Lyrics The Young Lutheran's Guide To The Orchestra - Garrison Keillor

The Young Lutheran's Guide To The Orchestra

Wind Section
French Horn
Probably not a French horn: the French horn takes too much of a person’s life.
French horn players hardly have time to marry and have children.
The French horn is practically a religious belief all by itself.
In some orchestras, the horn players are required to be celibate — sometimes
by their wives, because they think about the horn all the time anyway.
Bassoon
Should a Lutheran play the bassoon?
Not if you want to be taken seriously,
I don’t think so.
The name kind of says it all: bassoon.
It’s an instrument
that isn’t playing with a full deck of marbles.
Maybe it’s something you’d do
for a hobby («Hey honey, let’s go bassooning this weekend!»), but not as your
life’s work.
Some bassoonists filling out applications for home loans just say «orthodontist.»
Clarinet
Many Lutherans start out playing clarinets in marching band and think of it as
a pretty good instrument and kind of sociable.
You pick up a clarinet,
and you feel like getting together with other people and forming an «M.
«But the symphonic clarinet is different;
it’s clever, sarcastic,
kind of snooty.
It’s a nice small town instrument that went to college and
after that you can’t get a simple answer out of them.
It is a French instrument,
you know.
Ever wonder why there are no French Lutherans?
Probably the wine
wasn’t good enough for 'em, I dunno.
Oboe
The oboe is the sensualist of the woodwind section, and if there is one wind
Lutherans should avoid, it’s probably this one.
In movie soundtracks,
you tend to hear the oboe when the woman is taking her clothes off.
Also a little later when she asks the man for a cigarette.
You start playing
the oboe, you’re going to have babies, take my word for it.
English horn
The English horn sounds Christian, maybe because we think of it as the Anglican
horn, but it’s so mournful, so plaintive, and so are English horn players.
They all have deep complicated problems.
They’re all down in the dumps,
especially at night, which is when most concerts are.
Maybe because they want
what oboists have, I don’t know.
Flute
The flute is the show-off of the wind section, it’s the big shot:
Jean-Pierre Rampal, James Galway — both millionaires.
(How many millionaire
bassoonists can you name real fast?) Well, that’s fine.
Everybody knows it’s
the hardest, blowing across a tiny hole with your head tilted all your life:
it’s like soloing on a pop bottle.
The problem with the flute is that it
vibrates your brains, and you start wearing big white caftans and smocks and
eat roots and berries, and you become a pantheist and sit in meadows,
and you believe that all is one and God is everything — God is a column of air
vibrating, and you know that’s not right.
Piccolo
The last member of the woodwind family is the flakiest and that’s the piccolo.
It’s never in tune.
Never has been, never will be.
All you can play with it is
the blues.
Which, being a Lutheran, we don’t have anyway.
String Section
Bass
We come now to the string section.
Strings are mentioned in scripture and so
some young Christians are tempted to become string players.
But you want to be
careful.
Bass, for example.
A very deliberate instrument, the plow horse of the
orchestra, and bass players do tend to be more methodical, not so spontaneous
or witty or brilliant necessarily, but reliable, which makes the instrument
appealing to German Lutherans.
And yet bass notes do have a certain texture and
a tone, a darkness, a depth that — my gosh, when you see those guys pick up
their bows back there, doesn’t it make you think the same thing that I do?
And if we do, just think what they’re thinking about.
Cello
The cello section seems pleasant, and cellists seem like such nice people.
The way they put their arms around their instruments, they look like parents
at a day care center zipping up snowsuits.
They seem like us: comfortable,
mid-range, able to see both sides of somethin'.
And yet, there’s something
about the cello that’s hard to put your fingers on.
It just doesn’t seem right.
Maybe, it’s the way they hold the instrument the way they do.
Why can’t they
hold it across their laps?
Or beside themselves?
I’m only asking.
Viola
The viola section is no place for a Lutheran and here you have to take my word
for it, because I know violists and they’re okay until late at night.
They like to build a fire in a vacant lot and drink red wine and roast a
chicken on a clothes hanger and talk about going to Mexico with somebody named
Rita.
