Music Lessons

Jeffrey Weisner
double bass section

I play the double bass, and it's huge. When you're a bass player everyone sort of stares at you, like, What are you doing carrying that thing? Bass players often talk about the piccolo joke. Whenever someone sees you carrying a bass, they say, "I bet you wish you played the piccolo." And bass players are always trying to think of a snappy comeback to that, but there isn't really one.

The bass is always a neglected and laughed-at instrument. It's a string instrument, but we're not really considered a real string instrument by other string players. Violas and basses are kind of the downtrodden instruments of the string section. We're kind of the working-class guy of the orchestra, the average Joes.

People are often surprised that you can play bass and get used to hauling it around. It's a bit of a chore. The bass makes a lot of decisions for you, like what kind of car you're going to get, whether you want to live in a walk-up apartment, all sorts of things. I've always had a station wagon -- I've decided to keep to the two-bass car. I have to carry it up and down the steps a lot. On the road, the symphony has trunks, so [the instruments are] transported for us. We'll get to the hall, and they'll be offstage. I remember when I first got into the orchestra, I was, like: "I've made it, man. There are people whose job it is to carry my bass!" It was a whole new level of luxury that I'd never experienced before.

I started playing bass when I was 13. My mother was a music teacher, so I played piano for a long time, and then I rebelled and quit. My mom gave me a couple of years to quit. I was 13, and my mom said, "You need to start playing an instrument again." And she owned a bass. She had played bass in high school; so I just played bass because we had one and people always need a bass player. She said: "It's a perfect choice. You won't have to work that hard." My mom confessed to me later that one reason she wanted me to play bass was because she knew they needed bass players in the youth orchestra, and she thought I would meet nice girls in the orchestra. I went to an all-boys junior high, so she thought I should meet some nice, quality girls. It didn't work out like she thought it would. The way the story went is, I didn't end up dating girls at all, if you know what I mean. I guess it's a funny story -- you're trying to guess what's right for your kid, and it never quite works out the way you think.

I don't think the bass has any sex appeal. The bass, by nature, is a supporting role. What I love about playing the bass is precisely the supporting, helping create the total sound. Playing the bass line; it's like being at the bottom, the foundation of the music, so you know what the music is based on. And I really like that feeling. I really enjoy that. People say that the bass is the instrument you don't notice unless it's not playing. We're anonymous, but if we're missing, people know it doesn't sound right.

Adel Sanchez
assistant principal, trumpet

My dad was a cigar roller in Tampa. This was in Ybor City. There were gobs of cigar factories, with several hundred rollers per floor. He made about 500 cigars a day -- that was his quota. He was paid by the number of cigars, the box. He was allowed to roll a few of his own -- maybe he'd bring home three cigars a day. And when he lit one up, it was just so wonderful. I think he meant to be a musician. When he was younger he played a guitar and sang. He had so little free time. My grandmother lived with us; there were four kids; he had three jobs. He was a cigar roller, a general contractor, he cut men's hair.

He took me to see the cigar factory just once. It was on a day off. Sunday. I was 6. I was so interested in the cellophane wrappings -- there were thousands of them in a huge box -- and I would blow them up and shoot them off as projectiles across the room. But he didn't want me to work there. My dad was a very great proponent of my proper learning and getting a profession, so I would not have to work as he did. His father died of yellow fever when he was only 2 years old. He began working in the cigar factory when he was 10 or 11. He quit school in fifth grade to work. He was educated in the cigar

factories, in a way. The tradition was to have a lector in a booth high above the workers at their tables. He would read the newspaper, novels, poetry. It was a lovely tradition.

I would sing for my father when he got home from work. He had his big cigar, sitting in the living room. He was very happy. I can see him lighting up his stogie and listen as my sister, she'd play the piano. So when the time came for me to have music lessons, my dad said, "What do you want to play?" "Piano," I said. He said, "How about the trumpet?" The reason that he wanted me to play trumpet, not piano like my sister, was because he wanted me to play a more masculine instrument. I was so excited about starting music lessons. I had been waiting for such a long time, it didn't matter to me. His happiness, this was my biggest reward. He was my biggest encourager, my impetus. He was my beacon. But my mother, she wasn't a supporter of my music. She thought my music lessons were a waste of money. She thought my sister's music lessons were a waste of money. My mother was always warning us, "Never stick your neck out." She didn't like my father's activism with the union.

Unfortunately, he only lived for two years after I started playing the trumpet. After my father died, I was 11. She didn't let me play. It was the tradition during a time of mourning -- you don't play music in the home. For three months she wouldn't let me play. My trumpet teacher, a good friend of the family, came to see her. He said: "Alfredo would have wanted him to keep playing. At this age he needs to play, to keep practicing . . ." He talked her into it. But [for many years] still she wouldn't accept that the music was my life. But there was something about the ring of the words "National Symphony Orchestra" that changed her mind. When I called her to tell her I won the audition, she said, "La Orquesta Nacional?!" Suddenly she was okay with my being a musician.