(radiator kicks on and hisses)
fingers twitch atop tusk-tipped valves [1]
oiled and practiced warm
arms up and holding
horn parallel to intention
eyes fixed on accompanist
awaiting
sweating
the plunge of sudden breath
articulating thought months
measures ahead
of Haydn
or was it Hummel?
even Mozart?
pencils scratching at desk top journals
and my composure
scrawling failures in 2s and 3s
like letters to distant great-uncles...
back to the basement studio:
(outside which THIS was first encountered)
"tu-tu-tu-tu"
steady as it was
tapped out on my thigh
after dinner
a wand whacking
a meter/a strict discipline
in... in... in... timidation
in "t"s
music is not like this!
anguish
"tu-tu-tu-tu"
in the tongue
it's in this tremulant tongue
tasting of steel and garlic and language
not a tune - an attack!
like killing sung to me
stabbing this music undead
with garlic "t"s!
"tu-tu-tu-tu"
...or hate poems
(wrist watch alarm chimes in)
and attention:
this is it
the moment
everything for which we've practiced
our whole life at stake
everyone and everything hanging
balancing on me and my horn
my too expensive horn
the horn I didn't deserve
the horn that couldn't compete
with another tucked away
the horn an extension of my worth
or less
a symbol of a dozen failures
and many more to come
NO!
NOT HERE!
NOT NOW!
concentrate
eyes are darting
their eyes
my eyes on the piano wires
and
I'm
given the sign
that was the sign
Mrs. Sarin's [2] started playing
Fuck! the intro
where are we?
what measure?
o.k. o.k. o.k.
get ready
this is it
everything we've practiced for
man, it's hot in here
4... 3... 2... and the tone is right the note is right the feel is right everything is right
I am right...
beside a hospital bed
in Battle Creek
approximately 18 months earlier:
(the man who gave me THIS is nearly gone)
he had tended to roses and raisins [3]
and I'm told he sang like Bing Crosby
but now he's just 92 deflated pounds
benevolently tugging at his tube tether
offering wisdoms between desperate gasps
I smile and cry and listen intently
afterwords I make a promise
then I leave him to his dying
...and that's a one
(Mrs. Sarin taps me on the shoulder)
"great job" "congratulations"
I should be so proud
and I am
and my mother is
crying
in realization of her father's dream
to see me
succeed
I am swollen with a choke
fat with my medal
and have kept a promise
these things will have to suffice
though
as my father can't manage
to say
what's to be said
instead
he walks slightly behind me
down the hallway
a stuttering confusion
of jealousy
and a perpetuation
of his father's cold
detachment
I am icing removed
as we walk
and his stepping behind
is the cadence of my disdain
as we approach
the parking lot
and leaving this triumph
an ugly contrary music is from he to me...
a forward remove in 26 years:
(suddenly THIS finds resurrection)
given the task of composing an epic poem
for my final examination
I have given consideration to a great many topics
and have yet to decide upon one as sufficient
however
I suppose it's possible that we will begin
with something resembling the following
but I can't be sure at this time --
I am not a trumpet
or any longer a note
now I am a word
seeking a new education
an operation of language
a primal communication
brought before the tone
before the stones struck
and ignited the breath
now I am a complex
beyond his cold occasion
not to be confused
with choking and leaving
not to be subjected to removal
nor to be known to him
at all
I am not the plague horn of me [4]
but I am still
the promise made
beside a hospital bed
in Battle Creek
...and in contradiction a stifling conceived embryo
post-triumph
and I'm on a victory lap
sponsored by my mother's family
we travel North
through an aunt and two cousins
five and the dog trapping
arrived at Great-Uncle Reg's [5] double-wide
the horn is phony polished
leaking from spit-valves a poison
I am pregnant with conceit
and the embryo is cultivated
Cadillac is not significant
but for the oxygen of the old man's death
there were (of course) misspelled folk stories
and I took a turn rising back
a day later
we've come around returned to Battle Creek
one Grandmother a parcel
the other still at the farm
down a mile of gravel road
awaiting her gift performance
and I stand a festering extension
trumpeting where once a tremolo cornet did
before the hate and rebirth
the shades of chickens and a bull
tap ghostly time along outside
as I desecrate the ground they fouled
and my father seems in communion
with all these deaths rising back
reaching as if a reservoir
were there to dip into
out beyond the burned-down barn [6]
his hate and ignorance stock
the day ends shot through
like another narrow George's Dodge
in the bullet-riddled back forty
and as my head hits the ancient mattress
I too am in communion a nightmare of it
I wake at first light with morning sickness
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Mrs. Palm-Leopold,
Throughout the remainder of 1984, I continued to experience great successes in my musical endeavors, including a rather glorious (and even somewhat fulfilling) summer run as principal trumpet at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. However, following this, any further progress was stopped dead by my increasingly jealous father. Twice I was denied my right to accept an invitation to travel across Europe with an all-star youth orchestra; and I was not allowed to make the next step up, even with a significant scholarship, to attend the Interlochen Arts Academy in the summer of 1985. I became increasingly jaded, and my relationship with my studies suffered. And though I still occasionally felt inspiration, I knew instinctively that the music was decaying within me. A year later, in the summer of 1986, it would arrive of me, stillborn.
