Conductor's

As she approached the band building, she was greeted by the glorious din of freshmen attempting to play instruments. Actually, it wasn’t as bad as it appeared. It only sounded bad because everyone wasn’t playing their respective instruments. From the sound of it, they had switched and were now blowing as hard as they could through someone else’s. “Oh great,” Caryn whispered and sighed. “This is going to be tough.”

And it would be. Caryn and her friends had, idiotically they would say, volunteered to be in the freshman talent show. Or the no-talent show of 2001 as it was known to this group, the group who hung out at Ibaraki’s crib (the upstairs hallway in Griffith’s where Ibaraki can be found) every school day at about 11:30 and not at the popular cherry tree or snack bar. They had begun practicing two weeks before and had only last week chosen their music. After much deliberation, arguments, and tedious games of rock, paper, scissors, they had decided on the easiest, yet most playable without putting the audience to sleep piece of music. It was called “The Empire Strikes Back Medley (Darth Vader’s theme and Han Solo and The Princess’s theme)”. They hadn’t even begun to practice it and the (no) talent show was on Friday next week, and they wouldn’t have a full band practice at all. But they were going to do it. They were going to show that a (no) talent show could possibly have talent, just not coming from this direction. But they weren’t quitters. Even after their advisors advised against it because it was a big hassle for such a little show, they decided that they did have the guts to go up, perform an okay song with about 13 people four of them trumpets, and pull it off without a hitch. This would be their last rehearsal during Spring Break. The blaring of a tuba broke into her sarcastic ramblings. She winced and thought, maybe if we switched instruments, we would be actually be interesting and not get booed off the stage. She opened the door and met her fate. “Hi guys. I’m here. Sorry I’m late, but I brought food!” “OOOHHHH!!!! FOOD!” was the enthusiastic response.

She looked around at the ragtag bunch in front of her as she stood on the stage. First there was Aaron, the flute player, looking tired as always because of the many activities that he immerses himself in, and yet he is happily optimistic and doesn’t complain about playing this easy piece of music where he has virtually no part.
Next to him were Miyasaki and Naomi, clarinets. Naomi was the mastermind behind this whole event. She had taken care of the deans, the music, the practice times, everything. She was also the most for this event and some of her passion for putting on a good performance had rubbed off on all of them.
Miyasaki was more quiet, a great clarinetist (first chair, symphonic) but quiet, and this would prove to be a problem later on.
Then there were Max, Brandon, and Ibaraki, trumpets. Max was in his quiet rebellion mood since everyone had told him to shut up and not play while Caryn was trying to talk. Brandon was attentively and happily sitting and listening to all that was around him, and Ibaraki was looking like he always does: bored.
The last members of their group were Glenn, tuba, and David, trombone. Both in their little worlds, not caring what happened as long as they sounded good on stage.

“So, let’s get tuned and started, okay?” Caryn said weakly. Her first goal was to get them organized and tuned so that they could begin and get to lunch on time. Lunch being the most important thing of this meeting. “Concert F?”

And so they blew, this time through their own instruments. And it sounded okay. A little squeak here and there and maybe some weren’t playing the right note. And perhaps they were looking at her expectantly. Why? Oh yeah, as the thought hit her. “STOP!” And the noise was gone. “Umm... okay. Let’s start at the beginning and see what happens. Okay?” She raised her arms up to signal that they would begin, but some people weren’t looking at her and were carrying on their own conversations. “HEY!” she yelled.

“Caryn, you’ve got to be more assertive!” yelled Glenn. “You’re the conductor. So, conduct!”

“Well I will if you’d shut up!” Caryn replied loudly. She raised her hands again. “Ready? One, two, three, four.” They began to muddle through the first part of the music. Oh dear, she thought, this is going to be a long four hours.

After the first hour of yelling and pleading and yelling some more, they were ready to take a break. “You can only have this lunch break now, if you play the piece through without messing up, okay? This means that Miyasaki, you have to play louder, and I mean really loud, or Glenn gets to keep your twenty bucks and we don’t go to lunch, and I know how important that is to you.” That caused him to wince. Glenn the tuba player grinned and added his own arrogant, annoying remarks about what if the conductor screwed up? “It doesn’t matter because no one’s going to be paying attention to me. Even you guys. So, ready? One, two, three, four.” And they went through it again. However this time was probably better than last because they were promised food and a break from Caryn’s yelling and Glenn’s remarks. “LUNCH!!” And they fled out into the hall and sat right in front of the door, blocking the hallway.

And it was an interesting lunch, full of Cheez Whiz and crackers, video cameras and manapua. They even did this thing where they wrote star wars on the crackers with the Cheez Whiz and video taped it. Then they each took one to eat. This film work was the brilliant idea of Max’s. There was lots of laughter, until the hour ended and it was time to go back to work.

They gloomily walked back into the room and proceeded to get their instruments out again. Then they went through the whole boring process of tuning. But they did get some things straightened out. Like the forte-piano at the end on the fermata and the dotted eighth sixteenth notes in Darth Vader’s theme. Then there was the threatening and begging of David to please play louder. In the end, he relented and tried to play louder. It sounded good. Their incentive the last time they played it was that they would be done and they would be able to switch instruments again. The music went over pretty well. And there was no reason that it shouldn’t, considering they got it from the junior school. After all, here we had people in all ranks of band and they were having the hardest time interpreting the music. But it was done, and as ready as it could be that day.