Music Director's Nightmare
Friday, August 29, 2008 at 07:00AM One Wednesday night rehearsal, right after I started being a paid music director (back in the 1900’s), there was a song that needed a trumpet solo. Well, actually, almost nothing needs a trumpet solo, but that’s a different story. But there was a trumpet solo on the CD, so clearly something needed to be played there. I turned to Lisa on the keyboard and said, "Lisa, use a trumpet sound for that part."
"But there's nothing written - just an eight measure rest. What do I play?"
“Just make something up," I said.
She just stared.
I said, “It’s just a fanfare, you know? It's a C chord for the whole eight bars. Use the notes of a C chord – C,E,G – and just sort of play them in rhythm. It’ll sound fine.” I showed her what I meant.
She just stared. First one to speak always loses. I spoke.
“Or…I...could write the part out for you before Sunday.”
“Well,” she said, “That IS what we’re paying you for, isn’t it?”
Shortly after that, I had this dream. I swear - just like I’m about to describe it:
I was in an operating room. The room had no borders or features, just a stainless steel operating table, a patient, and some nurses and interns. Dressed in surgical garb and wearing a mask, I apparently was a great surgeon - or at least they were expecting me to be one (you’re picking up on the reason I dreamed this, right?). The nurses looked at me with a mixture of admiration and awe that bordered on turning physical. One nurse in particular, anyway, and she appeared to be assigned as my assistant for the surgery. I couldn’t see her face behind the mask, but those eyes…
Anyway, I had NO idea what I was doing. They were clearly expecting some kind of stunning performance, all waiting for me to begin, and I was sweating like a Baptist at a burlesque show. I wasn't a surgeon, I didn't know what I was doing, and I shouldn't even be there. I couldn’t cut into a person! It would be…it would be murder, most likely.
Turning back was not an option, but I needed to buy time. To the nurse with the eyes I said, “Miss…would you like to make the incision?” She drew a sharp breath. “Me? Really?”
“You, really. “
“Oh, DOCTOR!”
She made in incision in the patient from neck to groin, and for the first time I looked at the patient’s face. It was Lisa from church. And she was awake. She said, “You’d better not screw this up.”
I looked into the incision, and her entire torso was filled with what looked like three bean salad. Hundreds, maybe thousands of little parts. I called for a large stainless bowl and a big serving spoon, thinking that maybe if I took all the parts out and then put them back in, she’d be cured. How I'd get them back in the right order, I had no idea. I was making it up as I went along.
After I got all the three-bean-salad parts into the bowl, I told Lisa to get up and sit on a chair. She did, but she slouched - and the incision bloused open like a shirt buttoned only at the top and bottom. No blood, all very neat and clean. I said, “Lisa! Sit up straight! Keep the incision closed!”
And then I woke up, ate breakfast, went to work, and wrote eight bars of imitation trumpet diddling so Lisa wouldn’t be mad at me.
Reader Comments (6)
As your wife, I fell qualified to say this: You're a little bit of a freak, honey.
Fell qualified....FEEL qualified. Tomato. Tomahtoe.....
I not only admit my weirdness, I embrace it.
In a strange, twisted way, this made me laugh endlessly. Go absurdism!
Can I have something to do with your media campaign? I h-Gucci celebrity handbagsave a few ideas. I'm totally confident I can get you a few more votes than Ralph Nader. Is he even running next time? A simple "yes" or "no" would help my strategy a lot!
Today, I want to talk about a hot phenomenon in modern society, that is a new controversial marriage style, named married with children.game of thrones dvd set