There is something inherently beautiful about human beings making music together. Differences and divisions dissolve in the warm glow of musical camaraderie.
It follows then that gathering 15 grown-ups to play an instrument most people haven’t touched since elementary school is a noble effort. Further, getting that group to play the beloved traditional folk number, “Hot Cross Buns,” more or less in time and in the same key is, if not a miracle, at least miracle-adjacent.
Can you feel the anticipation?
Can you feel the excitement?
Can you feel the love?
Please welcome the Straz Center Staff Recorder Orchestra, also known as The SCSRO.
Under the guidance of Maestro Kavanaugh Gillespie, Patel Conservatory voice specialist and all-around music savant, our band of intrepid recorderists gathered to honor Play the Recorder Month (which is March) and Play the Recorder Day (the third Saturday in March, March 21)
Maestro Gillespie, looking dapper in a black suit, shirt and tie, gave a brief talk about the recorder’s history before raising his baton and leading the orchestra through “Hot Cross Buns.”
The SCSRO thanks Maestro Gillespie for his professionalism, which wavered not a bit even though his orchestra’s instrumentation was bulk-purchase plastic recorders.
Lest you think of the recorder as nothing more than a child’s toy, consider its use by such notables as the Beatles (“Fool on the Hill”), the Rolling Stones (“Ruby Tuesday”) and Jimi Hendrix (“If 6 Was 9”).
On Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” bassist John Paul Jones overdubbed alto, tenor and bass recorders to get that just-so-ethereal tone.
(If you thought you’d see “Wild Thing” by the Troggs’ in this list, so did we until we learned singer Reg Presley was in fact playing an ocarina, which is similar to a recorder but shaped like a 1930s sci-fi movie ray gun.)
Nothing so hoity-toity for the SCSRO. We wanted to illustrate the beauty and simplicity of the recorder. We wanted to encourage others to try the recorder so that they, too, could experience the magic of making music.
We couldn’t have played anything more complex if our lives had depended on it. But that’s not the point.
Wait, that actually IS the point. And that point is, making music isn’t the exclusive domain of the masters. And besides, even the masters have to start somewhere. If someone picks up a recorder, works their way through “Hot Cross Buns” and feels a sense of joy, or at least amusement, something positive has been achieved. If they’re moved to try another instrument, that’s something to celebrate. Even if it’s a kazoo.
National Kazoo Day is Jan. 28.