Your Band Will Shine

My experiences as a music arranging person have been varied, and anywhere from deeply personally and professionally satisfying to “glad I could help” to just plain fun.

Via being in the right place at the right time, or talking with the right person, or word-of-mouth publicity, or out of necessity, I’ve had opportunities to write for a wide variety of groups of singers or instruments. By that I don’t just mean band, chorus, orchestra, jazz band … I mean “band with no trombones”, “choir with very few tenors” … “piano, French horn, banjo and drum set” (my personal all-time favorite “whaaaat?” ensemble) …

At one time, I was really interested in getting some of my arrangements published. Charitably, a couple of pretty important teachers of mine suggested, “hey, you should send this or this or this item to some publishers, see if they’ll put it out.” Not only was this a dangerous thing to say to a relatively young ego, it was said by people who knew music and knew their business. And, well, heck, if these trustworthy and honest people (which they were) are telling me this, I need to believe it!! … Sadly, I never did follow up on this idea very strongly, for weal or for woe. It was more procrastination and alleged other priorities that got in the way than it was lack of interest, but the end result was kinda the same, I guess.

 

Back in the ninth grade, when I stole (sorry! –borrowed) one of my high-school band director’s demo records (yes – a 33 rpm LP double-album. Vinyl. Scratches ‘n’ all), the first musical arrangers I really took note of were John Higgins and Jay Bocook. (Doesn’t everyone play Bocook’s stuff at some point in their band lives?) Messrs. Higgins and Bocook were writing for Jenson Publications, a Wisconsin-based company that then was the beast of the industry but eventually was bought up by the Hal Leonard Corporation. I played and re-played their arrangements of current pop tunes and their adaptations of drum corps tunes – they were great charts! (It didn’t hurt that the demo recordings were played either by rather massive college bands, so the tunes were unrealistically huge-sounding – or by a band full of professional studio musicians who could play anything at any time – but the company probably thought that was fine. The better they sound, the better they sell.)

What I didn’t realize, in 1981, at age 15, was that at that time the publishers were offering adaptations of drum corps tunes (“Your band will shine with this electrifying arrangement of the Blue Devils’ ‘New York Fantasy’!”) featuring trumpet lines so high that only DCI sopranos, or those studio pros, could have played them. A few years later, some of the publishers did begin to market arrangements that could actually be performed decently by humans in cold weather. Sometimes that meant that the tunes didn’t quite have the same air of daring or drum-corps peel-my-face-off screamitude, but the companies were probably responding to the feedback of band directors who logically didn’t want to invest money in charts that were out-of-reach of their bands. Do ya want to stay in business, or what?

That, really, has been the underlying theme of my arranging experience (if it has one): while writers of literature are often admonished, “write what you know,” and “don’t write what you don’t know”, I have done a lot of work under the philosophy “write for what you have, toward the strengths and away from the weaknesses.” Mostly because it was necessary. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was a jackass when his answer to a question about military planning was “you go to war with the army you have, not with the one you wish you had” – but that, paraphrased, is the gospel truth for arrangers: if the band has no screamer trumpets, it’s a bad plan to write notes above the staff. (If the band has no screamers, and you write for them anyway, the band director will probably not hire you again. Survival of the smartest.)

I’ve had the opportunity to write for a number of college marching bands that DO have all the right instruments, and plenty of each kind. Only half-jokingly do I declare that it’s a thrill to write for bands that actually have second-trombones! But other than that, I haven’t done a lot of writing for strictly-standard instrumentation that I could submit to publishers.

The first high school band I ever directed had the following instrumentation: two flutes, one clarinet, one trumpet, one tenor sax, one bass player, four percussionists, and one keyboard player who was just starting piano lessons. And, guaranteed, nobody publishes music for that collection of instruments. … So “Seventy-Six Trombones” was probably out. So? My tenor sax guy was my low brass section; my clarinetist very often was my midrange, and I don’t even remember what I did with four percussionists, but they all reported having a good time that year, so…!

It’s not that I don’t have the experience, or the desire, or the musical imagination, to write charts for ensembles like: “double choir (SSAATTBB)” or “standard jazz ensemble also with two flutes and two French horns and a tuba” … but for the most part, that hasn’t been what’s been in front of me … and frankly, it’s just as much fun to write an arrangement of a tune that makes a group sound full even when they aren’t.

