Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
Sun, 08 Jan 2017
Adventures in 14/48, or, Why Are There Cello Pegs on the Ground?
I was invited to play with the band in 14/48 this weekend, and gladly accepted -- I've never been invited to be part of the show before. I've photographed, but that doesn't feel the same, since that job has no impact on what actually happens on stage. It's not one of the Five Disciplines (acting, directing, writing, designing, band).
I didn't know what exactly I'd be in for, but was excited to find out, and glad to have my friend Kenna in the band with me. I was also apprehensive: although I've been playing cello since the age of 8, I am not really fluent with the instrument at this point in my life. I've played a number of shows in the last few years, but those were situations where I had a month or two to practice and get the music down before I ever showed up on stage. The nature of 14/48 is such that you don't even know what music you might play until part way through the day. There's literally no way to be prepared other than to have a willing attitude and reasonable skill with your instrument.
As it turned out, I was the least skilled instrumentalist in the band, which was a good thing. Everyone around me was fantastic, and I was able to pick and choose my moments to concentrate on; I could really add the cello's voice where it mattered, without having to worry about supporting the whole show. Our keyboard player is, for his actual day job, a music director in musical theater. He is the choral master at a church, supporting (if I understood this correctly) three different choirs. He is skilled at keyboards, the same way that I am skilled at computer programming. Our guitarist, likewise, is absolutely proficient at his instrument. Also the drummer. Also the multi-instrument woodwind player I sat next to. They were an unbelievable crew, and I was humbled to be in their presence, but also so glad that I could allow their skill to shine through when the music was beyond me, or simply inappropriate for cello.
The first show, on Friday, went quite well. I flubbed my solo in the first show of the night, but nailed it in the second. There were some good cello moments, and the whole process was enjoyable (setting aside my own feelings of inadequacy, which are just par for the course).
The second show, on Saturday, was shaping up to be just as good, though there were fewer clear moments where a cello was called for. We had a good rehearsal, and were much more comfortable with each other as a group. I even had the fortune to contribute the seed of an idea that grew into the opening song.
We set down our instruments as the stage manager called out that she wanted to clear the stage so they could open the house for the 8:00 show and let the audience in, and all looked good. We filed back to the Bullit Cabaret, which was serving as a huge greenroom for the festival. It was that interminable wait between when you've finished preparations for a thing, and the actual doing of the thing.
A few moments later Lesley, the multi-woodwind player, came up to me with a slightly worried look on her face, and said, "There are cello pegs on the ground!"
I had a long moment where I tried to decide if she was joking or not -- she didn't seem the type, but the idea of my tuning pegs just falling out seemed preposterous. I decided she was joking, and said, "Ha! Funny joke!" but her expression didn't change. She repeated, "There are cello pegs on the ground. I think you should go take a look."
In a way, I had been prepared for this. On Friday, the C string on my cello had just come completely loose. I figured it was the cold, dry air outside interacting with the very warm stage environment. In that case, I'd just re-tuned and all was well, if a bit disconcerting. No further problems that night, though.
I got to where I could see the band area, and sure enough, there were two tuning pegs lying innocently on the ground under the cello, and three of the four strings were hanging loose. No problem, we still had five minutes, and it wouldn't take that long to re-tune. I walked out on stage, grabbed my cello, and prepared to head back to the Bullit.
Oh right, the cord. I'd forgotten that we'd plugged in the electric pickup for tonight, so I leaned over to pull it out without applying much critical thought to my actions. The C string, the only remaining taut string, came loose as I tugged on the tight connection, and there was a clatter as the bridge fell to the ground. Crap, thought I. Jen, one of the singers, had been hovering in the wings to see what was up, and I called her over to give me a hand as I disconnected the cable with a bit more care and gathered up the pieces to try to salvage the situation.
It was as if the cello had simply gone slack, like one of those toy figures where you press in the bottom of the base and it all falls over bonelessly. I found myself thinking of gelatin that suddenly de-gels and goes all sloppy.
There was no damage done, but you generally try to avoid completely releasing string tension on a bridged instrument like this, to avoid any chance of the soundpost falling over; that's the piece of wood that spans inside between the belly and the back of the cello, which keeps the belly from cracking inward under the pressure of the strings. If it falls over, you're pretty much done unless you've got the special tongs luthiers use to manipulate a soundpost, which I do not.
