Word: percussionist
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...habe ich? / was habe ich nicht” (what do I have? / what don’t I have?) in “Selbstportrait mit Kater,” memories harken back to ’70’s Berlin when the then-young Bargeld and percussionist N.U.Unruh picked metal trash off the streets and, for the first time, beat out their existential angst on the overpass on the Autobahn. “Perpetuum Mobile” inherits the drama of it all with just a tinge of self-mockery beneath the gloom...
This is the first year I’ve been an HRO member. For three years, I have been a dabbler, never pledging full allegiance to any one group. As a percussionist, I am called upon by seemingly endless musical ensembles to participate in their performances, because there are simply not enough of us to go around here. With never more than about 10 players on campus for the dozens of performing groups, we all get endless e-mails from music directors, managers and conductors. Names are passed around, and eventually you are part of the standard list...
...wear the sweatshirt and do these things out of a desire to see the orchestra succeed. But I can’t help think that throwing myself into things like this might be a defense mechanism against feeling removed from the group—both because I am a percussionist and because, in some ways, I feel I don’t measure up to the rest...
...Percussionists are physically set off from the rest of the orchestra, and we really only interact with each other. Being a percussionist also means doing lots of waiting. My section probably has the best rest counters and listeners in the whole orchestra simply because we play so little. For example, my cymbal part for Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 doesn’t even begin until a good nine minutes into the first movement. The five of us, my four first-year section mates and I, know the second violin part down pat from peering over the shoulders...
...even though much of my rehearsal time is spent waiting instead of playing, I still love my two-and-a-half hours in Sanders on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The trouble with being a percussionist is also one of the benefits: because of the simple fact that I don’t play much, I can listen to the rest of the orchestra even better. While I wait, my ear can tune in to any of the other sections, listening to the moving line in the cellos, the lilting, almost drunken-sounding flute solo or even a few notes...