Wouldn’t it King Farouk you? ……. Two lousy days before my 2nd cataract op and the government closes down all non-essential surgery here! It’s taken another 6 weeks before I finally got the blasted message as to when my rescheduled op was to take place.

Well it’s done now and although it’s only been 24 hours since the Op…… I can now actually "see" through both eyes now without needing to use my coke bottom glasses! And let me assure you it’s a completely different world I’m seeing out there. My keyboard’s still a bit wobbly and sometimes morphs into 2 or 3 at once, but my specialist assured me my eyes should (nay WILL) both settle back to 20/20 within the next week. Thanks for your patience. OH, can anyone tell me what to do with my nose now that I no longer need it to prop my glasses on.

Previous Key played – D Major……… He had another song that I liked the sound of and I would have recorded it except dad preferred another friend’s song “Don’t Stand Too Close!” for my 2nd EOI offering. With the end of school approaching for the year, I only had to do well in my exams for my first year as Jane (nee Em or Emerald) to be a success. So why should a boy (of all things) be a problem shortly after I returned to school after end of year break “and” worse still he was a Band member. Who’d have thought it possible?

A Different Key – D Minor

Today was the first day of my last year in high school. At long last I was a “senior” which means a lot of liberty, instead of having to abide by school’s strict disciplinary rules that other students have to accept. My timetable is practically the same as last year excepting for my core subjects being moved around some mornings. Afternoon classes still end with Band generally preceded by Music. The one exception to this is that I’m required to do one class per week titled Civic Liberties in place of a Music class.

My teachers changed though. Mr. Carmichael had accepted a more prestigious posting elsewhere and my new music teacher seems about as young as Methuselah. It’s funny how looks can deceive someone isn’t it? Initially I certainly wasn’t looking forward to either Music or band this year. But Old Sid (Mr. Dean) is kind of kewel for a fossil. I also had a new Mathematics teacher who had transferred in from elsewhere in the state, but in his defense he’s written several Mathematics books, one of which is the standard text book used in Mathematics classes throughout the state.

My first Music class with Old Sid had everyone struggling to keep up with him! In Band, his first actions were to display our previous year’s playing list and tear it up in front of everyone, declaring that if anyone hoped to get a music scholarship to a college this year, they’d need to start playing music that would create more active comments from our audiences, then the insipid repertoire we’d been playing recently. Whoa!

He also wasn’t afraid of upsetting student’s feelings either. His first critique of the band’s playing proved that to everyone. He called our playing garbage and proceeded to name names of musicians who played poorly. By the end of the class he had dismissed three musicians from attending future classes, specifically mentioning our drummer whose playing he described as being akin to a windup toy whose spring was busted. A violin player (Larry) he caustically criticized stormed out of the room in tears, followed with more decorum shortly afterwards by one of our coronet musicians (Duncan) who after listening to the description about his musical talent, silently stood up and proceeded to pack away his instrument before regally marching out of the room head tall, back straight and red faced.

Old Sid, his actual name is Mr. Sidney Dean made several more changes to the band including my losing my Xylophone position and being conscripted to be the new drummer. He explained that decision along with several others while referring to notes Mr. Carmichael had left him, which he informed everyone had included an analysis of each musician’s playing skills which he said he agreed with entirely having now heard us play.

When the final bell for the day rang, a deafening sound of silence accompanied our shuffling from the Music room, where in the still warm afternoon air and no longer inhibited by school discipline rules, a number of angry and humiliated musicians vented their opinions about our new Music teacher. Judging by the number of threats being made, Mr. Dean mightn’t have to worry about future rehearsals because if the students backed up their words, there’d be almost no one left to form a band, let alone play in it.

The bus trip home was certainly a lively one. It seemed that almost everyone was bitching about Old Sid’s remarks. I along with a few seniors didn’t offer opinions although asked what we thought about what had gone down. Privately I thought what Old Sid had done was a scathing indictment of how bad Mr. Carmichael had really been. After all, no one had ever been criticized for poor playing before (although a few should have been). All Old Sid had done was what Mr. Carmichael should have done, except he’d been too busy playing Mister Popular to all and sundry. I would have loved to have known what Mr. Carmichael wrote about me in his notes, but perhaps the fact that I’d been made the drummer without this old guy even hearing how I sounded must have meant it had to have been a glowing recommendation.

The next morning saw me anxiously waiting for Band to see if anyone besides me turned up for it. During Music class, Mr. Dean made it known that anyone wishing to join the Band class could transfer across with no difficulty as to needing scholastic credits, adding that any instruments would be considered. He did hand out a brief synopsis about the type of music he wanted to play this year, although not mentioning any specific titles, instead using “popular” along with “public choice preferences” as examples?

Several seniors in our class inquired as to what he meant. He told the class he wanted the Band to play the type of music that the public would want to listen to and not the type of music they’d had foisted on them in the past. He stopped any further discussion on the matter by simply stating that anyone who wanted to turn up today would find out at the same time that the Band musicians did.

Last class Band would show who walked the walk and talked the talk. As it turned out our numbers had definitely reduced somewhat, as only forty students showed up along with a few extra from Senior’s Music. The band had lost about 20% of its members with clearly obvious gaping holes in certain sections. Our String section now had 5 less musicians in it while our Brass and Woodwind sections combined had lost 7 members. Perhaps more importantly though was that although 12 musicians had left, almost everyone who hadn’t played quite well, so our “sound” quality had by default certainly improved when we played our first piece.

The following day saw the same offer made to the complete school population that Mr. Dean had offered to the senior Music class when he invited non Music class students who played instruments or sang in the school choir (or might like to) to come to last class Band that afternoon and find out more about a new direction for the school Band.

Well, you don’t have to be dead to be stiff do you?

