Do you remember the sound of the PlayStation 3 loading up, the “parrr” of the oboe and the warm rush of strings? It’s the sound of an orchestra tuning up, the sound of a performance about to come. The oboe provides the “A” because it’s the instrument with the most penetrating sound and apparently with the most reliable pitch. I always liked that sound. I heard it a lot when I was growing up.
I was a violinist in an orchestra, you see, and I had a real talent for… avoiding hard work. You should have seen me in my prime, bow hovering above the string, looking to all the world like I was giving a performance when in reality I wasn’t playing a thing. I’d only skip the hard bits, mind you, I wasn’t a complete fraud, and I’d make it look pretty convincing. The only tricky part was keeping a straight face when the person sitting next to me started hover-bowing too. One look was all it took for the whole charade to crack apart into giggles.
I owe a lot to orchestras. They took me all around Europe, put me in the homes of host families in France and Germany, and I played in wonderful churches I otherwise wouldn’t have gone anywhere near. We played ruined open air auditoriums which looked like they were out of fairytales, we even once played a shopping mall in Hong Kong. Blimey, Hong Kong. I was a lucky boy.
