Wm. Severin Thompson wrote:
>
> 1812 overture -- please don't try this at home (from Steve Dujack)
>
> August, 1998, Montevideo, Uruguay
>
> Paolo Esperanza, bass-trombonist with the Simphonica Mayor
> de Uruguay, in a misplaced moment of inspiration decided to
> make his own contribution to the cannon shots fired as part of
> the orchestra's performance of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture at
> an outdoor children's concert. In complete seriousness he
> placed a large, ignited firecracker, which was equivalent in
> strength to a quarter stick of dynamite, into his aluminum straight
> mute and then stuck the mute into the bell of his quite new
> Yamaha in-line double-valve bass trombone.
>
> Later, from his hospital bed he explained to a reporter through
> bandages on his mouth, "I thought that the bell of my trombone
> would shield me from the explosion and instead, would focus the
> energy of the blast outwards and away from me, propelling the mute
> high above the orchestra, like a rocket."
>
> However, Paolo was not up on his propulsion physics nor qualified
> to use high-powered artillery and in his haste to get the horn up
> before the firecracker went off, he failed to raise the bell of the horn
> high enough so as to give the mute enough arc to clear the orchestra.
>
> What actually happened should serve as a lesson to us all during
> those delirious moments of divine inspiration. First, because he
> failed to sufficiently elevate the bell of his horn, the blast propelled
> the mute between rows of players in the woodwind and viola sections
> of the orchestra, missing the players and straight into the stomach
> of the conductor, driving him off the podium and directly into the front
> row of the audience.
>
> Fortunately, the audience were sitting in folding chairs and thus they
> were protected from serious injury, for the chairs collapsed under them
> passing the energy of the impact of the flying conductor backwards into
> row of people sitting behind them, who in turn were driven back into
> the people in the row behind and so on, like a row of dominos. The
> sound of collapsing wooden chairs and grunts of people falling on
> their behinds increased logarithmically, adding to the overall sound
> of brass cannons and brass playing as constitutes the closing
> measures of the Overture.
>
> Meanwhile, all of this unplanned choreography not withstanding, back on
> stage Paolo's Waterloo was still unfolding. According to Paolo, "Just as
> the I heard the sound of the blast, time seemed to stand still.
> Everything moved in slow motion. Just before I felt searing pain to my
> mouth, I could swear I heard a voice with a Austrian accent say "Fur every
> akshon zer iz un eekvul un opposeet reakshon!" Well, this should come
> as no surprise, for Paolo had set himself up for a textbook demonstration
> of this fundamental law of physics. Having failed to plug the lead pipe
> of his trombone, he allowed the energy of the blast to send a super heated
> jet of gas backwardsthrough the mouth pipe of the trombone which
> exited the mouthpiece burning his lips and face.
>
> The pyrotechnic ballet wasn't over yet. The force of the blast was so
> great it split the bell of his shiny Yamaha right down the middle, turning
> it inside out while at the same time propelling Paolo backwards off the
> riser. And for the grand finale, as Paolo fell backwards he lost his grip on
> the slide of the trombone allowing the pressure of the hot gases coursing
> through the horn to propel the trombone's slide like a double golden spear
> into the head of the 3rd clarinetist, knocking him unconscious.
>
> The moral of the story? Beware the next time you hear someone in the
> trombone section yell out "Hey, everyone, watch this!"
Almost sounds safer to be playing a Fender or Gibson on a wet stage
supported by steel pipe stanchions in the middle of a thunderstorm.
Although I do have an interesting, genuinely true story, about the
destruction of most of a 26 piece band during a live preformance
somewhere during the year of 1958!
Bill D
|