GordonH

I thought some of you might find this amusing.

I went out to play with an amateur orchstra and choir last night (Frank - Seven Last Words of Christ).
During the first movement I could distinctly hear a non polyphonic cellphone ringtone so I started glowring at the rest of the section and passing the word down the line to get it switched off.
Everyone denied having a phone switched on.
Every so often it came on again.
Then the second trumpet pointed out it was coming from the other side of the orchestra so I half stood up and found there was an elderly lady beaming a huge smile sitting behind the second violins playing a 1980's style casio keyboard.

It was the harp part!

Apparently.

(often amateur orchestras cue in the harp part with a piano which sounds fine as its a proper instrument, but the Casio keyboard was just soooooo wrong. It will give me years of quiet laughter).

JackD

I remember doing the Bruch Scottish Fantasie (I think..) with my local youth orchestra, with the harp part being played on of these. It was like you describe, except they had decided to amp the bloody thing up, so it was drowning out most of the orchestra. Great gig, that was

Manny Laureano

Every once in a great while it works out, though, for non-musical sounds.

I conducted excerpts from Wagner's Ring with MYS and I needed a cataclysmic noise, of sorts, for the Immolation Scene when Valhalla crumbles to bits (a la the Solti/Vienna Phil recording). I put a percussion/computer whiz kid on the job and he came up with the most fantastic combination of sounds to provide us at the concert with a truly end times noise! It combined the roar of a space shuttle launch, some building demolition, and various and other sounds of destruction.

When you want something creative and cool, put a kid on the assignment and it seems inevitable that it'll be fun.

ML

tpter1

I've used some funky substitutions myself out of sheer necessity. One of my favorite composers for wind band lit includes a fairly critical harp part in every piece. He intends it to be synthesized, but I find better use out of a marimba with really soft, large headed yarn mallets. Has a bit darker quality, especially down at the bottom end of the instrument. I have used the synthesized harp sound, and on a decent sound module, played idiomatically correct, it sounds pretty good.

Others include Bb contrabass clarinet for a tuba, Eb contra for tuba (it's an easy transposition to teach), bari sax for bassoon. The most bizarre: bass drum for yacht cannon. (Sorry, not shotguns allowed in school). We do what we can with what we have. Most of the time, it works out. Then, there are the times where we learn a lesson.

cornetguy

one i have heard quite a bit that is ok i guess. soprano sax for oboe. i don't know why band directors either have a heck of a time getting oboe players or dont want to deal with teaching it. It is better then putting in flute or muted trumpet, closer to the sound

trpt2345

I have a friend who's a drummer and also a member of the NRA. He once got a job with the Grant Park Symphony here in Chicago doing The 1812 Overture. Instead of cannons, they had rigged up a 55 gallon galvanized steel drum with a shotgun pointing into it. (The shotgun was loaded with blanks). They had the whole thing mic'ed, and so at every cannon cue he would fire the shotgun. He was hired because he was an NRA member and supposedly knew guns. Weirdest gig he said he ever had, and it would be hard for me to think of one more strange.

Michael McLaughlin

"I tended to place my wife under a pedestal."
Woody Allen

oldlou

At the Michigan Community Band Festival at Okemos ,Mi. this year our band,( Kentwood Community Band ), opened with a number that ended with a combination bass drum boom, cymbal crash, and tympanic rumble. It was very effective. At precisely the moment of all of that great noise, the fire alarm klaxons sounded. THAT was effective.


OLDLOU>>

stchasking

The shotgun in a 55 gallon drum is getting to be well known. One addition is to put sand at the bottom of the drum. The sand catches any pellets should a live round get into the blanks. I think the sand gives a deeper boom, also. I sure want to try this. I'll talk to the president of the rifle range I belong to and see if he'll let me try some variables. If he does I'll get back with a post. One more thing. We'll try different calibers. A 410 shotgun may be enough? No need for a 12 gage if a 410 will do it.