“Food, glorious food! We’re anxious to try it. Three banquets a day – Our favorite diet!”

– My favorite line from Oliver!

So, I tried my hand at percussion. Now I’m doing percussion for the school musical. Ha!

How I got myself in this situation is quite a funny story. So, it all started on my first week back to school, the first week of DP 2, when my homeroom teacher, who is also our school music teacher, Ms. Duncan, told our class about the upcoming school musical, one fine morning:

OL-I-VER!

Oliver! is a British musical, with music and lyrics by Lionel Bart. The musical is based upon the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. It premiered in the West End in 1960, enjoying a long run, and successful long runs on Broadway, tours and revivals, after being brought to the US by producer David Merrick in 1963. Major London revivals played from 1977–80, 1994–98, 2008–11 and on tour in the UK from 2011-13. Additionally, its 1968 film adaptation, directed by Carol Reed, was highly successful, winning six Academy Awards including Best Picture. Oliver! received thousands of performances in British schools, becoming one of the most popular school musicals. In 1963 Lionel Bart received the Tony Award for Best Original Score. Many songs are well known to the public. Oliver! was one of eight UK musicals featured on Royal Mail stamps, issued in February 2011.

Anyways, Ms. Duncan was keen in getting our entire homeroom involved in the musical in one way or another. Given that, I play the guitar, I expected to be asked to play it for the musical, but alas, that was not the case.

Ms. Duncan: Rashmi, I was hoping you’d be willing to do percussion for Oliver! You don’t mind, do you?

Me: Sorry, you want me to play what now?

Ms. Duncan: Percussion. Mr. Marlon spoke to me about how good you are at keeping to the beat and sticking to a pace and so, he recommended you for the position of percussionist. Would you be willing to give it a try?

Me:…uh, I’ve never done it before-

My Classmates: *whispers* JUST DO IT!!!

Me: … but I mean, sure, why not?

Ms. Duncan: Excellent! Practice is from every Monday, 3.30 to 4.30. See you then!

And that’s how I ended up doing percussion for the Oliver!, the school musical.

Anyways, by now, we have completely gone over all the songs for the musical and by the way, there are about 30 of them. Ha! So let me just update you on my progress as a “wannabe” percussionist:

I first started off utterly confused as to what was expected of me. I had initially thought I wouldn’t have much to do but really, that was wrong. On the first day itself, I was expected to play the drums. THE DRUMS! I had never even played the drums for fun let alone read music sheets and play it! As you would expect, I was pretty useless on my first few practice days and it became clear that what was expected of me was much more than I had initially expected. Furthermore, the schedules for rehearsals, I realized, was much more time consuming than initially laid out.

 

As more practices continued, entire weekends were taken and we were notified of future school days where I’d be missing so much of school. The demand and commitment, as you could expect, took me by a lot of surprise. This was nothing like organizing a Gala; this was far worse.

AND DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON HOW MANY PIECES WE ARE EXPECTED TO PLAY! I mean, I literally thought, because our school is not so large, the scale of the play would be reduced but oh boy, was I wrong.

Anyways, as much as I sound like I’m losing all control of everything regarding this matter, trust me, I’m enjoying it a lot, as I should be. I realized I needed to prioritize the play in some ways so I decided to not continue with the guitar ensemble this semester and honestly, the change of pace has done me good. I have played in the ensemble for three years now and as much as I enjoyed it, I think I enjoy doing percussion more. Don’t get me wrong, I love playing the guitar the most, but I have gotten tired of playing with others. I’ve always been a person who enjoyed solo guitar performances alongside a singer. I like that independence for some reason. I guess I’m just not a team player when it comes to the guitar, ha hah ha.

But percussion is different because, on its own, it’s a pretty bland sound but when it comes together with an orchestra of other instruments, it comes to life. It gives that extra layer to the music and when done right, it sounds incredible. Initially, I was not only expected to do percussion but also play the drums, but that changed when we found a drummer and trust me, the one who was most glad about that situation was me.

But that meant a lot of my stress had been taken off and I needed to solely focus on the percussion aspect of the play. And since some pieces didn’t require percussion, I had more free spaces. Not going to lie though, I still have some sections of the play that stress me out beyond words. For one song, I have to play the snare drum and unless I play the right beat, the actors can’t begin their chant for the song, Be Back Soon. So all in all, there are some songs that do require my fullest attention when it comes to percussion and some that I can take it a little easy while also having somewhere I am not needed at all. I think the balance is good for me, given that this is my first time doing any type of percussion. Anyways, I really do like the change of pace and it is crazy how I ended up doing this random thing in my final year. Working with Ms. Duncan is quite stressful, but it is truly fun and I really enjoy this challenge I’ve been put to face!

I’m super excited about the play and can’t wait to perform in December!

I’ll be back soon (pun intended)!