Yours sincerely,
G. Matthew Mapes
ENG 244
T/R 2:30-3:54 PM
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
summer of 1986
back at Blue Lake:
(where and when THIS was necessarily conceived)
before the Jamaican Corporal
disappeared in the night
he attempted to transfuse mine
with Marley's Live!
but
it flows dead within me
as truth
and the horn honks garlic lies
offending the integrity
of my bunk mates
this is a bent "Taps"
a depraved lights-out
and the dusted weights
need be silently removed
from the longest time
perhaps this composition
is something to consider
(the flash snaps me temporarily blind)
the picture is taken and
I am posing again
in my first folding chair
blue ribbon and medal dangling
beneath my dangling chin
frown suddenly recognizing frown
"you should be so proud"
"your grandfather would be so proud"
"isn't your father proud?"
I am swollen and stained
blue with balloons and lakes
oddly weary of my success
and its recognitions
I wonder
amongst all these tears of joy
if anyone would notice
a tearful other recognition
the old man
is relaxing content
television transfixed
in his beaten easy chair
not recognizing
the flash
or the joy
or his own ignorant contempt
fall of 2010
Eastern Michigan University:
(where THIS proceeds undeterred and unabated)
. . . solo . . .
AFTERWARD: the Master gifted me
a signed original Man of La Mancha [7]
in recognition of my many achievements
and this is the best it ever got then
I regret disappointing him
but...
end notes for solo
[1] It was common practice, even throughout the 1980s, for your more high-end brass instruments to have ivory finger buttons. My particular horn, the Vincent Bach Stradivarius Bb Trumpet, Model 182, was no exception. However, considering the growing concern for the plight of the elephant, the use of tusk was phased-out in the early '90s. Today's instruments will often offer finger buttons ornamented with semi-precious gemstones.
[2] Anne Sarin had once been a promising concert pianist. However, when I came to know her in the 1980s, she was the piano teaching wife of renowned trumpeter Irving Sarin. Mr. Sarin was my private instructor from 1982-1987. Together we studied "the classical," including performance and theory, and under his tutelage, I rose to great heights. His performance resume read like a who's who of twentieth century classical music, and included work (as principal trumpet) with such legendary conductors as Fritz Reiner, Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Fiedler, Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy. His trumpet stylings feature on over 50 recordings. Working with this man in his studio was both grueling and awe-inspiring, and I'm very much the man I am today because of this experience. And, back to the original topic, Anne Sarin served as my accompanist on several occasions, and was both a lovely person and a sensitive artist.
[3] My grandfather, Frank G. Smith, was my single-most significant influence, both as a man and as an artist. His personal story, one of great tragedy and inspiration, is far too long and important to deal with adequately within the confines of these notes. He was an amateur horticulturist, and he was the foreman of the Kellogg's Raisin Bran line from the mid-50s until his retirement in 1980. His death from lung cancer in August of 1983 was a profound experience beyond words. Twenty-seven years later, I still think of him almost daily.
[4] For many years, after my classical experience came to an abrupt and ugly end in 1987, just the thought of touching the horn caused in me a great trauma. Once, in 1989, I was contracted to perform a trumpet prelude to begin the wedding ceremony of a family friend. The groom had composed the piece himself, and needless to say, it was of the utmost importance. However, due to my anxiety, and even though I was thoroughly prepared and practiced, not one single correct note came from the horn. I massacred the work, and the wedding! It was not until 2007, after much therapy, that I was able to successfully play the horn in front of an audience again.
[5] Uncle Reg was something like a character from a Flannery O'Connor story or Tennessee Williams play. As a child, he had narrowly survived the great influenza pandemic of 1918, after losing both his mother and one of his sisters. Afterward, he was never really able to breathe without assistance, and spent the rest of his long life as an invalid, strapped to an oxygen tank. As children, my brother, cousins, and I would visit him in Cadillac once a year, to perform little revues that we would prepare especially for him. These would usually include my brother and I performing the latest works on our horns. It must be noted that Reg was a man of great correspondence, and throughout the remainder of the year (between visits), he would keep our family entertained with his humorous weekly letters. These letters were just as popular for their spelling errors as they were for their earthy folk tales.
[6] In the winter of 1963, the barn at the old Battle Creek Mapes farm caught fire. And, from the way my grandmother told the story, it was a horrific experience. Apparently, the blaze occurred in the middle of the night, and all the members of the family were awakened by the blood-curdling screams of a few dozen burning animals. A bull, as well as several cows, sheep, pigs, chickens and goats were trapped inside the building, and all the humans stood by helplessly as the animals died. The charred remains of the barn fire were never thereafter disturbed. And years later, even as curious children, we steered clear out of respect.
[7] Mr. Sarin gave me a few gifts, but the most sentimental was/is an original copy of the 1965 Broadway Cast recording of Man of La Mancha. On the recording, Mr. Sarin can be heard playing principal trumpet. On the back cover of this particular LP, he wrote (in his inimitable scrawl): "To Matthew: A round of congratulations is much deserved in light of all your inspiring success! Let's continue to work toward your successful future." Indeed.
[7] Mr. Sarin gave me a few gifts, but the most sentimental was/is an original copy of the 1965 Broadway Cast recording of Man of La Mancha. On the recording, Mr. Sarin can be heard playing principal trumpet. On the back cover of this particular LP, he wrote (in his inimitable scrawl): "To Matthew: A round of congratulations is much deserved in light of all your inspiring success! Let's continue to work toward your successful future." Indeed.
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