 

I may have written briefly about this before: my very first arranging moment was at the Charles River Creative Arts Program, a summer day camp doing business on the grounds of the Charles River School in Dover, Massachusetts. The program had established the completely ridiculous tradition of putting up a complete children’s musical (on average, 90 minutes long and fully costumed, staged and choreographed) during each of its two four-week sessions. It was a classic case of “nobody told us we couldn’t do it, so we did it”. On top of that, most of the shows were original – the July show was often written by staff members over the preceding winter, and the August show was commonly written by the July session Playwriting class. Talk about writing on a deadline! And, miraculously, the August shows were very often very, very good.

The gentleman who was the music director for the show that was going up during my first session on staff, Jack Megan, looked at me with about a week to go before opening night and said, “I’m not going to have time to arrange this one tune for the pit orchestra. Can you do it?” And of course, being the wide-eyed enthusiast (and also wanting to come through in the clutch), I said, why sure! The pit orchestras for our shows were usually made up of staff members, and not all of them members of the music department staff. So some players were conservatory-trained; others were decidedly not; at least we all enjoyed laughing, which we did a lot. For my first arrangement, I wrote for piano, bass, drums and alto sax (me).  One ensuing summer, we had a pit that included piccolo, flute, clarinet, alto and bari saxes, trumpet and flugelhorn, and piano/bass/drums. Usually we landed somewhere in the middle, and not always with classic instrument balance, top-to-bottom. So, for six glorious summers, it was like a game show: “you have an occasional-flute, a decent trumpet, a violin, a pianist, a great drummer, and probably a bassist but we’re not sure; and we need something that sounds like a classic Broadway overture. You have 24 hours. Go.”

It was a blast. When the tunes were great tunes, the object was to write arrangements that supported the tunes but stayed largely out of the way, the better to not screw them up. On the occasions when a particular song wasn’t up to CRCAP’s usual standards, it was kinda neat to dress the thing up in fancy (pit) clothes and see if anyone noticed.

 

When I got to my high school gig, the goal was to make the band sound like a band, even if it did lack certain important instruments … or a lot of people … or both. This band hadn’t even existed on a regular basis before I was hired, so for a while I was kinda making my own decisions, hopefully wise ones, about what to do to make the group sound bigger and better than it really was. Before we went outside to play pep tunes at football games, we decided to re-start the athletic-band side of our existence by playing at boys’ and girls’ basketball games. For openers, in an acoustically-live gym, nine horns and a decent rhythm section can sound like Michigan State if you play your cards right. (Also we didn’t have to worry about the weather.) Throw a lot of melody lines into instruments, let the rhythm section take the chord content (i.e. don’t dilute the wind sound!) and you can convince a lot of people that you got every instrument covered. If the crowd doesn’t think “hey, not bad for a pep band” – in fact, if the crowd doesn’t think AT ALL, but instead gets up and grooves with you…? We have a winner. And let’s be honest: certain tunes that get athletic crowds up and dancing are not exactly the most complex musical compositions ever written anyhow. No countermelodies or flat-13 chords to distract from the pep! “Land of a Thousand Dances” wasn’t exactly Tchaikovsky to start with, after all.

So when the coach of the opposing team came by at the end of halftime, one night, and said to me, “we’re going to take all our timeouts this half no matter what, just so we can listen to you guys play!” … well, that was kind of a comforting moment. (And that is an absolutely true story. I turned to the kids and said, “did you just hear that?” and they nodded, a bit stunned. “Good,” I said. “And get ready to play a lot.”)

 

So would I rather have THAT experience, or would I rather pick up a check for a buck or two every time a publisher sells my version of some tune or other? (“Your band will shine with this arrangement of ‘Zombie Nation’!”)

Not that I wouldn’t want just one published hit, on the scale of Tom Wallace’s “Hey Baby”. Just one! I’m not asking much…

Money is nice. Musicians (young or otherwise) feeling like a million bucks because they can play the tunes they like, in a way that makes them feel likeable? You can’t pay the heating bill with that … but it’ll keep you warm anyway.

One CC of Cordrazine

Until recently, when I would click on the “Publish” button that commits my words “permanently” to this space, the screen was filled with ideas for another great blog article topic. The fine folks at WordPress were basically offering up writing prompts, not unlike the kind of essay-question starter kits one might find in the midst of a standardized Language Arts test. So this is my response to one of their more interesting prompts, namely:

What historical event would you attend if you were able to time-travel?

