It’s amazing what you can with a little determination and a florescent lamp.
This essay will no doubt crown me ‘King of all Dorks’, but it was a long time in the making, so I am compelled to share. In 1979 I was a senior at Sarasota High School in Sarasota, Florida. I was a total band geek. If there was a musical group at school, I was in it.
It was about about 3 weeks before the big Spring concert. My last, since I was soon to graduate. We were fortunate enough to live in a town that has an incredible performing arts hall, The Van Wesel. Designed by the Frank Lloyd Wright foundation, it resembles a purple clam, native to the waters there. But most residents call it “The Purple Cow”.
I was into classical music in a big way. Due in part to the popularity of sound tracks like ‘Star Wars’ by John Williams, and others composers like Aaron Copland, and James Horner. I got it into my head that I could write a piece of music for our Symphonic band to play at the big show. I asked the band director, Doug McClain, if I could pursue it. He kind of laughed and said, “If you can do THAT, you can even conduct it.” All the while thinking I would drop the idea in a day or so.
But I didn’t.
So I started tinkering with a few melodies I had in my head on the piano at school. Did I mention I don’t play piano? I quickly realized how much work I had in front of me. Most of it would have to be done at night, at home. We didn’t have a piano, so I had to figure out another way to compose.
Somewhere along the way I picked up a little piece of knowledge that saved me. Did you know a florescent light gives off a tone that is a perfect concert B flat? Well, the one on my desk at home did anyway. If I could find concert B flat, I could find any note by whistling. I would match the pitch of the lamp, climb the scale to the note I wanted, and then write it down on staff paper. I would tap out the rhythm on my desk, and write that down. Combine them, and you have a melody!
Now the problem was transcribing the notes for all the instruments in the band. For example, a concert C is in one place on the staff for a trumpet, but a completely different place on the staff for the saxaphone, and so on. Never fear, we had a library. (What I would have done for Google at the time) I found a book that had exactly what I needed. It showed how the same note was written for every instrument in the orchestra. I just had to put all these pieces together. So that’s what I did.
Once I finished the master score, I realized I had to provide sheet music for the entire band, which was made up of over 40 people. So I wrote each one by hand. What a pain in the ass.
I didn’t sleep much those 3 weeks, but it was worth it. I brought all the work to my band director. I think he was shocked, but had to let me conduct it. He had promised. We rehearsed it for a little less than a week if memory serves. We performed it. It was a blast. The entire concert was recorded (poorly) and I received a cassette tape which I managed to hang on to all these years.
About a year ago, I broke it out to play for my son Bill Rose, who is now an orchestra teacher himself. It was a major disappointment. The cassette was so old it stopped playing just as my piece was coming up. I looked online for a way to restore it, but was having no luck. I happen to mention it to my brother-in-law, Stephen W. Meeley. He still had some unopened Maxell cassette tapes that were screwed together, meaning, they could be taken apart! So we broke the old cassette case and removed the tape, and carefully transplanted it into the new cassette body.
For the most part, it worked beautifully. With the exception of the piece of music I wrote. It was garbled and just plain ol’ trashed. Oh well. Or so I thought.
But I listened to it anyway. And as I listened I realized it was playing backwards. I was digitizing all the other music on the tape, so I went a head and digitized this one too. Thinking I could reverse it in my editing software. I thought it would still be trashed, but at least it wouldn’t be backwards. To my surprise, it was all there. Sure, it’s a crappy recording and full of hiss, but it was all there. And that’s what is in this video, should you still want to listen to it after reading all this. Thankfully it’s only 4 minutes long. And thanks to Cynthia Troyer-Richter for the photo of me conducting. I didn’t have one.
36 years later as I listen to it, I hear a pretty simplistic piece of music. But I also hear, Aaron Copland, John Williams, Gustav Holst, Shostakovich, and James Horner. All my musical influences rolled up together. But what I mostly hear, is that if you put your mind to something, work hard, and have a florescent lamp, you can do anything.
