Boredom & Rage In 9/32 Time

Humor and classical music just aren't found together nearly as often as they ought to be, and Philadelphia Orchestra trumpeter Jeff Curnow has been working on doing something about that. He's been producing downright hilarious YouTube videos on various aspects of the music business for some time now (under the guise of selling trumpet mouthpieces,) and now he's about to launch a new series of online videos for Drew McManus's Inside the Arts site under the header, "What's Bothering Jeff?"

Orchestras can be downright infested with gallows humor, both good-natured and not, so I'm always impressed to discover a musician who, while maybe a bit on the cynical side, has obviously found a way to channel the frustrations of the job into something productive and hilarious. Here's my favorite of Jeff's videos to date, detailing the frustrations of having to play certain, shall we say, overly academic (read: pompous & unplayable) works.



The title of the piece alone is enough to make me start giggling, but my favorite parts are the brief shots of the written score. I wish I could say that I've never actually played a piece that featured time signatures like 15/1 and 9/32, but of course, I have. The marking underneath the first part of Excerpt 1 ("slowly at first then with angst") actually reminded me of a very specific American composer who shall remain nameless. And while I can't say that a composer has ever asked me to play a high C while screaming with my mouth closed and hitting my instrument with a hammer, I did once play a piece during which I was supposed to sing in harmony with what I was playing, and another during which the composer wanted me to beat on the back of viola with the metal end of my bow.

At times like that, as the late lamented Molly Ivins once said, you've either gotta laugh or cry, and crying's bad for you.