Chatty Cathy Lemmon writes:
Dear Professor IMG, what would be your take/input?
Now, Cathy, I am always ready to give/take, intake/output, outtake/input,
takeout/eatin, lightup/putout, hold'm/fold'm, whatevers.
My horn professor was covering 4th horn for a concert with the
university orchestra. I don't recall the piece we were performing, but
he managed to briefly doze during a very soft string passage, which was
followed by a very loud horn entrance. He woke up a couple measures
before our entrance and thought we were a couple measures past where we
actually were. He quite dutifully put his horn up and played his note,
a wonderful ff right over the melodious pp strings. He quickly put his
horn down and acted as if nothing had happened.
Now, first off here (and there), I must make the mostest of complementings
to your professor as this was the mostestest of nobles of him to be the
supports of you and your student colleagues making by playing this concert
with you
in the first place covering 4th horn (and not even wanting to be called
PRINCIPAL 4th horn) and no matter what happened you were all the mostest of
fortunates to have him there anyways in the first place but as to the nature
of
this clam, like its antithesis in the clam world, the no speaky, it is the
mostestest of debatables that it is a true clam in the first place as I am
making the assumption here that this was a case of right note, wrong time,
but, I think we can all agree that it does fall under the definition of a
premature articulation (as already posticulated by another horn lister) and
this
is also known as a beforehand blow or early extripation or untimely
ultrasonic or preparatory pucker or exordious entrance or a beforehand
buzzalation or an inopertune tuning or a pre-seasoned palatal or an
antecedented anthem and as to the lack of consciousness preceding the
antecadences this could have been due to narcoleptic noddifications or
simply just a
cranial crepitation or cerebrial cheese-cutting and these things happen in
life, as you know, and we are all guilty until proven innocent and vice
versa which is why he quickly put his horn down and but if it had been I (or
even
me) I would have stood up for a solo bow and then asked the contractor for
solo pay.
It was all I could do, on first, to keep a straight face to come in when
we were supposed to.
Now, yes, this was good of you and even almost professional and you
certainly realized that this was a tough act to follow so why even try?
He told me later that, when he realized what he was doing, he tried so
hard to suck the note back in, but it just didn't work.
Now, I'm not sure you can suck a note back in once it has left the horn and
we all know that stopping the horn still makes a sound and we all have been
having too many and way too much discussions on this already and I have never
had any troubles with stopping the horn, only starting it, especially on a
cold winter morning, but obviously, this was not the problem that night as it
started fine, from what your descriptions described, and I would say, though,
that if you (everyone in general, not you, personally) suck when you play,
then this technique of sucking back once you have started would be a good
thing to have the knowledges of, for sure, and in this particular instance of
circumstances, it would have been good if there were such a thing as an SBD
Brain Fart.
Herr Professor, would there be a term for such an event?
Probably, maybe.
Kindestest of Greetonings and Mostestest of Suckifications,
Prof. I. M. Gestopftmitscheist
Principal 8th horn and Principal 4th Wagner Tuber, Schplittenotendorf am
Oedland Staatsoper und Philharmoniker, (ret.)
Solo Horn, Bad Corner Brass Quintet
Hornist, Broken Winds WW Quintet
Solo 4th Horn (Leader, call me for bookings), Smirnoff Horn Quartet
Assistant Associate Principal Mellophone, NJ Turnpike Authority Drum and
Bugle Corps, The Phantom Lane Changers (summer only)
Hornist as Needed, L'Ensemble du Chambre des Palourdes
Principal Natural Horn, I Soloisti di Feces
Principal Baroque and Hunting Horn, Camarata Vongoleforte
Adjunct, Part-time, Arms-length Professor of Horn and Pest Control, Exit 2
Community College, Exit 2, NJ (Ret.)
Adjunct, Part-time, Arms-length Professor of Horn, Pest Control and Home
Petroleum Studies, Northern New Hampshire Technical Institute, Bad Corner,
NH
Author, The Kopprasch Connection, Kopprasch for Fun and Profit,
Kopprasch for the New Millenium: Where Do you Fit In? Hooked on
Hornonics, What If Saddam Had Given Ouday and Qusay Olds Ambassador or Conn
Pan
American
Single F Horns and a Kopprasch Book Instead of AK 47's, Booze and Porn?
and The Da Vinci Clam: The Search for the Holy Mouthpiece.
Founder, Director and CEO, Universal Institute for the Study, Preservation
and Dissemination of Kopprasch
