Geoff Duncan

Codicil to earlier rant about holiday music:

When I was in middle school, I played cello in the school orchestra. Every year, we'd get trotted out to the local indoor shopping mall (I believe there was only one) to play Christmas music. (At that time, no one called it holiday music.) And we'd have to wear our green corduroy pants, white shirts, and silly green-and-white plaid vests (school colors!), carry our instruments and music stands out to a spot near a fountain or something, and scritch our way through one-page classics like "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer." As might be expected, some proud parents showed up to watch their progeny tentatively produce notes which were often only an approximation of the notated pitch... and they'd clap enthusiastically at the end of every number. But there were other adults at the edges of these audience: folks just walking by who'd stop to listen. And I remember wondering who these people were. I mean, I was in the orchestra playing, and even at that tender age I probably wouldn't not have stopped to listen to those deliciously discordant interpretations of well-worn tunes.

Well, I regret to note that this week I was actually in an indoor shopping mall (although my purpose there was at best only very indirectly related to the holiday season). And there was a middle school orchestra sawing through the seasonal classics. They were wearing black pants and white shirts - mostly - and I watched for at least 15 minutes. The first chair cellist was bored to tears; the second chair cellist was wearing black sweats and a white "hoodie" but was giving it all she could on a too-large, battered, and slightly splintered plywood student cello. The only other players showing any initiative were the two bassists, who were clearly the screwballs of the group.

And it occurred to me: those unknown adults on the fringes of the audience watching these things? They're former middle school orchestra players secretly delighting that today's youth are subjected to the same ritualistic humiliations they had to endure.