[NewMusic] NY Times op ed

[Brady Sharp]

It works for me!  Used without permission!


WHY should real musicians — the ones who can actually play their
instruments — have all the fun?

Some years ago, a group of frustrated people in Scotland decided that
the pleasure of playing in an orchestra should not be limited to those
who are good enough to do so, but should be available to the rankest
of amateurs. So we founded the Really Terrible Orchestra, an inclusive
orchestra for those who really want to play, but who cannot do so very
well. Or cannot do so at all, in some cases.

My own playing set the standard. I play the bassoon, even if not quite
the whole bassoon. I have never quite mastered C-sharp, and I am weak
on the notes above the high D. In general, I leave these out if they
crop up, and I find that the effect is not unpleasant. I am not
entirely untutored, of course, having had a course of lessons in the
instrument from a music student who looked quietly appalled while I
played. Most of the players in the orchestra are rather like this;
they have learned their instruments at some point in their lives, but
have not learned them very well. Now such people have their second
chance with the Really Terrible Orchestra.

The announcement of the orchestra's founding led to a great wave of
applications to join. Our suspicion that there were many people
yearning to play in an orchestra but who were too frightened or too
ashamed to do anything about it, proved correct. There was no
audition, of course, although we had toyed with the idea of a negative
audition in which those who were too good would be excluded. This
proved to be unnecessary. Nobody like that applied to join.

Some of the members were very marginal musicians, indeed. One of the
clarinet players, now retired from the orchestra for a period of
re-evaluation, stopped at the middle B-flat, before the instrument's
natural break. He could go no higher, which was awkward, as that left
him very few notes down below. Another, a cellist, was unfortunately
very hard of hearing and was also hazy on the tuning of the strings.
As an aide-mémoire, he had very sensibly written the names of the
notes in pencil on the bridge. This did not appear to help.

At the outset, we employed a professional conductor, which is a must
for anybody who is reading this and who is already planning to start a
similar orchestra.

Find somebody who is tolerant and has a sense of humor. The conductor
also has to be sufficiently confident to be associated with something
called the Really Terrible Orchestra; after all, it does go on the
résumé.

Our initial efforts were dire, but we were not discouraged. Once we
had mastered a few pieces — if mastered is the word — we staged a
public concert. We debated whether to charge for admission, but wisely
decided against this. That would be going too far.

So should we go to the other extreme and pay people to come? There was
some support for this, but we decided against it. Instead, we would
give the audience several free glasses of wine before the concert.
That, it transpired, helped a great deal.

We need not have worried. Our first concert was packed, and not just
with friends and relations. People were intrigued by the sheer honesty
of the orchestra's name and came to see who we were. They were
delighted. Emboldened by the rapturous applause, we held more
concerts, and our loyal audience grew. Nowadays, when we give our
annual concert at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the hall is full to
capacity with hundreds of music-lovers. Standing ovations are
two-a-penny.

"How these people presume to play in public is quite beyond me," wrote
one critic in The Scotsman newspaper. And another one simply said
"dire." Well, that may be so, but we never claimed to be anything
other than what we are. And we know that we are dire; there's no need
to state the obvious. How jejune these critics can be!

Even greater heights were scaled. We made a CD and to our astonishment
people bought it. An established composer was commissioned to write a
piece for us. We performed this and recorded it at a world premiere,
conducted by the astonished composer himself. He closed his eyes.
Perhaps he heard the music in his head, as it should have been. This
would have made it easier for him.

There is now no stopping us. We have become no better, but we plow on
regardless. This is music as therapy, and many of us feel the better
for trying. We remain really terrible, but what fun it is. It does not
matter, in our view, that we sound irretrievably out of tune. It does
not matter that on more than one occasion members of the orchestra
have actually been discovered to be playing different pieces of music,
by different composers, at the same time. I, for one, am not ashamed
of those difficulties with C-sharp. We persist. After all, we are the
Really Terrible Orchestra, and we shall go on and on. Amateurs arise —
make a noise.

Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the forthcoming novel "The
Miracle at Speedy Motors."



On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 6:09 PM, Matt Davignon <mattdavignon at gmail.com> wrote:
> Nope, it doesn't get to be grist for the mill if we need to create an
>  account with the nyt before we can read it. It's sub-grist.
>
>  Matt
>
>
>
>  On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 3:46 PM, Matthew Goodheart
>  <matthew at matthewgoodheart.com> wrote:
>  > more grist for the milll
>  >
>  >  http://tinyurl.com/yptdsn
>  >
>  >
>  >  Matthew Goodheart
>  >  composer ~ improviser ~ pianist
>  >  matthew at matthewgoodheart.com
>  >  http://matthewgoodheart.com
>  >  http://myspace.com/matthewgoodheart
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  >  _______________________________________________
>  >  Bay Area New Music Discussion Group
>  >  NewMusic at music.mills.edu
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>  >
>  _______________________________________________
>  Bay Area New Music Discussion Group
>  NewMusic at music.mills.edu
>  http://music.mills.edu/mailman/listinfo/newmusic
>