That One Holiday Gig

Over the course of many Decembers during my former freelance life, I played about 240 Nutcrackers and  maybe 80 Messiahs (not counting rehearsals). Most freelance orchestral players have racked up way bigger numbers than this. Why would anyone voluntarily play these pieces over and over and over? Because they’re part of the standard holiday repertoire. Because we’re professionals and this is what we do.

Musicians are some of the most driven, courageous people on the face of the earth. They deal with more day-to-day rejection in one year than most people do in a lifetime. Every day, they face the financial challenge of living a freelance lifestyle, the disrespect of people who think they should get real jobs, and their own fear that they'll never work again. Every day, they have to ignore the possibility that the vision they have dedicated their lives to, is a pipe dream. With every note, they stretch themselves, emotionally and physically, risking criticism and judgment. With every passing year, many of them watch as the other people their age achieve the predictable milestones of normal life - the car, the family, the house, the nest egg. Why? Because musicians are willing to give their entire lives to a moment - to that melody, that lyric, that chord, or that interpretation that will stir the audience's soul. Musicians are beings who have tasted life's nectar in that crystal moment when they poured out their creative spirit and touched another's heart. In that instant, they were as close to magic, God, and perfection as anyone could ever be. And in their own hearts, they know that to dedicate oneself to that moment is worth a thousand lifetimes.

Adapted from a quote by David Ackert, LA Times, 1993-ish (not my adaptation; this quote is commonly found and attributed online)

That’s why. Because no matter what we’re playing, there’s likely going to be a moment of transcendence. A flash, a feeling. A moment when all is right with the world, when the entire orchestra is a single being, when everything and nothing makes sense except for the feelings that music generates. So, we take every gig. We happily play for not enough money, and we contribute our sound to the entirety of the “magic, God and perfection” in that one moment that may or may not come, but does more often than not.

The moments happen pretty reliably in standard repertoire. And they can even happen during a holiday gig. There was one non-Messiah, Rutter-arrangement holiday gig coming up. (John Rutter, composer, conductor of the Cambridge Singers, and prolific arranger of celebratory Christmas music like this.)  The rest of the musical lineup included pieces like Sleigh Ride, Carol of the Bells, Jesu Bambino, Halleluiah Chorus. We were hired as a pickup orchestra to accompany a pretty big church choir. It would be easy work and probably – dare I say it - fun.

I get to the rehearsal and there’s M. Not exactly my nemesis, but not my favorite oboist because she’s just – LOUD. Always loud. It astounds me that an oboe can achieve that decibel level. I do not know how she does it. We’re playing in a cavernous old church, and I realize as I’m warming up that their organ is more than 60 cents* flat. It’s so flat that the A sounds closer to an Ab. This is going to throw us all for a loop in terms of tuning, because the organ is going to be all over the place. The concertmaster, who is someone I vaguely know from the freelance circuit, gets up to signal an A from the organist and then M so that we can tune. Try to tune.

It's flat, of course. WAY flat. M bleats out her A, trying desperately to lip it down. The concertmaster crinkles up her nose. M tries again. Still a crinkly nose and a finger in the air, vaguely pointing down in the direction of the organ - and the correct pitch. “Uh, that’s nowhere near it. Can you please bring it down?”

M turns beet red. “NO! I cannot bring it down! It’s not possible. The organ is too flat.”

Miss Concertmaster stays cool. She’s well aware. “Well, we have to adjust. So please adjust.”

She knows it will be impossible to match the wildly out of tune organ. It becomes a mini soap opera. What’s going to happen?

M starts to go toddler and stamps her feet. “You’re not hearing me. It is not possible TO ADJUST.” She’s leaning forward, almost out of her seat.

“Well, we cannot begin to rehearse until you tune us properly, and that means matching the organ.” Ouch. Condescending.

“I CANNOT ADJUST TO THAT PIECE OF SHIT ORGAN! You don’t like my A? Then SHOVE IT! Why don’t you take HER A?” She pokes me in the arm with her oboe. “I’m not playing this stupid gig. It’s going to sound like total shit. I’m out of here.”

The concertmaster doesn’t react. She points her bow at me. M’s bluff is called. She hmmphs loudly and starts packing her things up. I worry about her oboe, the way she’s treating it. She shoves the half-closed case into her gig bag, flings her music onto my stand, and stomps out.

“Shall we tune?” I do a few contortions to try and lower my pitch while Ms. Concertmaster confers with the conductor. She signals me to pause. “We won’t be using the organ. We’ll bring in a synthesizer for the performances.” Is that a little smirk on her face?

Our one rehearsal goes smoothly. The performances are packed. I look around at my colleagues in the middle of O Holy Night. The mezzo is stunning, dropped here from some other planet of ethereal beauty. And there it is – that one moment. Magic, God, and Perfection can happen in run-of-the-mill holiday pickup gigs.

And that - is why we do them, over and over.

*In musical terms, a “cent” is a unit of pitch. What we hear as a note (a C, an F#, a Bb, etc.) in equal temperamant is divided into 100 equal “cents.” One cent is one-hundredth of the note. A few cents above or below the pitch is negligible, not many people would hear the “offness” of the pitch. When pitches vary by 10 or 20 cents, it starts sounding off. At 40 or 50 cents or more, the out-of-tuneness is very apparent to the untrained ear. Our goal is to play seamlessly in tune with one another, so when the variance is too large, that becomes impossible.