Play

On a recent weekend, I played.

My posts so far on this beginning blog have been on the theme of Move. This one is about Play.

I am play-challenged. Most of the things others consider play — games, sports, amusement parks, outings with friends — hold no appeal for me and feel like work. Actual work, meaning work that I choose, that challenges me and seems worthwhile and interests me, feels more like play.

That weekend I played, in two senses of the word. I played a musical instrument and I had lots of fun. The occasion was the annual event of the Maryland All State Concert Band.

The band is made up of musicians from volunteer, community bands across the state. This year’s 75 participants represent 16 bands, and that’s probably not the total number of Maryland community bands. We met early Saturday morning at a high school in Howard County.

The weekend

First, the Covid-19 adjustments. The MASCB weekend happened when all the information about the spread of the Delta variant was swirling in the news and officials were making new rules and reverting to restrictions they had just loosened. The rules for us had been that we had to be fully vaccinated and wear masks indoors except when playing our instruments. Then the rules changed — one day before the All State weekend. We had to wear masks WHILE playing.

Turns out that there are masks made for wind-instrument players. It’s logical, of course, that someone would have invented such a thing, but I had no clue. The only store I knew of that might carry these masks is a 45-minute drive away, and I didn’t have time for that. It’s a good thing, actually, because I would have asked for just a “musician’s mask” and probably would have ended up with the wrong kind — not styled for a clarinet. That’s what I did end up with, but I picked it up on Saturday morning, from a pile of masks someone had donated. It has a vertical slit, very inconvenient compared with the horizontal flap of a clarinetist’s mask, but at least I didn’t have to spend an hour and a half getting it on Friday.

The 75 musicians were seated six feet apart, which meant we took up about three-quarters of the high school all-purpose room. The remaining quarter was set up for around 50 audience seats, in pairs, six feet apart. As I was second to last in the Clarinet 3 section lineup, I was in the back row. I never even met the two players on either side of me. I did meet the woman directly in front of me, and we talked several times. She plays with the Social Security Administration Band.

The last time I played with an All State ensemble I was in high school. That’s also the last time I played my clarinet for all of one day and most of the next. I felt lost for much of Saturday’s rehearsals, but it wasn’t a despairing kind of lost at all. I knew I could handle this, I just needed to focus and work hard.

And that’s what play is, for me. It always involves focus and hard work — not drudgery, but good, clean, in-the-flow kind of work.

Much of my being lost in the rehearsals Saturday was due to the mask — not mine, but the conductor’s. From the back row, it felt like he was a football field’s distance away and I couldn’t understand much of what he said. During the first rehearsal he used a mic, which he then ditched, as it didn’t really help. I could hear him but, as with everyone talking through a mask, I missed a lot of his words, including important ones, such as which rehearsal number we were starting at. Usually I missed the direction for the next piece of music to get out and had to look at my neighbors’ stands to see what we were playing.

Worst of all, I missed the punch lines of nearly all his jokes. Oh, well. I still had lots of fun.

Recently Laura Campbell, the 20-something-year-old founder and CEO of the Virtual Concert Band, posted this question to participating musicians: “What was the moment you fell in love with music?” Most people responded with something like, “When I played … [this particular piece of music].” I couldn’t think of an answer. I’ve loved many pieces that I’ve played, and I’ve forgotten most of them.

The answer came to me while I was running early Saturday morning, as the MASCB weekend was about to begin. I was 9 or 10 years old, whenever it was that I reached sufficient competence through my elementary school clarinet lessons to join the school band. That first time playing an instrument in an ensemble was the moment I fell in love.

Self-help influencers advise fun-challenged people like me to remember what was fun when we were children, 7 to 12 years old. Ever since encountering that advice I’ve given priority to my instruments — clarinet and violin. Not that it’s always fun to play them. Most of what I do is practice, and that’s work. As with all work, there are good and bad days. And I always have to push myself to get started practicing. The fun, for me as a kid, was in ensemble playing, and in order to do that you have to practice.

Cue the tired old joke: “Q: How do I get to Carnegie Hall? A: Practice.”

Over the past many years that I’ve played clarinet with the Takoma Park Community Band (20 or more years; I don’t remember when I started), there have been moments of fun, generally during concerts, which we play several times per year, mostly at nursing homes, when there’s not a raging pandemic. Those moments of fun also happen frequently when I play with the band’s clarinet choir, which practices before the weekly band rehearsals.

Moments of fun happen randomly, like the sun suddenly breaking through clouds. They’re enough to keep me going.

The MASCB was an entire weekend of fun, and that did not surprise me. It’s why I auditioned for it, back in December 2019 (this weekend had been postponed from summer 2020, when everything was canceled), and why I was thrilled to be accepted to nearly the last chair in the 3rd Clarinet section.

I spent as much time preparing for the weekend as I could afford, especially during the last two weeks, practicing 60 to 90 minutes per day. It paid off. I arrived as well prepared as I could be, which is not to say I was fully competent to play all the music up to tempo.

We had two 90-minute rehearsals Saturday morning, with a 15-minute break. Then an hour for lunch, then three more 90-minute rehearsals from 1 to 6 pm. Sunday morning was a repeat of Saturday morning; then lunch, followed by final prep and picture-taking. The concert was at 2 pm and lasted about an hour and a quarter.

For me, the weekend of playing in this way was intense, challenging, and energizing — hard work, at the end of which I felt happily exhausted. The days felt expansive, and I loved being so focused on one big thing for hours. A wonderful break from my usual life.