I carried the pieces back into the cabaret space and sat down with the cello on my lap, and started stringing the C back into place, trying to line up the bridge where it was supposed to go. The little lightbulb went off in my head though, and I stopped and peered through the F-hole, trying to spot the soundpost. Uh-oh. Flashlight came out, and confirmed: the soundpost was down. I almost laughed with actual delight: this was a completely new experience, and one over which I now had absolutely no control. It was very freeing, in a way. I was never worried, just trying to fix problems as they arrived, which is a very comfortable place for me.
By this time, a small crowd of concerned bandmates and performers had gathered around me, and I tried to explain what was happening, and that, essentially, I was done for the night. There was no recovering from this. I think they were expecting grief and agony, and I just sat there smiling at the universe's joke.
We conferred for a bit, and I ran through the runsheet that Nathan, our keyboardist, had so helpfully put together. We determined that there was nowhere that the cello just had to play (and which would therefore require that actors be notified), and Jessamyn, the stage manager, ran off to get things rolling again. The one cue I'd had that would have been important to communicate to actors had been cut by the director just before we went on, which turned out to be a stroke of good luck in the event of Cello Catastrophe.
I debated what to do with my bandmates, and we eventually decided that I'd come out anyway, and as soon as possible, we'd get Jason's bass guitar from storage and I could continue on that (I played bass guitar for a while in high school, and although I hadn't touched a bass for 5+ years, that would be better than just sitting there occasionally clapping or singing into the complete absence of vocal mic in front of me). Kenna handed me her tambourine, and I made some half-hearted taps when it felt right, but the first act I felt pretty naked just sitting there with no instrument. The band is also the source of many sound effects, to which I was contributing, but half my sound effects were based on having a cello in front of me.
Fortunately for me, Jason and Dan, the drummer, were on the ball, and produced the bass out of thin air at intermission. I had an instrument to play, even if it had been ages since I'd played it. Why not have my reintroduction be on stage, in front of 150 people, for songs I'd never played in my life? Sure!
It actually worked out pretty well, all things considered. Nathan was already playing a bass part on the keyboard, so I was able to come in and contribute to the sound when I could figure out which notes I needed to play. It turns out, to my unwarranted surprise, that "I Wanna Be Sedated" by the Ramones is basically played on open strings on the bass. It's super easy.
Between the 8:00 and 10:30 shows, I was able to scamper off to a quiet part of the theater and practice a couple of the other songs so I would be slightly more ready, and the 10:30 show did feel a bit more solid.
One thing that I found myself explaining over and over to people after the shows were finished was that although the cello explosion was a disaster as far as being able to play during the show, it's a more or less trivial operation to have fixed once I get it into the violin shop. Resetting a soundpost is a matter of a couple minutes for a skilled luthier, and restringing the cello is similarly very easy -- I would have done it myself if the soundpost had still been in place, and it would have delayed the start of the show by less than five minutes.
One advantage of explaining the situation over and over was I gained some cool insight into how a cello is constructed. The body of the cello is made of a particular type of wood (actually several similar types, but identical for the purposes of this discussion), and the pegs are made of a different type of wood. I think the soundpost is also made from a different type, but I'm less sure of that. I'm guessing that the materials are chosen such that the pegbox (where the pegs hold the ends of the strings, just under the scroll at the top of the neck) will expand faster than the pegs themselves. This means that the pegs should never have an opportunity to crack the pegbox where they pierce the sides, resulting in an expensive repair. Likewise, the soundpost material is probably chosen so that it won't elongate, or will elongate at a slower rate than the belly and back of the cello, so there's no chance of it accidentally cracking one of those huge pieces of wood.
Repairs to the belly and back are regularly made, because they're such relatively vulnerable pieces. Most repairs end up making the instrument sound better, although they negatively impact the value because they're visually ugly (where "present" counts as ugly, even if the luthier did a perfect job with the repair). So it would make sense to pick materials that would tend to prevent these kinds of damage. I'll be interested to chat with the luthier when I bring my cello in next week. (Conveniently, it needed to go in anyway, to repair a bruise in one edge.)
Several people commented that I have a very good 14/48 story now, and that's certainly true. We were asked to sign the wall with other 14/48 artists who have appeared at ACT Theater, and I signed as Ian "Cello Exploder" Johnston.
14/48 was a great experience for me, and I'm glad that I was invited, and actually had time in my schedule. It was fantastic meeting my new bandmates, a couple new theater faces among many familiar ones, and to have been part of an ever growing history of Very Quick Theater in Seattle.
Now, to get this pile of cello parts in to the shop...
Posted at 14:55 permanent link category: /theater
Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater