This one time…

[gsmittle]

I was reading an old ShopNotes (#17 to be exact) and there's an article on how to make a Band Clamp. I misread it as Band Camp, wnich took me back to this one time…

Unsolicited advice: If your child/grandchild is interested in band, encourage them to play any instrument but drums. In Band Camp, the Drum Line never marches without instruments. I swear I sweated enough to drown an average-sized pony.

[LCHIEN]

I was in the symphony orchestra in high school and played the violin. I lugged that violin case everywhere (including as a gangster at a halloween party once). I was very glad I did not play the cello.

When my Grandson was joining the band and picking an instrument, I suggested he pick the flute or piccolo or even clarinet so as to have to carry less. But he picked the slide trombone, a rather large instrument.

I had a friend who played the piano for the orchestral works that needed one. He never had to carry his instrument, one was always available in any venue for him to use. That's the one you need to play.

[gsmittle]

Loring,

You are, as usual, absolutely correct! Play the instrument that the venue supplies, then all you have to carry is your music. Of course, you miss out on all the flute players (almost all girls) in short shorts and sweaty t-shirts…

There's a scene in Woody Allen's "Take the Money and Run" where he tries to play cello in the marching band. I fell out of my seat laughing.

[billwmeyer]

I don't recommend the tuba either! My first major parade was on some hilly streets in Tulsa Ok. My brass tuba was heavy. To make it worse, it was very windy that day. The buildings shielded the wind some but coming to an intersection almost spun me 90°. That was the worst parade I was ever in. Luckily the next year the school bought fiberglass tubes and they were much lighter. I never had to march in windy conditions again eirher.

[leehljp]

This is a woodworking musical post: In the late 1990's or early 2000's, I was living in Ikoma, Japan, a suburb of Osaka and I got a call from another one of our missionaries, a single lady about 20 years older than me. She was in her early '60s. She said "Hank I had lunch with a couple today (a missionary couple in Kyoto) and Bob said that you do woodworking." Me: "yes some." She said, "Recently I moved (which I knew) and I lost the stand to my cello. Can you fix my cello?" Me: "CELLO, I don't know anything about Cellos!!!". Then she explained that she lost the adjustable stand for her cello and wondered if I could make her a new one.

Well, the next day, I changed trains 3 times to get to her neighborhood just northeast of Kyoto. I carried a small bag of measuring tools and 3 different wood rods in different sizes and my camera to take pictures. Not being a "musical" person, I didn't know what to expect. I was taken aback by the cone shaped hole and wondered how I was going to make that. It suddenly came to me that I had seen hollowed shaped wood cones at a famous hobby chain store in Japan and most cities had one.

This was Monday. I asked when she needed it. She replied that she wasn't in a big hurry but she had a concert on Friday evening! With a couple of pictures on the early internet and that hollowed cone shaped wood at the hobby store plus a good wood dowel, I made what I thought would work. By Tuesday evening I had an adjustable stand made as best I could figure and sent it to her Wednesday morning for overnight delivery. She got it can called me, "It fit perfect and the knob for tightening the stand in place worked fine." she said. A couple of weeks later, she found the original and called me and said she liked mine better than the original as it was easier to adjust. (I will say that I got pure lucky on the hollowed wood cone as it fit perfect. I did not have a lathe at that time and would not have made it to the right specs.) The hardest part was making a locking knob for height adjustment.

I later learned that she bought her cello when she was in college. A Japanese music major had offered her the equivalent of $20,000 for it. I felt honored that I was able to make something that I knew nothing about, but it was all sheer luck on the hollowed cone fitting so well.