I think all of the Band students knew our school had a lot of musicians in it but none of us, well certainly me anyway had any idea just how many there were. Mr. Dean couldn’t fit through the Band classroom door so many students were filling it inside. His carefully held folder containing copies of music he was hoping to get the band playing was quickly proven to be inadequate although perhaps he should have at least started by handing the pages out to already existing band members, instead of just any student standing in-front of him. A quick count found that there were almost 50 students who did not receive a handout.

When this fact solidified in his mind, Old Sid asked for a show of hands as to which instrument or instruments non Band students played. When THAT was finally done and tallied, it showed (provided of course everyone decided to stay) our potential new band could number over 80 and would have a vocal chorus of potentially 24 singers of varying pitches. None of the existing band members could ever recall having members of the school choir being in Band class although previous year’s Bands had sometimes been used to provide a musical accompaniment.

Band class that day went for more than 50 minutes over the normal time for school finishing as where ever possible, students were asked to demonstrate their musical instrument proficiency. Even the old Xylophone I used to play was used and played on. There were several drum playing students who trialed / dueled for the role of the Band’s drummer, two of whom I thought were better than myself although I wasn’t asked to play by Mr. Dean. The class finally broke up with Old Sid promising to definitely have enough copies the following day of music he wanted the band to play to those students who had missed out on receiving them today.

The next afternoon found only 4 students not turn up again and after handing out music to everyone who hadn’t received them yesterday and then rearranging the orchestra seating and positioning of instruments, the 79 piece band along with its singers began playing some of the musical pieces Old Sid had provided us all with. It took a few false starts and then some helpful suggestions from Mr. Dean but incredible as it may be to believe, by the end of final bell there was actually coordinated and actual musical tones being produced in the room.

Once outside and as if by ESP, various musical instruments families huddled together and organized to meet up and practice later on at a nearby park or where ever according to the instrument family concerned. I myself was commandeered more than asked by the string and woodwind family leaders along with the singers to join them at the nearby park, which meant having to phone mom and tell her where I was for when to come and pick me up. Mom just laughed when I rang her and said for me to enjoy myself.

About 2 enjoyable although at times frustrating hours later it was decided on to finally give it up for the day and our musical group broke up more enthusiastic than before it had started. It had been decided on by Penny, Judy, Michael, Jenny and me to concentrate on one piece of music which it was decided on was to be best suited to the instrument families. It also quickly became apparent that all the students there weren’t shy to offer opinions and at the end of each playing, several minutes were spent making suggestions and trying them out. By finishing time, it was obvious to everyone that our singers were actually more of a choir and that of the 6 boys there, 4 had incredible vocal ranges and of our girls, we had 2 very definite sopranos or perhaps mezzo sopranos and a hell of lot of good female harmony voices to build on to make a kickass Band and accompaniment.

The next day at Band, the different areas of the Band performed to show how it was going. Penny had only asked that the String and Woodwind sections perform last. I however wasn’t allowed that liberty as the “Electrics” as they termed themselves, requested I provide drum percussion for their performance. After a run through sans drums, I joined them for their “official” demonstration that made their music even better although any percussion would have rounded them out better.

Jeromy’s Brass section gave a “fair” rendition of, would you believe it……the National Anthem which indeed “was” part of the music Mr. Dean had handed out, while the rest of the Percussion group had decided on doing a mishmash of pieces, since their contribution would always be to provide accompaniment and emphasis to the band’s playing.

But the combined Strings, Woodwind, Singers piece when we played it, left no one else in the room in any doubt as to who were the winners today. With my additional soft percussion accompanying them and with the use of the incredible range of different male and female vocal harmonies on hand, the version of Hallelujah that was played drew a long silence after we had finished before tumultuous applause and shouts of appreciation rang round the Music room from everyone.

After a quick moment to catch his breath, Old Sid critiqued each section before saying he now needed to work out the best pieces of music we should play to audiences at sporting events, adding that for all home games the band would now be expected to deliver the playing of the National Anthem once he had worked out a way to incorporate the rest of the Band’s instruments into it. Class was allowed to leave early that afternoon.

Although our school had its own audio visual department, the now no longer lamented departure of Mr. Carmichael didn’t stop the school’s radio from playing music or showing film clips of school musicians performing. Mom and Dad’s tape of my performing had been shown several times over the past few months although because firstly of school holidays then of school classes, very few outside of the small Audio Visual class had ever seen, heard or even knew about Jane being Emerald. I thought that somehow or other I’d dodged a bullet there.

So a few days afterwards in Band class (of all classes) Mr. Dean asked everyone to watch and listen to a musical film clip, before darkening the room and switching on the CD player. As it ended I was sitting as usual behind the drum kit, now blushing beetroot red as people began turning around to stare at me while the window curtains were being drawn back so everyone could see again. What then made it worse was Old Sid explaining my video to everyone.

He started off by advising everyone that the film clip had no trick or gimmicky camera work done for the musical instrument playing and apart from one other person, no other people were involved in the instrument playing or the singing. Old Sid then made it even worse when he looked at me and said “This school’s previous music teacher hadn’t exaggerated your abilities in his notes to me Miss Seymour, had he? I have therefore decided that “you” young lady will be our musical arranger for the group and along with me, you shall determine which pieces of music we will perform for the year.”

It was right about then that I would have liked for the floor to just open up and allow me to drop down into the bowels of the earth !

Yes this chapters a bit short I'll admit to you. But hopefully posting it will allow me the few days I need to get my eyes back into focus and get future chapters reviewed and ready for posting. It's so weird seeing your keyboard appear to move away from you like mine has just been doing.

As for the key D Minor. It's always been an under-appreciated key musically speaking. I prefer E flat major which is coming up next.