I’m Becoming a Symphony Conductor Like Marvin Hamlisch

Last month Scott and I went to Pittsburgh’s Heinz Hall to see “The Fabulous 50’s With Marvin Hamlisch and Sha Na Na.” The orchestra played and Sha Na Na sang hit songs like “Blue Moon”, “Whole Lotta Shakin”, “At the Hop”, “In The Still Of The Night”, and more. The performance was followed by a sock hop so the night was an on-going party. It was just what we were promised – fabulous!

Attending this symphony was something new for me and Scott so I thought it would be important for us to understand the difference between the regular symphony orchestra and the Pops Orchestra. A Pops Orchestra plays popular music and show tunes in addition to well known classical works. The Pops is usually less "highbrow" than the other symphony orchestras, but they have the same instruments and about the same number of musicians: 80-100 people playing string, brass, woodwind, and percussion sections. We sat and raptly watched and enjoyed the music, the conductor, the musicians, and of course, Sha Na Na singing and entertaining.

I was mesmerized! I decided right then and there that I am going to become a symphony conductor.

Mr. Hamlisch is the principal POPS conductor for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and he has a great stage presence, is pretty darn funny and very personable. He has quite an impressive music background with a lot of success and accomplishments to his credit, having won every major award that exists for his music: three Oscars, four Grammys, four Emmys, a Tony and three Golden Globe awards. He even received the Pulitzer Prize for “A Chorus Line”. Since he’s done well, and seems to know what he’s doing, I watched him very closely to begin my symphony conductor training.

The music conductor’s job is to indicate the beat of the music with the baton going down, up, left, right, and so on making the beat as clear as possible. As it turns out, the conductor does not play an instrument at all. They make decisions such as whether the music needs to be slow, fast, soft, loud, smooth, aggressive, and so on. The conductor communicates these decisions during the performance using the baton, different gestures and facial expressions.

All the musicians sat down and picked up their instruments. Mr. Hamlisch walked out and took his place on the conductor’s stand and lifted his baton up. As his baton came down I noticed that the musicians were no longer watching Mr. Hamlisch. They seemed to know what they were doing without any help from Marvin. All the musicians don’t play their instrument all the time. In between their instrument playing they were reading their music, watching each other, looking at the audience or each other, tapping their toes, adjusting their music stands, looking over their outfits and shoes, etc. Meanwhile, Marvin kept moving his baton around directing those musicians who were playing an instrument, and waving his free hand around at those musicians who weren’t playing their instrument at the time and trying to get their attention, I suppose.

Since I can’t play any instrument, but do know how to gesture and make faces, I feel confident that I have a pretty good start on becoming a symphony conductor. I figure I really only have three major challenges to my quest: 1) I do not have a conductor’s baton, 2) I don’t have a tuxedo, and 3) I can’t read music. Reading the music could be a challenge that I might not be able to overcome easily even though music is in my background.

My dad, Jim, loved all kinds of music. In fact, he even painted the basement of our house with red walls, gold and silver musical notes, staffs, clefs, bars, and so on. He always had the radio or record player on and was always singing. He had a wonderful voice and my mother told me that when they would go out for an evening, or were with a large group of people, he was often asked to sing solos.

Norma Jones lived next door to us and she taught piano lessons and played all the music for my mom’s dance school recitals. My parents thought some piano lessons would be a great addition to my cultural education and I faithfully went each Saturday to my piano lesson right after dancing school. I learned that middle C on the piano keyboard is found by sitting on the piano bench exactly at the middle of the keyboard and lining one’s belly button up with the central most key.

Practice makes perfect and I wanted to be a successful piano student so my parents would feel good about their effort to raise my musical appreciation and abilities and become a skilled and sophisticated pianist. So after each lesson I would come home and begin to practice what I had learned. I sat down on the piano bench, found middle C and positioned myself, closed my practice sheet music booklet, chose a piano roll, put it in place, and began to pump the pedals on our player piano with my feet. Soon, my parents realized that I was not actually playing the piano as well as it seemed and Norma Jones’s piano student roster was down by one.

Every Saturday for several years, my dad and I would go to a store in the Brushton neighborhood and pick out some piano rolls. It was always exciting to find some treasured song that my dad loved and when we got home he’d spend a few hours playing the new finds and singing along. We frequently had family and friends at our house and time was always spent around the piano with everyone taking a turn pumping the pedals and singing. It was a very musical house with the player piano, my singing dad, and my dancing mother.

