Oldcontroller's Blog

If you don’t read music, this post will make no sense to you. I apologize if anyone feels slighted. I don’t mean to offend anyone.

If you do read music you will probably find this highly amusing. I would too, if I wasn’t up to my eyeballs in the fallout.

Saturday my boss texted me, he’d asked me to mark some music for him. By “mark” he means write the counting above the measures so he knows how long the notes are supposed to be and when to cut people off, and so on. During the texting back-and-forth it became clear that I’d marked the wrong piece of music. So I went in to the office (after adding some ingredients to the crock pot and turning it to “warm” so dinner wouldn’t burn while I was gone) to fix it.

One of the things he’d said was that he was having trouble in two places in one of the pieces being done for the second (blended) service on Easter Sunday. “Blended” means there are contemporary pieces being done. The first service was the traditional one, with hymns. We don’t usually have two services, but this was Easter, so…. And by the way I ran into someone coming out as I was coming in after the First Pres thing (I had to meet the ex-boss that afternoon so he could bring our timpanis back) and she told me neither service was even half full. She said we’d had enough people to fill one service, but not two. That’s unfortunate. But at least people showed up.

Anyway, when I got in I retrieved his book from his office to mark up the music. He’d circled the two areas that confuse him. Here’s the first one.

Here’s the second one.

The penciled-in numbers are in my handwriting. That’s me explaining what the note values are, the counting.

Neither of these measures contains any weird note values. Both of them are straightforward. And very simple.

And they baffle him.

*sigh* Oy. It’s as if your boss, a full-grown adult with a bachelors degree, had asked you to explain how to pronounce “elephant”. ‘Cause there’s that weird “ph” in there and he wasn’t sure what to do with it.

Lord help me.

A few weeks ago my boss informed me that he was going to lunch with my ex-boss the next day to discuss the Singing Christmas Tree for this year. My boss explained that his talents lie more towards overall supervision and direction and marketing and a few other vague terms. That he wanted to hire someone to actually do the conducting of the tree choir and orchestra (and said he was going to have to come up with another term for it as he didn’t want to risk anyone being unclear as to who was actually in charge).

Now, he was hired as our Worship Pastor in no small part because he agreed to direct the Singing Christmas Tree. What we didn’t realize at the time, of course, is that he can’t. Direct, that is. Or read music. And the chances of his being able to read and direct open orchestral scores by November is pretty much zero.

Anyway.

He explained the conditions under which this person would be expected to function. They were not going to be allowed to select any of the music. They would not be allowed to audition or select any of the soloists or ensemble members. What I didn’t realize then but found out later was that this person is not going to be allowed to attend the creative team meetings, even if they promise to sit in a corner and not speak.

My first thought at hearing the first two conditions was, “No way.” I couldn’t imagine, and still can’t, any creative person, and certainly not a music director with the experience and skills necessary to actually conduct the Singing Christmas Tree, agreeing to being hamstrung. To not being allowed any creative input whatsoever. But I didn’t say anything, because the boss doesn’t care what I think. I also knew that if anyone would be willing to agree to this, it would be my ex-boss. He’s one of the nicest people on the planet. He might, I thought, be willing to agree to such unreasonable restrictions if it meant the Tree would happen again.

The next day the lunch occurred. The boss didn’t say anything and I didn’t ask.

A couple days later I met the ex-boss in the church parking lot. He had some music he needed me to deliver to another community band member. He talked about the lunch. Talked about the restrictions. Said he’d told my boss that he’d think on it, pray about it, and let him know. He told me that he was going to make an appointment with my boss and the senior pastor the week following so they could discuss it a bit more. For my part I vented for a solid 20 minutes about how hard my working life is, waaah waaah waaah. Lucky for me in addition to being nice, he’s very patient.

After the second meeting, and the next time he came to band rehearsal, he told me that it had been interesting. And that the two of them are at complete odds. That’s when he told me about not even being allowed to attend the creative team meetings. I didn’t get to hear anything else as we were interrupted by another band member and what details I found out I heard from my music theory teacher.

Seems he’d brought with him a timeline detailing what needed to be done and when in order for the Tree to happen when it is scheduled to. He realized immediately that neither my boss nor the senior pastor was interested in anything he had to say, and the timeline never left his briefcase. My boss insists he do the equivalent of parachuting in at the beginning of each rehearsal, wave his arms at us for 2 hours, and then conveniently disappear. Not that he put it that way. The ex-boss was just as adamant that he be allowed to choose the music, and audition and select soloists and ensembles. The ex-boss gave them a week to think about it, and would wait for them to let him know what their decision was.

