FIRST CHAIR

First chair never appealed to me. I was a band fuck for seven years and not once did the idea strike me that being first chair was the shit to end all shit.

For those who were never in band, allow me to explain this retarded concept.

Orchestras are not set up hilly-nilly. There is not only an anal-retentive order to the arrangement of the orchestra, there’s a fucked-up pecking order to each section. No matter what orchestra you see (professional, college, high school, whatever), the trumpets are always over there, the flutes over there, the timpani way back there, and never the twain shall meet. But in those individual sections, there is hierarchy to where they sit. Let’s take the trumpets, for example. First off, they’re always going to be to your far right. From Milwaukee to Moscow, they’re doomed to be on the right from the audience’s vantage point. The trumpet player you see at the edge of the stage, closest to you? He’s first chair. What does this mean, you might ask? One of three things:

1. He’s the best trumpet player in the orchestra and challenged the second chair (previous first chair) to get where he is.
2. The real first chair is out sick.
3. He blew the conductor.

These are the only ways to be first chair anything.

From Freshman to Senior year, I was always last chair. Who cares, right? I mean, what advantages are there to 
being first chair anyway? Prestige? No. You’re looked at as the biggest tool of them all. Better grades? Better college? First of all, who gets anything less than an ‘A’ in fucking band? Secondly, if the only good thing on my transcript is ‘first chair,’ I deserve to go to community college. What about the knee-deep poon you’re in when you’re first chair, you may very well ask? Weekly blowjobs from the clarinet section maybe? No way Scott Cohen (my first chair) was getting that much ass. In a perfect world, maybe.

Being first chair was way too much work for no pay, from my perspective. During marching season, you were responsible for making sure your section’s white shoes, dickies, cumberbunds and fluffy, cotton ball hats were military clean. You also kept up with demerits that were given out in violation of someone not keeping their shit military clean. During concert season, you were bastard supreme. Since you didn’t have cotton ball hats to be responsible for, you quizzed every fucker in your section on scales and harmonies. You reported to the band director constantly and you were a pillar of the band community.

No, thanks.

The only disadvantage of being last chair in my section was being after Sean, a completely abrasive nice-guy who was constantly pulling rank even though he was two years younger than me. But it wasn’t his personality, it was his "blatt." "Blatting" was a term coined by our band director. It meant, "to make a blaring, offensive noise with your instrument." This usually only applied to the brass section (I have no idea what it was called when one of the woodwinds did it. "Squawking" would be my guess).

Now, if I haven’t said this already, I played French Horn. The bell of the French Horn always points right, exactly where the chair "below" you is sitting. Sick torture? You fucking bet. And maybe that’s why French Horns constantly jockied for the chair above them. But not me.

Sean blatted like it was his job. The kid reveled in it. And was consistent to the point of blatting at exactly the same section in the music from rehearsal to the eventual performance. No matter what song it was, Sean found a way to blatt the living shit out of it. And whenever a blatt came from our section, the band director would toss his little baton, wave his arms to signal us to stop and call out the French Horns. He had quite the ear for this shit. This was always an embarrassment. I eventually got to the point where if I knew Sean was going to blatt, I’d pull my mouthpiece away and pretend like I was inspecting a sharp or flat in my music.

No one ever told on Sean, not even the chairs higher than him. Not even Scott. Sean was clean as a cat’s ass.

Regardless of the blatting, I still never thought of challenging him. I always thought challenging someone out of their chair was a dick move anyway.

The process of challenging someone for their chair more or less meant both of you meeting with the band director, playing a set of scales (complete with appropriate flats and sharps) and sight-reading a piece of music that the director had picked out last minute. Ultimately, it was the band director’s call and I could neither face sitting ahead of a guy I’d just challenged if I’d won nor face the rest of the section as a complete failure if I’d lost. Plus, although I’d been playing French Horn since 7^th grade, I never really knew the difference between an ‘F’ and a ‘G.’

So, last chair it was. And it hasn’t necessarily scarred me or made me give up on life. Whereas Sean dropped out of college, got hooked on Meth and died in his 20’s.

Okay, I doubt any of that is true. In fact, I’m sure he’s very much alive. But if you gave him a French Horn tomorrow, I’ll bet you anything he’d blatt the fucking ass out of it.




-SLL