In Dread of Trumpets

I only wish the Dreaded Trumpets I face tomorrow were this cute.

Tonight, I don't want to go to bed because I know what tomorrow holds for me: the Dreaded Trumpets. Two Dreaded Trumpets, waiting there promptly at 9AM in the sanctuary of the Small Liberal Church where I work as the Music Director. I did not want the Dreaded Trumpets—they were Thrust Upon me by the Church Council approximately three weeks ago with nary a thought as to what it actually means for those of us who spend hours coordinating the music for worship, and believe me, until you yourself have had Dreaded Trumpets Thrust Upon you, you really have no idea the magnitude of this Inconvenience.

I did not want to hire Trumpets for this year's Easter service because Easter Trumpets are never in tune. Never ever. Unless you live in a Big City with Real Musicians, which happen to cost Big Money. And basic musicality issues aside, I simply don't have the time or energy to worry about hunting down and hiring and working with two out-of-tune Easter Trumpets. The Schubert Mass in G, which we're doing in two weeks, comes with it's own set of problems (namely the Five Strings we'll be throwing into the mix and the fact that my full conductor's score still has not arrived from Kalmus, the company I ordered it from online, even though I paid for overnight shipping two weeks ago). Plus, the Trumpeter we dragged in at the last minute last year wasn't really all that and a bag of chips, and of course they use him every year and thus, church politics being what they are, if I hire a Trumpet at all, one of them simply must be him. And then there is the simple fact that I am Not Really a Conductor and so I naturally prefer to avoid throwing unnecessary complications into the mix. Top that off with the fact that I've resurrected (so to speak) a piece that I positively loathed during high school (out of necessity—it fit with the whole Easter Joy thing and it's fairly easy), and Easter 2007 is shaping up to be this little church musician's own Private Hell.

Yes, you heard right: I am Not Really a Conductor. I have never even taken a conducting course and yet I somehow convinced these sweet, earnest Midwesterner's that I would be a great Music Director and have thus far gotten by on my innate ability to pick crowd-and-choir-pleasing pieces, my unflagging energy, and my brilliant ability to Fake It Like No Other. Oh, and I actually organized the music library and had some choir cubbies built for their folders and hymnals. They love me for those choir cubbies.

There is a distinct difference between being a Director and being a Conductor. Conductors have graceful nuance and subtlety; I look more like the drum major leading the high school band during the halftime show (BIG hand gestures, VERY precise beat patterns that are occasionally in the wrong time signature). Conductors coax elegant performances out of choirs—indeed, they all seem to have singers; by contrast, I have a very devout group of earnest and somewhat capable choir members. Conductors and their choirs can do wonderful things with dynamics; my choir has two volume levels: loud and less loud. Conductors inspire their choirs; I corral mine. Ultimately, I think I hold things together through sheer bossiness and a sense of entitlement than comes (I believe) from knowing that I have done an awful lot of really good music when singing with past choirs and that I can continue to trot out and do well because most of the members of this choir probably haven't sung them before.

Smoke and mirrors. Razzle dazzle. That sort of thing.

But tomorrow, I have Trumpets. And while I am a competent and capable musician, I am not always a confident one. Oh, I'll pull it off. I always do. And it's not like this is the National Cathedral or anything. It's not like the members of the Small Liberal Church will notice if we hopelessly screw things up. But I will notice. And maybe that's why I am avoiding going to bed, pretending that by staying up extra late, I will somehow avoid facing the Dreaded Trumpets and my Easter Fate.

And as if to pour salt in the wound, after I fake my way through tomorrow's Easter service with the Dreaded Trumpets that the Council saw fit to Thrust Upon me, I then have to work with the Youth Choir on the piece that they picked for Music Sunday. Nothing says worship quite like Bon Jovi.

But really. Just once I think it would have been okay for the Son of God to rise without those damned Trumpets.