It didn’t take them that long. Wednesday following the ex-boss got a text from my boss. Said he was going to take the music program “in a different direction.” The ex-boss said he wished him well. And that was that.

I wonder if the “different direction” is off the cliff I see we’re headed for. I hope not.

Anyway, we’re without a director at the moment. Also, as far as I know, there has been no decision regarding any music for the Tree. The boss had me search for and put on his desk what I could find in our files that addressed coming home for Christmas. And asked if we had “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays” anywhere. I haven’t been able to find it. Not that we don’t have it — we have tons of stuff, especially in the shelves above the changing stalls in the men’s changing room in the baptistery. Some of those shelves are about 15 feet from the floor, so I’m going to need the big ladder. How I’m going to get it into the changing stalls is a mystery. I was able to maneuver the 6-foot ladder in there, but the 12-foot I’m not so sure about. The other stumbling block is time. As I’ve mentioned before I’m spending a considerable amount of my very-limited work time doing things the boss is supposed to be doing, and/or teaching him what the music he’s selected says. Counting. Rhythms. That kind of thing. So I simply have not had time to dig for music for the Tree. I’m up to my eyeballs getting from Sunday to Sunday without dropping anything.

All of this means that we are, being optimistic, 3 months behind schedule. Last year the music was selected in January. The (now ex) boss brought me into the process in May, at which point he’d already made master copies of the CDs for the orchestra and parts CDs for the choir, plus ordered all the music he wanted to use (that we didn’t already own).

I’ve been asked if we’re having a Tree this year. And I don’t know. I truly don’t know. And if we don’t — if they thought there was negative feedback about our choice for a worship pastor before, they’re going to be wishing for those halcyon days. The poop is going to hit the fan and we’re all going to be splattered.

With God all things are possible. He has a plan. This is happening for a reason. I have no idea what it is and can see no way out of this that does not include a disaster.

Lucky for all of us I’m in charge of nothing.

Oy vey. God, just keep me on the path. I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t have to. Just keep me headed in the right direction.

So, last Sunday, the 13th, I ended up in the balcony running slides as the guy who usually does that didn’t show. No idea why. It was a surprise to the boss, anyway.

The choir sang, as the special, Brooklyn Tabernacle’s Redeemed. The boss sang the solo and the choir backed him up. He did a pretty good job, except for… and this isn’t fair, I know, but… his demeanor. Or perhaps a better word would be style. Or body language. Folks, he appeared to be channeling Joe Cocker. It was a bit disturbing to watch. He does better, or at least doesn’t have the chance to go all weird, when he’s holding his guitar.

So, anyway, at one point, as he can’t read music and has no idea where anybody else is and tends to… improvise… while he’s singing, he came in during what was supposed to be an instrumental part. He came in about 3/4 of a measure before he was supposed to. Not a measure, or two measures. Three quarters of a measure. Yeah, that’s bizarre. He managed to baffle several people, including the pianist and the drummer. They adjusted, but it took a few seconds.

As a soloist he’s allowed to get a bit creative, but he’s supposed to let his support musicians know when and how. He doesn’t, of course, because he doesn’t know when or how. He just makes it up as he goes.

I ran into him in the office after the service and he was irate. He announced, “We need a click track.” I thought, well, sure. That’s what we need. One more thing happening on those channels with all that stuff that’s already happening on them. More noise in people’s ears. Because we don’t have nearly enough confusion out there as it is now. We need more.

Of course all I said was, “Okay,” and I hope my face betrayed my confusion. I don’t know. He doesn’t pay attention to my facial expressions, though, and continued on. He threw the pianist and the drummer under the bus, announcing that they hadn’t done what they were supposed to do, that they were “off.”

I didn’t respond to that. It wouldn’t have done any good.

*sigh*

I was buttonholed a couple weeks ago by a choir member who is well and truly tired of being his backup all the time. And last week my music theory teacher referred to the situation as the choir playing The Pips to his Gladys Knight.

The Pips got paid. Just sayin’.

Yesterday, Easter, I was at First Presbyterian. Playing timpani. Paying gig. It was lovely. Only one service, and everybody knows what they’re doing over there.

Cheers, y’all.

The church is spending large amounts of money upgrading the sound system. We’ve added something called Aviom (that link takes you to something that looks similar to what we have, but it’s not exactly the same thing). They’ve installed several of these things. The guitarists have one each (total of 2), the drummer has one, the pianist has one, and the organist has one. Supposedly they can listen, through ear buds, to the channel that each musician is on and hear them without having to use the monitors we’ve used in the past. Easier, clearer, more accurate, can adjust all the levels, yadda yadda yadda.

