Hey all,
As you may or may not know, last night was chamber orchestra rehearsal number two for the semester, under the baton of the one and only King Fluteloop. Well, anyway.....Cellist wasn't there, but that was to be expected, because he has a night class at that time. So, what was King Fluteloop's solution? That's right!!! He got a *string bass* player to stand in for him. Now, there are several problems with this. I'll just make a list, so it's easier to read:
1. The cello and the string bass are two completely different instruments (for those who don't know, the string bass is about twice the size of the cello, and is played standing while the cello is played sitting)
2. The guy had never even looked at his part, and was therefore sight-reading the cello part for string bass, which is basically impossible, because the string bass plays in the bass clef (hence the name), while the cello plays in the alto clef. So, poor Bassist was not only sight-reading, but sight-TRANSPOSING as well. Much as this slowed down our rehearsal, I've got to hand it to him for trying.
3. Because Bassist isn't actually a student here, I think he might be just a random friend of King Fluteloop's (although not a professional musician friend, unfortunately), and he's "SOOOO BUUUUUUSSSSSYYYYYY!!!" (gag), he won't be able to come to another rehearsal for about three weeks. But, apparently, Cellist's night class will have ended (I think it's an education class, and they're on a different cycle than the other departments), and he'll be available to rehearse with us. Yes......one month before the final performance.......with no prior rehearsals. Let's see how well that works out. But no, none of the potential ramifications of this even flew beneath King Fluteloop's radar screen for even a fleeting second.
Anyway....King Fluteloop e-mailed all of us today, to ask if we'd be free during the afternoon, from 3 until 5, next Monday, with a view to switching to the afternoon time slot permanently. I'm free, most people are free, but I thought we'd established last week that First Violinist was unavailable at that time, so we'd just wind up with the same problem, but up a few octaves....so, here we go again. I think he's going to just keep e-mailing us week after week to figure out a time, when what he should have done was just keep it at the originally scheduled Wednesday evening time slot, as outlined on the online registration site. If I try to pre-empt him and send him my whole schedule, he'll just be like, "Sorrysorrysorry, that's too much information at once, I can't handle that, I just asked about Monday afternoon!!!" (Yes, he really talks like that). Oh, and for those who may have been wondering, yes, he *did* feed me the "play out, like a trumpet" line again last night......it's quickly becoming a running joke.