In March, the Pittsburgh Pops will perform “Marvin Does Marvin” with some of Mr. Hamlisch’s best original music. Then in June Michael Feinstein will be both the pianist and vocalist while Marvin conducts the Pops Symphony for “The Sinatra Project”. I’m hoping to be ready to step in for these performances and help with the conducting part. I’ll be Marvin’s intern, if you will. I still won’t be able to play an instrument or read music, but I’ll get a baton at the music store and I’ll have enough time to practice my gestures and facial expressions.

So actually it seems all I really need is a tuxedo.

Mom Gets A Little Too Handy With The Scissors

I know I’ve been negligent with my blog. With the beginning of Autumn I’ve spent some time watching the leaves turn gold and red and orange. I’ve fallen into the trap of trying to finish up all the things I meant to do this summer. We went to Philadelphia for Alex and Ryan’s 8th birthday, reunionized with family, went on some day trips, and have tried to cram in all the things we wanted to do in the Spring but were too busy to do until now.

Now it’s already November. How can that be? It seems to be here much too quickly this year. And the clocks change this weekend so soon it’s going to be dark almost before dinner. We spent 20 minutes on Halloween, haven’t even spoken of Thanksgiving yet (couldn’t we at least give it a weekend?) but already the Christmas decorations are out all over the malls and in the newspaper ads.

My mother was quickly becoming gravely ill by the Fall of 2007, right around the time of her 86th birthday on October 26. She struggled more and more to breathe, her chest was beginning to rattle, and her anxiety and confusion became much worse. I was becoming just as anxious and very depressed. I needed to move my brain away from the obvious fact that my mother was dying. I couldn’t help her, or function in life or at work or with Scott or my family if I had to face the truth of what was taking place with her. Fortunately, there was some humor in the tragedy. I just didn’t always see it at the time.

She called me one day at my work and told me she had a very, very bad disease that she feared was killing her. It was the kind of disease she must have gotten from a man and she couldn’t figure out how she got it because there was nothing going on in her life with her boyfriend What’s His Name, and nothing had been going on for a long time before that even though she had been married for a long time, over 30 years in fact, to Walt who had died a couple of years before at the ripe old age of 104. I took a wild guess, based on some of what she was telling me, and asked if she thought she had AIDS. She began to cry and said yes, that’s what she must have but she couldn’t quite figure out how she got it and why she suddenly had it. It just didn’t make sense to her. So I explained to her that she didn’t have AIDS but she did have heart disease and significant lung problems. She was very relieved and thought that probably made more sense.

Then she mentioned that just in case she did have AIDS, she had cut off that plastic thing that was growing out of her nose. It was part of the disease she told me, but now it was gone. My reaction was probably a little louder than it should have been.  Maybe I even screamed.  “YOU DID WHAT??? YOU CUT OFF YOUR OXYGEN TUBE?? WITH SCISSORS???” She wanted to know what I was so upset about and what oxygen had to do with anything.

I was not able to react as calmly as I could have or should have. Yes, in fact, my mother had cut off her oxygen tubing and was now walking around with the oxygen tube coming out of her nose, still attached behind her ears, but stopping at her chin. The oxygen unit was now blowing oxygen directly into the rest of the tube which was lying on the floor oxygenizing the carpets. Nothing was feeding her the oxygen she needed to breathe and keep her body and mind operating. Fortunately, she had extra tubing and soon the oxygen was again flowing into her, off the carpet, and the AIDS problem went away. She no longer had scissors, either. I admit I should have thought of that a little sooner.

We had planned a big celebration for her birthday. The Robert Morris University Concert Choir was coming over to the Willows and putting on a concert for all the residents. They’d sing Happy Birthday to her and we’d have cake and ice cream in the dining room for everyone and decorate with lots of balloons and flowers. We wanted it to be a wonderful, special, happy day for her.

After all the plans for her birthday were set she came down with pneumonia and was admitted to the hospital for a few days. While she was there she had to be restrained because she was getting out of bed, yanking off her oxygen, and wandering into other patient rooms looking for company. It’s not easy to see your mom tied to the bed and it was hard for her to understand why it needed to be done. She’d told the nurses her only problem was that she got constipated often and that’s what put her in the hospital ― constipation. The reality was that chronic pneumonia had been added to the list of problems and challenges she faced on a daily basis.

She was discharged from the hospital just in time to arrive back at the Willows in time to hear the RMU Concert Choir sing great tunes for all the residents and everyone sang Happy Birthday to her. It was very touching because she had forgotten it was her birthday.

This year, on October 26, my mother would have been 89 years old.  Here is the birthday poem our family always says on birthdays:

   Many happy returns of the day
   Many seasons of joy be given
   May the Lord in His mercy
   Prepare you on Earth
   For a beautiful birthday in Heaven.

Happy Birthday, Mom.  I love you and I miss you.