The cabling under the stage has been replaced, also. With new cables, and new channels. When they installed the original cabling, apparently they ran them across the floor where they wanted them to go, poured concrete over them and then installed the marble floor. Over the years the cabling has deteriorated and there’s no way to get to it without taking up the floor. Which ain’t happening. So they installed new lines, with interesting looking boxes. We’re still using some of the original cable hookups. The sound board we have up in the balcony is programmed so we can select channels and set volumes for either wired or wireless mikes.

The problem is, though, that we’re having issues. Lots and lots of issues. Channels work and then they don’t. Microphones work and then they don’t. There is a considerable amount of flailing every Sunday while the sound guys try to figure out if the problem is a cable, a cable connector, a channel, a microphone, a battery issue, sunspots, gremlins, the Earth’s magnetic field, or the phase of the moon. And every Sunday, the issues are different.

A couple of Sundays ago I was getting trained, sort of, in the sound board and connecting cables and setting up microphones. The guy in charge of that had me plug in a cable so we could give the pianist a monitor so she could hear the choir better. I did that, squeezed myself out from behind the piano, he went to hook up another cable and suddenly the loudest noise I have ever heard in my life, that I can recall, came hurtling out of every single speaker in the room. It was amazing. I expected people’s ears to start bleeding. We started yanking every cable we had just plugged in. No effect. There was a fellow up at the sound board punching buttons to shut things off. Took awhile, but finally he found the problem. The wireless mikes that the Praise Team were using had gone berserk.

It should be noted that when this happened, the mikes weren’t being used. They were sitting on three stools on one side of the stage, not near each other. We turned them off, turned them back on, the noise came back. We took the batteries out, put them back in, the noise came back. There was no rhyme or reason for it, nobody could figure out why all of a sudden those three wireless mikes just decided to lose their electronic minds. We ended up shutting them off and hooking up wired mikes for the Praise Team to use.

Yesterday morning we had a microphone related mishap during the service. Our pastor was preaching (he’s very good at that, by the way), wearing his wireless body mike, and in his enthusiastic arm waving managed to dislodge the transmitter from where it was hooked to his belt and it hit the floor. Marble floor, by the way. One thing about electronics — they don’t like being dropped. Especially on marble. Ain’t no give, there. He picked it up and shoved it into his pocket.

Apparently there was a wire knocked loose, or something, ’cause after it had spent about a minute in his pocket there was this very loud POP. The sound didn’t go off, we could still hear him, but he froze for a moment and then went on. A few seconds later another POP. And then another. He said, “I don’t know what’s going on here,” but kept preaching. And POPping. He was near the end of his sermon, so we only had to put up with it for a short while.

And then yesterday evening there was a children’s musical. The sound guys set up every single area mike we had, plus a wireless, plus the pulpit mike, plus a couple of body mikes. And some of the area mikes flat refused to work. Might have been cables, or channels. The thing is, we can’t tell. The board isn’t indicating. They finally got things set up as best as they were going to manage. The musical had just gotten started, one of the kids (who was wearing a junior pastor’s body mike) was speaking. And a hum started. I thought, “Uh oh.” And it got louder, and louder, and louder… until I was looking for people’s ears to start bleeding. The sound guy was frantically punching buttons to try to isolate the problem, figure out which of the many mikes up there was going insane. The sound board is set up with several levels, meaning you can set things up on Level 1, then go to Level 2 and use the same buttons to set up completely different channels and/or mikes. He started out on the wrong level, which of course he had no way of knowing, shut all those off, then went to the next one and started turning all those things off. He finally found the right one. And when the hum abruptly stopped I realized he’d also shut the sound off for the CD. So the kids’ choir was suddenly enthusiastically singing a capella. I leaned over and said, “CD.” He was still kind of shell-shocked, so I said it again, louder: “CD.” He punched a button and the sound came back. The kids weren’t quite with the music (the CD had continued running), but it was close. They recovered, and the girl whose mike had gone nuts was handed a wireless handheld mike by another character and pressed on.

They all handled it very well, really. No meltdowns, no crises. Just kept on going.

To this moment we have no idea why that mike chose that moment to go nuts. But there is a pattern, at least when it comes to things suddenly shrieking. They’re all wireless. The channels not working is another issue, we still have to nail that down. But the wireless mikes are occasionally going crazy. We never know which one, or ones (if it’s several), and we never know when.

It hasn’t happened during a service yet. Yet.

Also, the guys in the TV booth also have a sound board. Which is now set up completely different from the one in the balcony which controls sound in the sanctuary. This is a problem. This past Sunday they weren’t picking up the wireless mikes at all, so when the Praise Team was singing and when the soloist was singing for the offertory, the DVD recorder was picking up none of it.

Oy. I hope we get it figured out soon. I don’t know how many thousands have been dropped on this project yet, but we’re not done and it’s considerable.

