I think I am the only person in this group who did not major in bassoon performance or music education with bassoon as primary instrument. This is indeed an interesting (and extremely nerdy) group of folks! The fact that I'm playing 9th out of 11 just means that the lowest parts were probably too hard for me. The middle of the instrument is much easier to play. I got pretty good for a while in college, but I haven't played regularly in years.
We had our first "gig" as street musicians Saturday evening in downtown Sioux Falls.
We were notified and invited to join this bizarre corps of musicians (and they're all EXCELLENT musicians) by my former bassoon teacher, Lorrie Thomas from Vermillion. That's Lorrie in the front row on the right.
I love the lady walking by in the upper right-hand corner of that shot... "what on earth?"Apparently, we all thought it would be fun, because we have members of our little band from as far away as Waverly, IA (way over on the east side of Iowa), and some others from Sioux City and the surrounding areas. I was actually the only member from Sioux Falls, but that's because Mindi, who's the principal in the SD Symphony just had carpal tunnel surgery and can't play for a while. She came and supported us, however!
We played all kinds of fun music, from the sublime to the ridiculous. Since not many things are arranged for 11 bassoons, we played a lot of duets, trios, quartets and sextets. But one of our members did some fun arrangements just for us, including "Buglers' Holiday" which of course, became "Bassoonie's Holiday" and "Sleigh Ride" for a little touch of Christmas in the hazy days of summer. My bassoon has a stocking cap and scarf for just such occasions, and doesn't get to wear it often.
One thing we didn't really count on, was that for some reason, the Downtown Sioux Falls people scheduled us the same evening as "Hot Harley Nights," a Make a Wish Foundation fundraiser. As far as I can figure, they must invite every person in the US who owns a Harley to come to Sioux Falls and ride down main street. I believe someone said there were an estimated 5,000 bikes there.
They had a parade.
Yeah.
We couldn't really play during that, so we put a pause in our program for 45 minutes while 5,000 Harleys rode past. It was a rapid parade, but 5,000 bikes take a long time to go by. Amazing how fast a parade can go when you don't have to wait for a marching band. Not much variety, however. Just a lot of motorcyles going past really LOUDLY. I can't figure out why anyone might want to go see such a parade.
Once the "parade" was over, we were able to play. But we were frequently interrupted by loud motors. It was difficult to stay together outside and with so much background noise. We're supposed to go play again in August (the 18th in front of Minerva's if anyone wants to witness such an amazing event), but we may need to get a conductor, because phasing was a big issue for us.
The idea of being a street musician appeals to your bohemian side, and we were even encouraged to open our cases for donations- putting a sign out with a clever remark.
Here's mine:
If you can't read it, it says, "CELEBRATE MEDIOCRATY Support the 9th Bassoonist!"(Just as I suspected, Mediocraty is not a real word. I didn't have a spell-checker!) In this wonderful world of slackers, I made $4.68 and a button for 2 hours' work. I think I'll stick to teaching lessons!
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