Doublereed Archive - Posting 000027.txt from 2008/03

From: Mike Benthin -MUTS oboe support <benthin@-----.net>
Subj: [DR-L] Since the bassoonists didn't post it.......NY times reporter as
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:10:59 -0400

And the Band Played Badly

By ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH

The New York Times, March 9, 2008

WHY should real musicians — the ones who can actually play their
instruments — have all the fun?
Some years ago, a group of frustrated people in Scotland decided that
the pleasure of playing in an orchestra should not be limited to those
who are good enough to do so, but should be available to the rankest of
amateurs. So we founded the Really Terrible Orchestra, an inclusive
orchestra for those who really want to play, but who cannot do so very
well. Or cannot do so at all, in some cases.

My own playing set the standard. I play the bassoon, even if not quite
the whole bassoon. I have never quite mastered C-sharp, and I am weak on
the notes above the high D. In general, I leave these out if they crop
up, and I find that the effect is not unpleasant. I am not entirely
untutored, of course, having had a course of lessons in the instrument
from a music student who looked quietly appalled while I played. Most of
the players in the orchestra are rather like this; they have learned
their instruments at some point in their lives, but have not learned
them very well. Now such people have their second chance with the Really
Terrible Orchestra.

The announcement of the orchestra’s founding led to a great wave of
applications to join. Our suspicion that there were many people yearning
to play in an orchestra but who were too frightened or too ashamed to do
anything about it, proved correct. There was no audition, of course,
although we had toyed with the idea of a negative audition in which
those who were too good would be excluded. This proved to be
unnecessary. Nobody like that applied to join.

Some of the members were very marginal musicians, indeed. One of the
clarinet players, now retired from the orchestra for a period of
re-evaluation, stopped at the middle B-flat, before the instrument’s
natural break. He could go no higher, which was awkward, as that left
him very few notes down below. Another, a cellist, was unfortunately
very hard of hearing and was also hazy on the tuning of the strings. As
an aide-mémoire, he had very sensibly written the names of the notes in
pencil on the bridge. This did not appear to help.

At the outset, we employed a professional conductor, which is a must for
anybody who is reading this and who is already planning to start a
similar orchestra.

Find somebody who is tolerant and has a sense of humor. The conductor
also has to be sufficiently confident to be associated with something
called the Really Terrible Orchestra; after all, it does go on the résumé.

Our initial efforts were dire, but we were not discouraged. Once we had
mastered a few pieces — if mastered is the word — we staged a public
concert. We debated whether to charge for admission, but wisely decided
against this. That would be going too far.

So should we go to the other extreme and pay people to come? There was
some support for this, but we decided against it. Instead, we would give
the audience several free glasses of wine before the concert. That, it
transpired, helped a great deal.

We need not have worried. Our first concert was packed, and not just
with friends and relations. People were intrigued by the sheer honesty
of the orchestra’s name and came to see who we were. They were
delighted. Emboldened by the rapturous applause, we held more concerts,
and our loyal audience grew. Nowadays, when we give our annual concert
at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the hall is full to capacity with
hundreds of music-lovers. Standing ovations are two-a-penny.

“How these people presume to play in public is quite beyond me,” wrote
one critic in The Scotsman newspaper. And another one simply said
“dire.” Well, that may be so, but we never claimed to be anything other
than what we are. And we know that we are dire; there’s no need to state
the obvious. How jejune these critics can be!

Even greater heights were scaled. We made a CD and to our astonishment
people bought it. An established composer was commissioned to write a
piece for us. We performed this and recorded it at a world premiere,
conducted by the astonished composer himself. He closed his eyes.
Perhaps he heard the music in his head, as it should have been. This
would have made it easier for him.

There is now no stopping us. We have become no better, but we plow on
regardless. This is music as therapy, and many of us feel the better for
trying. We remain really terrible, but what fun it is. It does not
matter, in our view, that we sound irretrievably out of tune. It does
not matter that on more than one occasion members of the orchestra have
actually been discovered to be playing different pieces of music, by
different composers, at the same time. I, for one, am not ashamed of
those difficulties with C-sharp. We persist. After all, we are the
Really Terrible Orchestra, and we shall go on and on. Amateurs arise —
make a noise.

Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the forthcoming novel “The
Miracle at Speedy Motors.”

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