Ensembles That Sailed Away

I walk into the music room while everyone is sitting and noodling around on their instruments ready to play. It is district honor band. A time where the best musicians in the area sit to play together for the weekend. Everyone in the room is such a great player that the music can be sight read well enough to be able to play an entire concert by Sunday. It is where after this weekend I will probably never see any of these people ever again, but it is a beautiful moment to come and play for the bit that we can combine all of our talents.

Every music group I have been a part of is this way. The music groups I was in during my time in college (a choir and a wind ensemble) were so moving. At the time I did not think about how I would never hear that sound or how it was ever again, except in a video recording which is just nowhere near the same as standing there live. All of the amazing musicians that shared their art with one another and then moved on to graduate in order to take their talent elsewhere brought together those moments that I now realize were so precious in how they were in every person’s unique instrumental importance. Only that exact group of people could make that exact same sound ever again.

It was just like ships passing in and out to bring people to come and perform and then be back on the next ship to leave a few years later. There will probably never again be a group I can perform with that will be as serious about music as them. They were all either music majors or good enough to get into the groups through a try-out. There are local music groups, but many of them are where anyone who wants to sing or play can get in. It can still be a great time, but just not as serious as groups who are looking to possibly make a living out of music. It makes me realize how being around that much talent was something I took for granted and not anything that I can go back to having because those people are all now either professional musicians or close to it.

The only moments that have been close to what I used to love and know is when my college puts together a summer band and choir that people can join with some of those that still live in the city. It is still not exactly what it all once was, but it can at least come close to that amazing togetherness in music that used to be. I remember in some of those moments, people would get competitive with one another. I just wondered why, because we all came there together to play songs in a way that we will never get back again in a performance. I always think about if they regret not living in the moment and enjoying themselves instead of breaking a blood vessel trying to beat everyone. People really loved to get competitive about what chair they were or what part they got to sing. They would especially get worked up about wanting to try out for a solo. Being a soloist is great and can be a wonderful way to showcase a specific talent individually, but now that is what many people only have left. A great collaboration only comes once in a lifetime. It is as if everyone blew their way through and then flew off like the wind in a sail flying away to never be caught.