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!"
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