Twas the Three Service Day Before Christmas and More Notes on The Nutcracker
Toward the end of December one tradition for many orchestral players is at least one three service day before Christmas. I just had my first one in years.
Symphony contracts do not allow three service days. What happens is they come up periodically due to a combination of two services to play and an outside gig, a prime time for this to occur being the weekend before Christmas.
In my case this year, the gig was at my own church where we had a praise cantata and the Nutcrackers were with the Phoenix Symphony. A few random notes:
- Believe it or not the last time I played this show was in December of 1997, my last season as Third Horn in Nashville. I have been called to sub a few times in Phoenix on this run but due to conflicts and circumstances (like being out of town) I was not available to play it until this past week.
- I was called in to play third horn, and it really is like riding a bicycle, you never forget a part like this, especially if you have performed it already something like 60 or 70 times. To get called in on third is unusual; at least two members of a five person section need to be out before that part goes out to an extra.
- I did four services of this; the day that was a double (triple for me with the AM gig rehearsal) the section was due to very unusual circumstances comprised of Principal Horn Gabriel Kovach and four extras, all the other extras being either current or former ASU students of mine, a first for me. I know at least six extra horns have played parts of this run which is highly unusual, even with the section being short one player this year. All the players are good players, the shows came off pretty tight I think.
- The first note in the third horn part I recall one year in Nashville chipping in practically every performance. I ended up selling that horn, the D was too squirrelly, and I had a bit of a complex about the entrance for some time. I got them all this year!
- It seems like this is a very nice production of the ballet. The only really odd thing musically, to my mind, is that the girl’s chorus at the end of the first act is being done on a keyboard. The result is a bit ghostly, honestly, having the sound of a real live girl’s chorus in my head.
- One thing I figured out by about half way through the first show was to not watch the conductor too closely. If I played with what I saw I was nothing but ahead of the orchestra, so I relied more on my ears to guide the ensemble.
- One thing I learned long ago is when you know you have too much heavy playing to do cold is good for preventing lip swelling. My favorite is to drink very cold tea with lots of ice, sucking on a few cubes at the end driving into the show. I would not say do it every day but for a brief stint of heavy work it does help.
- I know that some of the players in the group are well up into the 500+ range for Nutcracker performances.
They have a 17 performance run of this to play and are not done yet as of the date of this post. For me personally four performances on third horn after a 12 year break was enjoyable; all 17 would have begun to look and feel like work. It is a busy time of year, and when you throw in three service days it really eats up the time and chops.
Speaking of busy people, at the last show I played also in the section was Bruce Hembd. Name sound familiar? He also writes posts on Horn Matters! He has been super busy lately which he can tell more about if he wishes in upcoming posts. It was great to see him on a job again, it has been a while since we last ran into each other on a gig.
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