{"id":3747,"date":"2015-04-18T02:03:41","date_gmt":"2015-04-18T09:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3747"},"modified":"2015-05-24T01:12:31","modified_gmt":"2015-05-24T08:12:31","slug":"the-place-of-a-horn-at-sea-04172015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3747","title":{"rendered":"The Place of a Horn \u2013 At Sea \u2013 [04\/17\/2015]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"revived\"<\/a>\u201cThat\u2019s why I wanted you in the band, so you\u2019d stop mopin\u2019 around and feelin\u2019 sorry for yourself\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat band?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI always think there\u2019s a band, kid\u201d<\/em>
\n~ The Music Man<\/em><\/p>\n

I do not remember a time when music was not a part of my life. When people ask me why I\u2019m in the arts, I\u2019ve always laughed it off and said I didn\u2019t really have a choice \u2013 it\u2019s in my blood. What do you expect when my Mum brought me home from the hospital for the first time to a 12 piece orchestra rehearsing in the living room? Hey, the guys had to practice somewhere!<\/p>\n

As a side note \u2013 Mum insists that\u2019s why I can sleep through anything.<\/p>\n

But for most of my life, it\u2019s been the same group of people. The same 12 musicians coming in and out of my house, in and out of my life; many of them had been friends of the family since before I was even a glimmer in my Mum\u2019s eye. Many knew me before I was born. It was a well-known fact that if I were ever to have a date, the poor boy wouldn\u2019t have just had to face down my Dad, he would have had to pass the judgement of all my \u201caunts and uncles\u201d.<\/p>\n

It was my Father who taught me the true meaning of professionalism; it was the band that provided me with the backdrop to see it in action.<\/p>\n

It was from that example that I learned how to be a \u201cband daughter\u201d (which is \u2013 I imagine – remarkably similar to being a \u201cband girlfriend\u201d or, in my Mum\u2019s case of course a \u201cband wife\u201d), forever part of the group, involved \u2013 sometimes intrinsically \u2013 in its workings; always one of them in so many ways. But not one of them<\/em>. Not for the big stuff. Not for the business stuff. Always knowing that intrinsic crucial line between when you were allowed in and when you weren\u2019t. But still, my earliest memories involve sorting music and reading set lists, manning CD tables and playing mascot in a flapper dress, sitting in a smoky bar trying not to fall asleep between sets, running ice water back and forth to the stage. New Year\u2019s Eve was a work night until I was 22; it never occurred to me that it could be otherwise. I treasure those memories dearly. There\u2019s a reason I know how to look after musicians, and why I adopt bands, I have \u2013 after all \u2013 been doing it most of my life.<\/p>\n

My parents never thought I listened to any of it, it\u2019s only recently really that they\u2019ve realized just how much I observed and absorbed simply by watching them. All of them.<\/p>\n

I begged to sing with the band when I was a teenager; looking back now I know I would never have had the reading chops for it, even if I did have the voice. The Broadcaster\u2019s charts were almost solid black; you had to be able to read like a hawk to make your way through them. But I wanted it; I wanted to jump that line from support team to team member. But Dad \u2013 bless his heart \u2013 wouldn\u2019t give me the nod without my putting in the work. I would have had to audition, and I think deep down I knew I wasn\u2019t good enough for it, and I was scared, so I never did. They let me sing a handful of times, and those remain some of my proudest moments despite every other credit on my CV.<\/p>\n

So I remained a band daughter, and in my own way, carry on the legacy I didn\u2019t even know I had been taught. Drawing on those memories, painting with them, playing with them.<\/p>\n

But there comes a time when eras come to their natural close and the people involved move on. When those people who have always been a part of your life no longer are; and when that last band meeting comes, you\u2019re not a part of it. Because as much as \u201cyour boys\u201d are a part of your life, and you are a part of theirs, as much as you think their thoughts and feel their woes, you are not one of them<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And in some cases you are millions of miles away, in a strange country and the part of you that will always always be a \u2018band daughter\u2019 feels terribly, painfully helpless\u2026<\/p>\n

When I heard my Father\u2019s orchestra had folded I wept. For a longer time than I perhaps expected. Not only because my heart goes out to my Dad at such a time, that something that has been so dear to him for so long should simply fade away \u2013 as too many things to these days; but because of everything those twelve people have made me, everything their presence in my life gave me. Gave my family. For twenty years the band was our support structure, our social life\u2026a crucial living part of who we were.<\/p>\n

And now they\u2019re gone.<\/p>\n

And I find that that\u2019s really not all right with me. Even though I have no say in it whatsoever.<\/p>\n

There will come a time I\u2019m sure when whole generations don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to stand on a dance floor and let real music wash over you. When there will be no young woman who stops in her tracks at a double high C and thinks to herself \u201cthat\u2019s my Dad\u201d, no little girls getting paper cuts while sorting sheet music, or falling asleep in their mother\u2019s laps waiting for horns to be packed and gear to be stowed. I want to believe that time isn\u2019t coming, but the practical girl in me looks at the world and realizes that it very well might be\u2026<\/p>\n

But for now, there are still some who don\u2019t care if we play in pick-up bands that get no work at all, or trios that get a gig every night of the week. And we will fight for that. Somehow. Against tracking, against synthesization, against all of it.<\/p>\n

And whatever happens, I will always find myself standing proud as a \u201cband kid\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThat\u2019s why I wanted you in the band, so you\u2019d stop mopin\u2019 around and feelin\u2019 sorry for yourself\u201d \u201cWhat band?\u201d \u201cI always think there\u2019s a band, kid\u201d ~ The Music Man I do not remember a time when music was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,6,79,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-below-the-waterline","category-flash-backs","category-grand-world-voyage-2015","category-reflections-below-the-waterline"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-Yr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3747"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3751,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3747\/revisions\/3751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}