Violists have this dark, moody, gypsy streak, especially when they get
older, and they realize that their instrument for some reason cannot be heard
beyond the stage.
You think you hear the violas, but it’s really the second
violins.
First Violin
The first violin is a problem for a Christian because it’s a solo virtuoso
instrument and we Christians are humble and decent people.
The first violins
see the maestro look to them first, and most of them believe that he secretly
takes his cue from watching their bows go up and down.
The maestro,
who has a great nimbus of hair and is here on a temporary work permit,
is hypnotized by listening to the violins and forgets which page he’s on and
looks to the violins to find out what’s going on — this is what most violinists
believe in their hearts.
That if the maestro dropped dead, the orchestra would
just follow the violins while his little body was carried off into the wings,
and nobody in the audience would notice any difference except that now they
would have an unobstructed view of the violin section.
Is this a place for a
Lutheran to be?
Did our Lord say «Blessed are they who stand up in front and
take deep bows for they shall receive bigger fees?»
No, He did not.
Second Violin
The second violin section is attractive to Lutherans because these people are
steady, supportive and helpful, but look who it is they help — they help out
the first violins.
You want to play second fiddle to that crowd?
(No, I hope not.) One thing you may not know about second violins is that the
parts are so easy they never practice and they wind up staying out late in
singles bars on the freeway near the airport and dancing with software salesmen.
But I guess that’s their business.
Brass Section
Tuba
Let’s be clear about one thing about the brass section.
The rest of the
orchestra wishes the brass were playing in another room.
So does the conductor.
His back is toward you so that you can’t see what he’s saying to them but what
he’s saying is, «Would you mind taking that thing outside?»
The brass section
is made up of men who were at one time in the construction trades.
They went into music because the hours are better and there’s less dust.
They’re heavy dudes and that’s why composers wrote so few notes for them.
Because after they play, you can’t hear for a while.
The tuba player is
normally a stocky, bearded guy whose hobby is plumbing.
The only member of the
orchestra who bowls over 250 and gets his deer every year and changes his own
oil.
In his locker downstairs, he keeps a pair of lederhosen for freelance jobs.
Anyway, there’s only one tuba in the bunch and he’s it.
Trombone
The trombonist is a humorist, sort of the brother-in-law of the orchestra.
He carries a water spray gun to keep his slide moist and often uses it against
his neighbors.
That’s why they duck down back there.
He’s nobody you’d ever
want to see become artistic director;
you just hope he doesn’t sit right behind
you.
Trumpet
The trumpet is the brass instrument you imagine as Christian, thinking of
Gideon and Gabriel, and then you meet one in real life, and you realize how
driven these people are.
They don’t want to wear black tie;
they want to wear
capes and swords and tassels.
They want to play as loud as they can and see
mallards drop from the ceiling.
Of the people who’ve keeled over dead at
orchestra concerts, most of them were killed by a long trumpet passage.
And most of them were glad to go.
Percussion
There are two places in the orchestra for a Lutheran and one is in the
percussion section.
It’s the most Christian instrument there is.
Percussionists are endlessly patient because they hardly ever get to play.
Pages and pages of music go by where the violins are sawing away and the winds
are tooting and the brass.
The percussionist sits and counts the bars like a
hunter in the blind waiting for a grouse to appear.
A percussionist may have to
wait for twenty minutes just to play a few beats, but those beats have to be
exact, and they have to be passionate and climactic.
All that the Epistles of
Paul say a Christian should be: faithful, waiting, trusting, filled with fervor
are the qualities of the good percussionist.
Harp
The other Lutheran instrument, of course, is the harp.
It’s a good instrument
for any Christian because it keeps you humble and keeps you at home.
You can’t run around with a harp.
Having one is like living with an elderly
parent in very poor health: it’s hard to get them in and out of cars,
and it’s hard to keep them happy.
It takes fourteen hours to tune a harp,
which remains in tune for about twenty minutes, or until somebody opens a door.
It’s an instrument for a saint.
If a harpist could find a good percussionist,
they wouldn’t need anybody else.
They could settle down and make perfectly
good music, just the two of them.