Practical MIDI

A few columns ago I vented my frustration regarding amateur singers from the audience wanting to horn in on my act. You know the kind—they warble a little in the shower and think they can do in a day what I’ve been perfecting for forty years. Occasionally I allow some Tom Jones wannabe to come up and give it a try. Sometimes I do it out of curiosity to see if they really can sing. Sometimes I do it because I know they can’t and I just want to see them make a total ass of themselves and have a good silent laugh. Sometime I have no choice—the guy wanting to sing is the same guy who’s paying me. But most of the time I’d just as soon the audience members stay where they are and let me do my show by myself.

Last night on one of my jobs I encountered the other type of wannabe in the audience—the part-time musician who wants to be part of my act. Not only did I have one, I had three of these clowns sticking to my shoe. Two of them had brought their harmonicas while clown number three had his trumpet under his arm. I don’t know about you, but I could no sooner show up at a wedding with my guitar in hand and ask to play along with the band than I could walk into my dentist’s office and ask to help extract a wisdom tooth.

Anyway, these three buffoons (I’ll call them Moe, Larry and Curly to simplify this article) climbed up on stage, took over the microphone and proceeded to tell me (not ask me) what songs they expected to play. For some reason, they think that all these full-band sounds were being created by my magic hands and that I could play ANYTHING on demand. I explained that the MIDI sequences on my keyboard’s hard drive were all the songs I had to work with.

Okay, they accepted that, but Larry and Curly demanded (again) that whatever song we decided on HAD to be in the key of “E” since they had their “A” harmonicas along and, for some odd reason known only to harmonica players, an “A” harmonica goes with songs in the key of “E”. That’s fine and dandy if we’re doing some blues instrumental, but if I’m expected to sing along, I may not be able to reach the vocal notes in “E” without a C-clamp on my sensitive parts.

Four and a half minutes later, we agree on a song, agree that it’ll be in the key of “E” and we start to play. After sixteen bars of Larry and Curly’s interpretations of “Red House,” I have to come in singing so I edge over to the microphone and begin belting out the first verse. Moe decided to “help” me with the song at that point and began blowing his trumpet towards the microphone. My ear was between the mic and his horn and he blew for all he had. I couldda rapped him on the noggin with that horn and poked my fingers into his eyes while I was at it. My ears are still ringing as I’m writing this column 24 hours later.

Okay, so you got through the song somehow and you figure that’ll satisfy The Three Stooges and that they’ll go peaceably. No such luck. They three of them stood there, flipping pages in my cheat sheet book looking for more songs they could ruin. I couldn’t get rid of them and ended up stumbling through three more songs before they finally returned to the audience. Of course, by this time I’d lost most of the audience. They’d wandered outside to smoke, chat or to just get away from the music.

Twenty minutes later I’m settling back into my comfortable SOLO routine when from down on the dance floor I see Moe with his trumpet at the very edge of the stage blowing up at me along to the current song. It took all my restraint not to pull an Al Hirt and slam him in the mouth with a brick while he was playing. (That actually happened to Al Hirt at Mardi Gras many years ago)

To sum things up all I can say is if you see someone coming up to the stage carrying a trumpet case (or tuba or Xylophone) start thinking up excuses why they can’t join you on stage, unless a comedy act is what you’re tying for.

©2006 Bill Bernico for CYBERMIDI.com Downwind Publications