Trombonus
A bit older, a lot wiser.
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2006
- Posts
- 15,398
Mad Trombonist
August 1998, Latin America
In a misplaced moment of inspiration, Enrique Medolino, bass trombonist with a local orchestra, decided to make his own contribution to the cannon shots fired during a performance of Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" at an outdoor children's concert.
In complete disregard of decorum, he dropped a large firecracker, equivalent in strength to a quarter stick of dynamite, into his aluminum straight mute, and then stuck the mute into the bell of his new Yamaha in-line double-valve bass trombone.
Later from his hospitol bed he explained to a reporter through a mask of bandages, "I thought the bell of my trombone would shield me from the explosion and focus the energy of the blast outwards and away from me, propelling the mute high above the orchestra like a rocket."
However, Enrique was not up to speed on his propulsion physics, nor was he qualified to wield high-powered artillery. Despite his haste to raise the horn before the firecracker exploded, he failed to lift the bell high enough for the airborne mute's arc to clear the orchestra. What happened should serve as a lesson to us all during our own delerious moments of divine inspiration.
First, because he failed to sufficiently elevate the bell of his horn, the blast propelled the mute between rows of musicians in the woodwind and viola section, entirely bypassing the players, and rammed straight into the stomach of the conductor, driving him backward off the podium and into the front row of the audience.
Fortunately the audience was sitting in folding chairs, and thus protected from serious injury. The chairs collapsed under the first row, and passed the energy from the impact of the flyingconductor backward into the people sitting behind them, who in turn were driven back into the people in the third row, and so on, like a series of dominoes. The sound of collapsing wooden chairs and grunts of people falling on their behinds increased geometrically, adding to the overall commotion of cannons and brass playing the closing measures of the overture.
Meanwhile, unplanned audience choreography notwithstanding, Enrique Medolino's own personal Waterloo was still unfolding back on stage. According to Enrique, "As I heard the sound of the firecracker blast, time seemed to stand still. Right before I lost consciousness, I heard an Austrian-accented voice say, "Fur every akshon zer iz un eekval unt opposeet reakshon!"
This comes as no surprise, for Enrique was about to become a textbook demonstration of this fundamental law of physics. Having failed to plug the lead pipe of his trombone, he paved the way for the energy of the blast to jet a superheated plume of gas backward through his mouthpiece, which slammed into his face like the hand of fate, burning his lips and skin and knocking him mercifully unconscious.
But the pyrotechnic ballet wasn't over yet. The force of the blast was so great it split the bell of his shiny new Yamaha Trombone right down the middle, turning it inside out while propelling Enrique backward off the riser. For the grand finale, as Enrique fell to the ground, his limp hands lost their grip on the slide of the trombone, allowing the pressure of the hot gases to propel the slide like a golden spear into the head of the third clarinetist, knocking him senseless.
The moral of the story? The next time a trombonist hollers "Watch this!" you'd better duck!
August 1998, Latin America
In a misplaced moment of inspiration, Enrique Medolino, bass trombonist with a local orchestra, decided to make his own contribution to the cannon shots fired during a performance of Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" at an outdoor children's concert.
In complete disregard of decorum, he dropped a large firecracker, equivalent in strength to a quarter stick of dynamite, into his aluminum straight mute, and then stuck the mute into the bell of his new Yamaha in-line double-valve bass trombone.
Later from his hospitol bed he explained to a reporter through a mask of bandages, "I thought the bell of my trombone would shield me from the explosion and focus the energy of the blast outwards and away from me, propelling the mute high above the orchestra like a rocket."
However, Enrique was not up to speed on his propulsion physics, nor was he qualified to wield high-powered artillery. Despite his haste to raise the horn before the firecracker exploded, he failed to lift the bell high enough for the airborne mute's arc to clear the orchestra. What happened should serve as a lesson to us all during our own delerious moments of divine inspiration.
First, because he failed to sufficiently elevate the bell of his horn, the blast propelled the mute between rows of musicians in the woodwind and viola section, entirely bypassing the players, and rammed straight into the stomach of the conductor, driving him backward off the podium and into the front row of the audience.
Fortunately the audience was sitting in folding chairs, and thus protected from serious injury. The chairs collapsed under the first row, and passed the energy from the impact of the flyingconductor backward into the people sitting behind them, who in turn were driven back into the people in the third row, and so on, like a series of dominoes. The sound of collapsing wooden chairs and grunts of people falling on their behinds increased geometrically, adding to the overall commotion of cannons and brass playing the closing measures of the overture.
Meanwhile, unplanned audience choreography notwithstanding, Enrique Medolino's own personal Waterloo was still unfolding back on stage. According to Enrique, "As I heard the sound of the firecracker blast, time seemed to stand still. Right before I lost consciousness, I heard an Austrian-accented voice say, "Fur every akshon zer iz un eekval unt opposeet reakshon!"
This comes as no surprise, for Enrique was about to become a textbook demonstration of this fundamental law of physics. Having failed to plug the lead pipe of his trombone, he paved the way for the energy of the blast to jet a superheated plume of gas backward through his mouthpiece, which slammed into his face like the hand of fate, burning his lips and skin and knocking him mercifully unconscious.
But the pyrotechnic ballet wasn't over yet. The force of the blast was so great it split the bell of his shiny new Yamaha Trombone right down the middle, turning it inside out while propelling Enrique backward off the riser. For the grand finale, as Enrique fell to the ground, his limp hands lost their grip on the slide of the trombone, allowing the pressure of the hot gases to propel the slide like a golden spear into the head of the third clarinetist, knocking him senseless.
The moral of the story? The next time a trombonist hollers "Watch this!" you'd better duck!