With the understanding that time travel could possibly lead to strange realities like meeting your own grandfather and accidentally killing him…

“If we could travel into the past, it’s mind-boggling what would be possible. For one thing, history would become an experimental science, which it certainly isn’t today. The possible insights into our own past and nature and origins would be dazzling. For another, we would be facing the deep paradoxes of interfering with the scheme of causality that has led to our own time and ourselves. I have no idea whether it’s possible, but it’s certainly worth exploring.” –Carl Sagan, 1999 interview

Or at the very least, with the understanding that time travel might make life grammatically difficult…

“…I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going to have to add a whole new set of tenses to describe reflexive situations – conjugations that would make the French literary tenses and the Latin historical tenses look simple.” –Robert A. Heinlein, The Door into Summer

…I decided to think about this question.  It only asks which historical event I would attend, not which one I would change. If the goal were change for the better (setting aside from the fact that I might return to a present that was (is?) (see?!!) at least somewhat different, and possibly completely different, since it makes my head hurt), I might choose moments like the birth of Adolf Hitler, or the moment when TV writers dreamed up the concept of “My Mother the Car”.

Perhaps I might reflexively have chosen to show up at Mission Control during the first mission to the Moon – cool! Or … the day when Edith Keeler crossed the street in front of that truck…

(Nerd.)

But, considering the relatively throwaway remark that I made, in the midst of a recent interesting conversation with a friend … here are some ideas. Interesting if I showed up at …

 

[] The first rehearsal of “West Side Story”. When the cast first got the music and lyrics, or perhaps when they first started work on the choreography. “Lenny… we trust you, and we loved ‘On The Town’, but… explain this to us again?…”

[] The WLW radio station studio in Cincinnati during the late 1920s, as Henry Fillmore‘s Syrian Temple Shrine Band performed one of its weekly broadcasts. A concert band with a weekly radio show. Now there’s an idea.

[] The writing meetings for “The Muppet Show”. Any season, any episode. Or possibly the writing meetings for “This Is Spinal Tap”.

[] The first time Groucho Marx ever performed the song “Go West, Young Man”.

[] The first time Charlie Parker ever played in public.

[] The band rehearsal where John Philip Sousa first brought out the sousaphone.

[] Any performance of the Brat Pack. (The first, last and only time I’ve been in Las Vegas, I got to go to a show called “The Brat Pack Is Back”, featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Joel Grey impersonators. The actors were so good, the snappy patter (early-1960s politically-incorrect though it was) was so funny, and the band was so on, I can only wonder what the original genuine articles were like.)

[] DCI finals in 1987, as the Garfield Cadets addressed Aaron Copland. Thom Hannum, for the win.

[] The Harry Connick Jr. concert at the Wang Center for the Performing Arts in late 1991 – because I was there, and I’d like to see it all again. I would risk meeting myself (although I would be forced to ask myself what I was thinking when considering wardrobe choices).

[] John Williams’ first rehearsal with the Boston Pops. “Hi everyone. Pleased to be here. We’re going to do hard music now.”

[] Any live performance by Louis Armstrong. (Speaking of Pops.) It just seemed like it was probably a pack of fun to watch and listen, and/or to be onstage.

[] I know it’s got nothing to do with music, but … just one taping of the Laugh-In Joke Wall.

 

“If you could time travel through a trumpet, would you find today and tomorrow too loud?”  –Jarod Kintz, A Letter to Andre Breton, Originally Composed on a Leaf of Lettuce With an Ink-dipped Carrot

Class Acts

So this past Saturday was Homecoming at UMass. In November. Therefore cold. I must not be a college student anymore, because on the one hand [1] I quite happily unpacked my local musical instrument and went, nay, RAN to the Stadium of my collegiate youth in order to help convince the “baby band” that we alumni could still play a little bit … but on the other hand [2] once I got there and unpacked said instrument, it dawned on me that it was barely past dawn, not yet above the freezing mark … and I took note of it. Cain’t feel m’ toes, y’all.

But it was really OK. Sometimes I think Homecoming exists so band alumni, in the course of just one morning, can be reminded of what the “baby band” does (what we all actually did too, once upon a time) all season long.

The big event of the day, for us UMass band alumni/-ae types, was the official opening of the new George N. Parks Marching Band Building, constructed on the Amherst campus after years of planning, years of fundraising, and years of that fine organization having basically nowhere to regularly store its toys, following the closing of its former home, Old Chapel. The dedication ceremony included a couple of band tunes, many speeches, and one multi-scissored snip of a red ribbon. (My young nephew and niece, also in attendance, were disappointed that the gigantic red ribbon adorning the side of the building didn’t also get snipped. That would have been fun to watch, it’s true.)

