One coping mechanism is to hold the microphone out toward the audience and ask them to sing along - as if that’s what they’d paid for. Another is to patronize them with a cheesy medley, just a few bars from each hit song, to get them out of the way.
Even worse, for a high-school bando, is “Pomp and Circumstance” at commencement. For the low brass, it’s just “Bom…bom…bom…” until every grad has crossed the stage. There were 700 people in my class, and the band underclassmen had to keep it going for what seemed like 2 hours. I thought they were about to cry 'round about the W’s.
Cal, SASF is *always * the Pops encore. AFAIK, Sousa wrote the lyrics himself. NFI about Bugs and Groucho.
Anybody else see the clip of the Virginia orchestra playing it at Jamestown? Bush actually went up on stage and grabbed the baton from the conductor.
Joaquín Sabina remark after getting the audience to sing half of one of his classics “and it’s *you guys * who are paying me?”
In Spain singing along with the band is part of the fun of any “not-classical-music” concert, so yes, in a way it’s what we pay for. I was in a Spandau Ballet concert a long, long time ago and after a bathroom break, the singer came back on stage to several thousand people trying to out-OEO each other (half the audience would sing OEEEEEEE-O!; then the other half, then the first half). He signaled “hey I’m back” and said “oweo?”, we all went “OEEEEEEE-O!”, he tried it again, got it right, we applauded. He turned to his bandmates and said something along the lines of “we thought they were coming to our concert and it turns out it’s their concert instead.” Of course it is, the concert belongs to the audience. OEEEEEEE-O!
As a former marching band member, I feel your pain! What is even worse is listening to piccolo auditions. I played euphonium and my whole section hated “Stars and Bars”.
Ahhh yes…I have a date with Pomp and Circumstance this coming Friday.
Valse Triste by Sibelius was what our conductor used it as the “hands-on” piece for his conducting class when I was in college. We’d give up one rehearsal every semester, they’d go up there, wave their arms around, we’d play just like we had every other time, they’d stop, we’d applaud, etc.
Two semesters X 20 student classes X 4 years of college, by the 100th time you’ve played it, people are playing different instruments, sitting in different sections, trying to play it all on one string, etc. Anything to try to stay entertained.