Meanwhile, the roof leaks.

I am in charge of nothing.

We got through Forever Reign without any major hiccups. Minor, yes, but not major.

Part of the problem, I think, was that the drummer is all the way across the stage from the choir loft. As is the piano. And the boss was in front of the choir, waving his hand back and forth. The drummer lost us once, the pianist nearly lost us once (that I can recall), and I’m sure it’s because even if they can see him, his gestures don’t make sense to them. And the further into the song we got, the smaller his gestures became. I don’t know why.

I’ve said before I can’t watch him for very long because he confuses me. So I can’t say how he was doing for the majority of the time when I wasn’t looking at him.

There’s another new thing in the sanctuary, on the stage. The boss had one of our choir members build a barricade to hide the trumpets behind. Well, that’s not exactly how it was explained, but that’s what it did this last Sunday. It’s wood, very nicely made, stained to match the altar and columns and panels in the sanctuary. It’s movable. And the back is lined with noise-absorbing foam rubber. Yesterday we had 2 trumpets playing, first time we’ve had any brass players since the ex-boss left in early November. There was apparently some concern that they’d overpower everybody else.

What they should be worried about is the drummer. He’s very good, he really is, but he’s also very loud. There’s been some effort to address that. They’ve put clear plastic panels around the cubbyhole he’s in, and today when I went in to clean up I noticed they’ve “borrowed” some of the foam rubber the handbell folks use and used it to line the inside of the plastic panels, or at least the bottom foot or so along the front of his cubbyhole. Not very effective, frankly. It should be noted that they’ve also put a mike back there with him, in front of the bass drum. It wasn’t on, but why have one there at all if he’s already too loud?

Nobody asks me what I think, though, so I guess it doesn’t matter what sort of questions I have or that I don’t understand their thinking or rationale for some of the decisions that are being acted upon. Like, why are we spending thousands of dollars to upgrade the sound system when the roof leaks? Inquiring minds want to know.

Anyway, I got some feedback about the Trumpet Barricade, as I’m calling it. One person told me yesterday she couldn’t hear the trumpets at all. I wish I could remember who said that to me, but I’m drawing a blank. I texted the boss to let him know, and he thought that was outstanding. It means, he says, that the trumpets weren’t overpowering everybody.

Well, no. I guess not. Since nobody could hear them at all. But if that’s the result — why have them show up to play?

I also got feedback from one of the trumpets. When they’re sitting behind their barricade, they can’t see the worship pastor. So even if he were directing effectively, as they can’t see him it wouldn’t matter. They can listen to the other musicians and get a sense of what tempo they’re supposed to be in, but changes in tempo are just going to cause train wrecks.

I don’t get a vote, but I need to let him know about that, at least. And about the chairs in the choir room.

Some weeks ago somebody changed the arrangement of the chairs in the choir room. They’re now in a sort of semi-circular pattern. Well, more of an arc. It’s made it more difficult to arrange them in such a way that they reflect how the chairs are set up in the choir loft. And Sunday morning we had another “where am I supposed to sit” fiasco. The guys have plenty of chairs, there aren’t as many of them as there are women. Plus there are four chairs in the front of the choir loft, there used to be five, but we had to take one out when the decision was made to park the synthesizer there. And that’s where our organist plays, mostly. Me, I think she should play the organ. She thinks so, too. But the directive from the boss is that she plays the synthesizer. She can make the synthesizer sound like an organ, but… does that even make any sense? If you want something to sound like an organ, and you have an organ, shouldn’t you just play the organ?

If the women who are first into the choir loft don’t fill up those four chairs in front before filling up the rows behind, we have a problem. It’s happened a few weeks in a row. It’s got to stop; it looks ridiculous for the choir to file in at the beginning of the service and then stand and fuss about who’s sitting where. So I counted chairs in the choir loft, did a bit of math, and went into the choir room to set things up so hopefully we won’t have any more buffoonery in front of the congregation.

What I couldn’t do was set up 17 chairs in the front row of the choir room. Not enough room. That would have accounted for the four chairs in front plus the 13 chairs in the second row. But what I did to was have a total of 30 chairs in the first two rows. That’s exactly what’s in the first 2 1/2 rows (counting the four chairs in front as a half row) of the choir loft. Exactly how many chairs we need for the female members of the choir. The last two rows in the choir room have 24 chairs. And that’s exactly how many chairs we have in the last two rows in the choir loft.

I’ll have to explain that to the boss tomorrow, or at least prior to choir rehearsal.

You wouldn’t think stuff like this would be a problem with a group of grown people. But seriously, it’s the grownups that make you want to scream more often than anything else.

*sigh*