Lazorphaze

I heard from Greg Keel that you came here because of the conducting of Phil Holm in the Boston Pops. is this true?
If not, why'd you come to Minnesota?

Manny Laureano

Uhh... I like snow?

ML

wiseone2

Manny is a great bad weather player. He left the rain for the snow
Wilmer

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Manny Laureano

Okay, so, now this begs the question:

What's the worst weather/natural disaster type of situation any of us has had to play through?

I can hardly wait for the responses...

ML

FlugelFlyer

I sang through a tornadic supercell. Does that count?


[edit: might as well tell the story]


Last year, I sang a choral concert in Aurora, IL. During the concert, the 'nado sirens went off plenty of times throughout the evening making pitch recognition touchy. At one point, the choir had to stop singing due to the siren aimed right at the church. We were pretty lucky given that a church is always the prime target for a tornado.


Also, I'm trying to recall, I might have played trumpet through another one. Either way, I've chased plenty of storms and have plenty of severe weather stories.

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Musician4077

No severe weather stories, but there was the time that the local VFW called me to play taps one time a year or two back. It was so cold, my lips got stuck to the mouthpiece! While I was playing, and air was going through my horn, I was fine, but when I went to snap it down to attention, nice and crisplike...that was painful. I think my lips had some regrowing to do! I say they should make a little heated mouthpiece (kinda like those battery powered socks) !

Jeff

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gphorn

Our symphonic band played an outdoor concert on an asphalt parking lot in the middle of July in 95+ degree weather. The sun was beating down fiercely and most of the audience were listening from their cars with their air conditioners running! One of our elderly trombone players passed out and fell off the back of the riser, breaking his shoulder and taking out his section mate's trombone (which was on a stand between them) in the process. However, the show must go on! The ambulance arrived and as paramedics worked on him, we played some Sousa march with half of the trombones missing. The only high point of the whole gig was that the photographer for the local paper took a fantastic close up of the trumpet section which appeared in all its glory on the first page of the entertainment section in the Sunday paper! We looked good!

Gary

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Mikey

A couple of summers ago, the swing band I play in was hired to do a wedding reception. But this wedding was on a huge farm about an hour out of the metro area. They had a large tent set up in the backyard. This was late August, so there is tall corn all around us, with a swamp about 1/4 mile away. Well, we got going, had a great time; even got to eat! However, as soon as the sun went down, we looked over to the swamp, and could see them coming.........Skeeters....By the millions.............

All very hungry, and heading for the warm mass of human flesh and sweet things to chew on........We could actually see the cloud of skeeters heading our way. They hit that tent, and all hell broke loose. People were literally running in circles......Heading for the bug spray, or even heading for their cars........Since we were hired to play until midnight, the band had to stick it out. Every time you inhaled, you would swallow a few. Finally, the director called a break, and we all slathered on deet. By that time, it did not do much good. The bride and groom decided to head out, and the father of the bride came over and said we could quite 30 minutes early. We packed up in record time, and headed for our cars. I got home, took a shower to get the bug dope and smashed skeeters off me, and I was covered in bites.

Ouch.........

rjzeller

Mikey, I can appreciate that tale. I recall camping in the Crow Wing area with no tent (survivalist training), and the instant the sun went down they came out, in droves. That was one LOOOOONG night.

Me?

I recall playing one summer in an outdoor concert for our community band and the skies promised a good thunderstorm. We decided to try and squeeze in what playing we could until the rain arrived. With paperclips and plexiglass ready we started our concert.

As we're playing I notice a look of mild concern on the conductor's face gradually morph into a wide-eyed panic. We finished the first piece and he immediately started the second. Still no rain.

About 1/3 of the way into the second piece he cuts us off at the end of a phrase. "Thank you," he called to everyone, waving his hands. "Go home!"

He closed his folder and BOOM. THe heaviest downpoor I remember in years. Talk about timing!

Of course, that was really a near-miss more than anything. Otherwise not too bad. If you work with a HS around here, you get used to tuning flat (the woodwinds can only compesate so much...) during fall/winter months. I've had to play outdoors in 20 degree weather, it sucks.

But I wonder -- to our AZ friends -- what's it like playing outside in the summer there? I can imagine 115 degrees (heck, even a milder 105) in the hot sun would just make holding a horn torture! And I can't imagine sticking that mouthpiece up to the chops if it's been sitting under the sun for any length of time....

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B15M

I played for a memorial day parade and it rained extremely hard. At the end of the parade I put my arm down and water pored out of my sleeve.

We were the lead off band so after the parade I went to my car and got an umbrella.
About an hour later we played for the ceremony.
Not to bad for me because I had my umbrella.

When the ceremony started there was an old world war two vet in uniform soaking wet standing next to me. I invited him under the umbrella and guess what, I was back in the rain.