expect flute players to be divas (that’s a kind descriptor, btw), trumpet players to have huge egos (so far I’ve only met one trumpeter who didn’t fit that mold), saxophone players to be very laid back, and bassoonists to have a strong goofy streak.
Musicians, you want to jump in?
Kathleen M. Basi 
haha! Although I work hard against it, I think I would have to claim the flute’s characteristic as well! Too funny…
What do they say about organists?
We didn’t have much of an organ program at my college, so I’m afraid I’ll have to throw that question out to other people…anyone? Anyone? 🙂
Trombonists are typically pretty mellow and can roll with everyone else’s egos! 🙂
Everyone always looks at me in surprise when I say I’m an organist. I’ve never been sure how that interpret that. I would propose that percussionists often appear to have the only egos that surpass the trumpets, but once you get to know them, usually have an endearingly nerdy/goofy streak that can rival all other groups.
Hilarious! I haven’t known very many percussionists that well, at least until I got involved in church music…but I can’t help thinking they’re a bit different breed than classical percussionists. 🙂 Still, I can see endearingly goofy. LOL
I’m not quite sure how I should reply to this. I participated in the string program as an elementary student with the violin – discovering that it really hurts your chin, that and at the time having an insrument that came in many pieces, I felt, would be much cooler. Thus I began to play the clarinet and continued with that through Jr. High school. When I was told that I would be getting braces on my teeth I thought about switching to an instrument that would not tear my mouth to pieces when I played it so I went to the flute. I continued on with the flute and added the piccilo into my early college years. I’m not quite sure that I can remember what the exact inspiration was to do it but in my freshman year in college I decided that I needed to play a brass instrument and I picked up the Barritone horn. I was never the master of that big horn and could relly only play well in Treble cleff, not bass. I’m not sure what all of this wandering through the orchestra says about me or my personality but I had fun with each instrument.
I’d imagine it says that you’re a better rounded person than mostof us. 🙂
I like your take on musician personalities linked with their instruments.
St. Paul’s Cathedral has that acoustical wonder, the “Whispering Gallery”.