Not Me Monday - A Christmas Carol special edition

For those of you who have ever played in a pit orchestra you know that something always goes wrong, or simply not as planned. This was one of the toughest shows to get synced up with the actors. We had many, many laughs (while trying to play this 90 minute non-stop music show) and I thought you'd like to laugh along with me and the rest of the pit.

I did not use the same bassoon reed for all 7 shows. Not me, a good double reed player always alternates between at least 2 reeds.

We were not one viola player short for the Thursday matinee. He apparantly did not know we had a morning show.

After a really, really loud opening clock chime on Thursday night (opening night) we did not have to have a "chime check" before every show to test the volume.

While the pianist was changing the keyboard setting from the clock chime sound back to the regular piano, she did not hit one of the demo buttons which did not made the keyboard start playing a heavy drum beat. (Luckily the director was able to turn the volume down quickly!)

After the clock had chimed, our director did not have to hold up two fingers to let Scrooge know exactly what time it was. (I think he started his line before the clock had finished chiming. "When the clock...........strikes......two...)

The same keyboard player as above hit two keys at once when playing the clock chimes which did not make for a pretty bad sounding clock chime. It was not supposed to be two o'clock and it did not take her forever to play the second chime even after we were all practically screaming for her to hit it again!

The soloists did not constantly come in early and we did not have to skip measures to catch up to them.

One soloist did not always come in late and after we figured out a measure to vamp until he was ready he did not all of a sudden start coming in right!

The trumpet players did not totally overpower all other players in the pit. (Especially the one that blared really loud!)

The snowflakes that fell at the end of the show were not the size of golf balls on certain nights.

The fog did not billow into the pit so heavily that our pit director couldn't see the actors.

We (meaning the pit as a whole) did not suffer from a really bad case of intonation. We did not adapt the motto "tuning is a waste of time".

I did not start erasing the pencil marks in my music during the first show on Saturday. On Sunday I did not find out that we didn't have to erase our music at all!

The snowy weather did not delay most of our start times. We did not try to play faster to make up the extra time so the show would still end after 90 minutes.

John did not send me Vikings score updates throughout the show.

I did not write all of the ideas for this blog during my random measures of rest.

I did not just agree to play for Sound of Music which will run for three weekends and is it is not one of my least favorite shows. (It's good music, I just think it's overdone.)

Other quotes from the show:
Will Tiny Tim Live? Not of we can help it!
Link by Link - also titled Kay by Kay - Kay Link was one of our flautists.
Jeremy, play all the glisses as abnoxiously as you can.
Vortex? What?!?!?
We had so much room in the pit but no time to goof around.
Elves or Elks?
Sounds as written
About a 1/4 measure that was supposed to be vamped: "Why isn't it just a 2/4 measure?"