My sister, or “seestor” as we often say in our bad Mexican accents) told me recently she learned new things about me on a regular basis by reading my blog. Well here's something very few people know about me. My 'seestor' may have forgotten about as well: I went to high school for 5 years.
I graduated as a senior after four years with the same class of people had been in class with since kindergarten, but because my GPA was on the low side and I had a hard time getting into the colleges I wanted to go to, my guidance councilor made the radical suggestion that I take classes for another year. After all, I had spent half a day for two years taking drafting at a local trade school. Even though I had a diploma I had really only had 3 years of actual high school.
I'm not sure exactly why I didn't think this was a horrible idea. I decided it would indeed be the best thing. For some reason I knew I was quite ready for college in more ways than academics. Maybe it was because of the scholarship.
That's right. I couldn't get into college but I had been offered an actual scholarship.
I had won an award for “Best Soloist” at a jazz competition and was offered a scholarship to play bass for the St. Bonaventure University Jazz Band the same night by it's director who happened to be one of the judges.
I told the tale of that evening in post on my old blog "Diesel Fumes". The post was called “The Revenge of Mr. Not So Cool”. I am planning to rewrite it for the new blog post very soon, but here's a link to the old one if you just can't wait: http://www.myspace.com/joeltjohnson/blog/236605472
When I went to St. Bonaventure to play with the band visit the school, actually spending the night in the dorms, I could escape the feeling that I would be out-of place at SBU.
So back to high school I went. For one more year. It was actually a very good experience. I wasn't under the pressure I had been my senior year. I had a pretty easy schedule and I was taking more of the classes I wanted to take since I had already graduated. It was much easier socially too. I don't remember anyone giving me a hard time for being their an extra year. I was involved with the band as an instructor which I loved.
Shelly was the best trumpet player in school, she had been since she was a junior. She not only played in the high school wind ensemble, orchestra, jazz band, marching band, and field band, she also played in the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, the student arm of the Rochester Philharmonic; a pretty well-rated orchestra for a city the size of Rochester.
“What? I didn't know there was such a thing,” I told Shelly when she suggested that I join the youth orchestra. I was a bit of an underachiever in the area of music academics as I was in other academics. Still, I was a pretty damn good bass player, though I had a hard time admitting it at the time. I was so good at being able to play by ear that it had become a crutch and I never learned to read music very well. I could get by with the simple parts I had been given in the high school orchestra and the improvisation skills required in jazz band. I doubted I would be able to pass an audition that would certainly include some sight reading.
When I told my concerns to Shelley she said. “Don't worry about it, they really need bass players. You can handle it, believe me.”
I was still a little nervous when I drove with Shelly up to Rochester to rehearse with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. I entered the room where there were a hundred kids I didn't know. Nearly thirty violinists, eight violists, eleven cellists, about twenty brass and wind players, a handful of percussionists and not one, but two girls on harp. There were four other bassists. In nearly every ensemble I had ever played in, I had been the only bass player.
Shelly told the director who I was and I simply started rehearsing with them.
Home free!
Not quite.
When the director called for a break in the middle of the two hour rehearsal, before I could head off to find a candy machine the director said. “Mr. Johnson could you stay during the break, I'd like to talk with you.”
A little informal interview perhaps, no problem!
Howard Weiss was the concert master of the Rochester Philharmonic. It would have been great if I didn't know that then, but I did happen to know he was a professional orchestra's first chair violinist. He looked remarkably like James Lipton of "Inside the Actor's Studio"
James Lipton looks a bit like our director, Howard Weiss
-except for the smile
-except for the smile
He sat in a chair before me and clasped his hands austerely. I stood before him holding up my string bass, a posture a kin to being caught red handed trying to make off with a stolen chest of drawers on foot.
“Well Mr. Johnson, what have you prepared for me?”
Prepared? Oh crap. “Um, they just told me to show up so...”
“He gathered himself as if heading off a physical tick that occurred when something really annoyed him.
"Ah, I see. Why don't we hear some of the Beethoven.”
"Ah, I see. Why don't we hear some of the Beethoven.”
The piece we had started working on in rehearsal so far was Beethoven's Lenore Overture #3. Mr. Weiss had me start at a section that had a two octave run of thirty-second notes. Translation: a really fast scale.
What I know now that I didn't know then was that when a composer writes a thirty second note run for string basses it's really an effect they're going for not actually to hear the bass section perfectly articulate each note perfectly. One plays the first note solidly, the last note solidly and audibly bows furiously while the fingers approximate all the notes in between.
An effect sounding something like, if I may: “RRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRUMMMPH!”
I played for him some other things until the other players began filtering back into the room. Nothing he asked me to play was quite as challenging as the “Rrrumph!” Either I had done that very thing, hitting the first and last notes correctly with a flurry of activity in the middle, or he was truly in great need of bass players as Shelly had said. I passed the audition!
Every Sunday Shelly and I would car pool to rehearsal. One particular day not long into the season they made an announcement that may have been the best news I had received in years.
“We will be going on tour in England and Scotland.”
There was a collective gasp in the room and some squeals of excitement, but no one could have been more excited than I. The tour wasn't for another five months but I could go on that for a long time. If I had had any doubts about attending an additional year of high school this blew them away. I constantly dreamed of traveling, one of the many reasons I wanted to be a musician. I had always dreamed of going to England in particular. I had always been quite an anglophile--which is illegal in several southern states.
Now I had my chance!
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