The speeches were mostly your standard ribbon-cutting ceremony speeches, at least from the university administration side. To my ears, anyway. To call them “boilerplate” might be a little harsh; they did fit the occasion. Not much in the way of turns of phrase that you might vividly remember years later. Not exactly timid or paltry either; but I imagine that some close observers of the last half a year in the life of the Minuteman Band community might have inwardly grumbled a bit that the administrators’ speeches blithely glossed over certain moments and storylines from this past spring and summer. But, at occasions such as this, one is not supposed to go out on limbs. Probably the best speech-making occasion is the one where everybody gets out alive.

Three speeches did stand out, though, in my mind. Heidi Sarver, band alum and current University of Delaware band director, told a story in the form of an allegory. Band alums who marched during the Parks era were completely unsurprised that she referred to Peter Pan, the movie “Hook”, and the Lost Boys. Jeanne C. Parks, wife of the late great George Parks, told a story in the form of … well, actually, in the form of several George Parks stories. A couple of them could only have been told properly by Jeanne herself. These are two of my favorite makers of speeches (or polite conversation, for that matter), because they’re never ever dull (understatement), and they have occasionally been very satisfyingly pointed.

There was also a speech by another gentleman – one of the last people any of us UMass band alums would have expected to enjoy getting up and making a formal speech at a relatively tightly-wrapped event. This was the man whose most potent and persuasive arguments often have been made using sentences of four words or less. (“Figure it out” and “play and march faster” spring immediately to mind.)

Thom Hannum, assistant director of the UMass Minuteman Marching Band, carrying with him thirty years of service to the University and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, got up and made a speech. Before he made the speech, he got a standing ovation, and probably was uncomfortable with getting it. After he made the speech, he got another one. Again, he probably thought, “no; thank you, but sit down please.” (And he was the object of a third standing ovation during the actual Homecoming football game.)

Some months before, as has been chronicled, Thom was a candidate for the UMass band directorship. As has also been chronicled, another gentleman was named director. As has also been chronicled, some in the UMass band alumni community were disappointed that Thom wasn’t named director, and others were displeased with what they knew of the process of selecting the new director that wasn’t Thom, and still others were disappointed and displeased. Happily, many have since reached out to Timothy Anderson, “the new guy”, and Dr. Anderson has responded gracefully and articulately to those who have reached out. And he has gone to great lengths to acknowledge Thom, publicly and convincingly.

“The new guy” in any situation has a very challenging job ahead of him or her — regardless of who he or she is — regardless of what experience he or she brings to that position. Even more challenging when his or her assistant is one of the people who wanted his or her job. In some situations, this can make for a toxic work environment; at the very least, an awkward and uncomfortable one – even if the assistant doesn’t actively work to create such an environment.

So on Saturday, Thom Hannum made a speech, surrounded by band alumni who thought the world of him, but also in the presence of the gentleman who was selected for the position that Thom had also sought.

He hit it out of the park. He saluted the completion of a new home for the Minuteman Band. He saluted those who had been “Chapel rats” before Old Chapel was closed; he saluted those who had been “lost boys”, who had not known Old Chapel and who had completed their time with the UMMB before the UMMB found its new home; he wished publicly for the continuation and growth of the band program, so that a quality musical organization would live in that new building for years to come. And, significantly, gracefully, he also saluted the man who had become that organization’s new leader.

For all the reasons and bearing in mind all the circumstances suggested above, not everyone in the world would have been capable of doing that. But Thom was.

Sometime during this past summer, Thom made the decision to remain associated with the UMass band program. He did so for reasons which may be surmised, but which are completely known only to him. Whatever his precise set of reasons, he is still at UMass, and the program clearly benefits from his continued presence. But it does so not merely because Thom is a DCI Hall-of-Fame percussion giant and therefore the UMass percussion section continues to be glorious proof of that. It does so not merely because Thom knows the traditions, characteristics, and capabilities of the band program so well, thanks to having helped shape it for three decades. Thom Hannum is a continued asset to the UMass Marching Band program, equally, because he is capable of standing up and making public statements like the one he did on Saturday.

Quite simply, Thomas P. Hannum is a class act, quite likely the classiest act that our Commonwealth can currently lay claim to. There have been days this year when I didn’t think the University of Massachusetts had any right to claim as its own a man who can stand as tall as Thom Hannum did on Saturday. But, remarkably, we do still have him. And we can thank whomever (or Whomever) we wish to thank, for that.