The Summer Arts Intensive,*
Just in session for a week,
Put on a concert which was both
Amazing and unique.
The students, playing instruments
From brass and winds to strings
Or vocals, had the chance to shine
And test their new-found wings.
My grandson, one of the trombonists
In the group for jazz,
Performed with lots of confidence
And plenty of pizzazz.
Eight various ensembles
Got to show what they could do,
Their joy onstage (and those of the
Instructors) there on view.
To hear the music that they made,
With so much drive and skill,
Was proof such opportunity
Provides the means to thrill.
For, much as we, the audience,
Felt delight we could not hide,
The faces of the ones on stage
Revealed their hard-won pride.
*Held at the Conservatory of Music
at Purchase College of New York
Trombone man
throw me a horny bone.
Sit your brass down
push it out
mute a melodious belch
or gargle a groan.
O trombone man
slide it low, let it blow
take it back, make it moan
sonically hump that farting camel
all the way home.
A cacophony of sounds, all jumbled together
Random notes, dissonance everywhere
Violin bows saw the air lazily, effortlessly
Then furiously, chins pressed hard to instruments
Flautists' lips wistfully poised above the holes
In a flash, diving deep into spritely melodies
Trombonists' brass bars sliding outward, then back inward
Deep tones scale upward, peak, descend again
Trumpeters' cheeks bulge outward, double-chins aflame
Beet-red faces, fingers marching, horns tootling
Cymbals clang and clash! Drums beat and boom!
Clarinets clamor... A cello... An oboe... The conductor's in slow-mo.
All this, prelude to a performance quite grand
To the concert forthcoming -- Strike up the band!
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