One day, in elementary school band class, where I "played" the clarinet, something went seriously wrong with the piece we were mangling. Who knows how that happens—maybe one person screwed up, maybe the whole trumpet section skipped a page (they seemed to all be boys who just liked loud noises)—but suddenly the whole band descended into total cacophony.
For some reason I felt completely liberated and just started playing notes at random, trying to somehow harmonize with the rest of the din.
"Stop! Stop! Stop!" the band teacher howled, waving his hands furiously. When we had all stopped, more or less, he looked at us all in utter disbelief. "What was THAT?"
A word to the wise—if you ask a roomful of children a question in a certain way, they will all answer at once, and we did. It's a good thing, too, or my classmates might still be mocking me for my answer, which fortunately was lost amid their own responses.
"I was improvising!" I said defensively.
I remember distinctly that I was actually mildly wounded that the teacher hadn't recognized my brilliant prowess in using that moment to liberate myself from mere sheet music and take flight into instinctive virtuosity. God, I hate students like me.
What is the point of this story? The point is that P@ner@ Bre@d has decent coffee, a variety of yummy food, and free parking mere steps from the door, but if they don't stop playing "jazz" that sounds exactly like that moment in band class,* I am going to have to start going elsewhere for my free wi-fi.
Yes, I have an iPod. But the offending noises are piped over the speakers loudly enough to mingle irritatingly with the music on my iPod, unless I turn the iPod up so loud that I can't concentrate. It's a no-win situation.
3 comments:
so much music lately?! i never knew you were so musical.
Musicians call that a "train wreck." They're rare, and memorable. Usually you only get a "brick," and everyone stops. You hardly ever get a full-on train wreck. Hehe.
This reminded me of a story someone we both knew vaguely in college told at LoHo party one night, about he and about half the winds in the Harvard Marching Band only realized halfway through a piece that the rest of the band was playing another song entirely.
I can just see you telling the teacher you were improvising, with your bottom lip sticking out the way it does - just a little - when you get all huffy ;-)
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