My Trumpet Brothers

I always feel guilty writing about the musicians I play with in the Vermont Youth Orchestra. I feel like it is cheating in my people watching endeavors, because I know them so well. It is like going through a deck of multiplication flash cards and taking particular pride in answering two times two when really the hard ones are the nines times tables. But in these days when senioritis is rampant, readers will have to excuse me lazily falling back to my favorite subjects.

I have the hilarious misfortune of sitting directly in front of the trumpet section in the orchestra. They are a ridiculous group that I can't help being fond of despite a constant desire to "tsk" them. They are always talking about the most obscene things during rehearsal when they have 97 measures of rest, or when the conductor is talking. They are constantly being reproached, and forever forgiven (at least by me) thanks to the crude adolescent boy humor they supply.

Last weekend's run out concert with the orchestra brought a new trumpet section pastime. They smuggled water guns on stage during rehearsal, and were set on having a silent but furious water pistol fight throughout much of the Brahms. Although I was determined not to turn around (lest it appear that I approve of their trouble making) I could hear the muffled protests, swearing, and vendettas as various brass players received a blast of water in the ear. In the end, I think our conductor ended the disruptions with a severe stare.

But the amusements couldn't be allowed to stop with only half the rehearsal gone by. In the second half, a trio of soloists joined us. At one point, one of the soloists (an AMAZING musician by the way) stopped the movement to try to convey the essence of the piece to us. "This movement is pregnant with meaning...." she began.
Trumpet #1 : "did she just say pregnant?"
#2: "she did"
#3 "pregnant"
#2 "pregnant"
#1 "pregnant..." etc
And all tried vainly to stuff their fists in their mouths and leave off laughing. It spread to the woodwinds and the back of the string sections, and eventually our conductor had to sarcastically commend us for our maturity.

The concert went off with very few hitches, and we all boarded the bus home feeling like we'd changed the lives of all 47 audience members. Something that can always be counted on is the exhausted silence and universal fondness everyone feels for each other during the return bus rides from run out concerts. You feel like, whoever you are sitting next to, you could easily put your head on their shoulder and fall asleep without feeling awkward. Many people did just that. The musical achievement that connects us all makes it hard to regard them all as anything other than family. Like a family, it's hard to estrange yourself from any one of them, or feel distant from even the woodwind relatives you don't speak to very often. The trumpet players I've come to view as brothers. Not ones you'd confide in or hang out with on weekends, rather those whose obscenities you've come to regard as integral to the workings of the family. As I dozed on the bus home, I heard a murmur of laughter at the back of the bus: "ha ha, pregnant..."