Memories

January 10, 2012

1812 Overture

I have many memories of my high school years.  Many of them I would like to forget. And many of them I have forgotten.  But occasionally something will happen that jogs one of those memories to the fron of the grey matter.  Today, I had a grey matter jog event. 

As I have been driving, lately I have been listening to classical music.  I have now been listening to Tchaiskovsky's music.  On the CD, the last piece is the 1812 Overture.  I do like that piece, and not just because it has cannons.  It was one of my father's favorites and so I grew up listening to that stirring music until it plays in my head.  One time in high school, that familiarity really saved me a lot of grief.

I don't know if Mr. Shull hated me or liked me.  I think he was disappointed in me because I had some promise that he saw, but I never really applied myself to music.  You see, he was my junior high and high school band teacher.  In fact I would have to say he was one person outside of my family who had a great influence on my life.  I, like I alluded to, I think he saw talent in me that I never bothered to develop.  But he did his best to try to inspire me, along with a lot of other students.  He was elected as Teacher of the Year by the Colorado Education Association during my junior year.  But I digress.

There were times in band when we worked grueling schedules to prepare for a concert or a competition.  Day after day after day, we would play and practice the same thing.  Some of them were fun, but many got to be "old" with too much repetition.  But right after a concert, it was exciting to see what Mr. Shull would pass out for the band to start working on next.  On one such occasion he walked in and passed out a symphonic band arrangement of The 1812 Orchestra.  I was excited because I loved the music.  There was also trepidation because I knew it was HARD.  Actually, I knew it was too hard for a high school band.  Still, it would be fun to play it for a while.  I couldn't see how we would ever practice enough to really perform the music.

Anyway, he passed the music out and then went to his podium and put the score on his music stand.  It looked like an encyclopedia.  He said that he wanted to see how well we could sight read it.  He raised his hands to start, then dropped his hands and said he wanted one of us - a band member to direct this.  And then, without waiting for volunteers he looked at me and said, "Larry, come and direct it."

WHAT?  This had to be some weird joke.  Overnight he must have decided I needed humbling, or humiliating.  I was frightened.  I was not the most social person in high school, and even though band was really the center of my social experience, I didn't know many of the people in that band very well.  I went to the front and Mr. Shull gave me his baton and he just walked away.

I opened the score and looked at it. 

Each page was one line of music, with each parts in the band shown.  How in the world was I supposed to know what was going on.  I looked at it and suddenly realized that I could read that music.  I knew that music so that it just played in my mind.  And with that, I knew what was going on in the score.  And so, I stated to direct.  I must admit that we had to stop a couple of times.  Sometimes it was because I needed to figure out where we were.  Sometimes it was because I needed the band to figure out where we were.  But in the end, my high school band sight read The 1812 Overture with me directing.  And at the end, the band gave me applause.  It felt good.

Ant then Mr. Shull walked up and said, "Okay, pass that music in."  It was just for sight reading. 
We weren't going to play it.  But for me, well I appreciated knowing that just once I got to direct The 1812 Overture and I did it alright. 

Mr. Shull never brought that experience up, but there were other times when he would stand up and say, "I want one of you to direct this," and more than half the time he chose me without waiting for volunteers.