THE TOUGHEST JOB IN MUSIC

Subs are often the best musicians.  They’re great ear players.

I’ve subbed a few times.  One time I wore a suit instead of a tux and got The Ray (the stare) from the bandleader.  Another time I iced my tendinitis during a break and almost missed the downbeat (the start of the next set).

I don’t do much subbing.  I’m not the greatest ear player and my sight-reading skills are only so-so.

The worst player in the band should be the leader, who then hires people better than himself.

[Subliminal message  for non-readers: Jump to the video at the end of this post.]

Playing by ear . . . that’s the big mysterious matzo ball of music.  Fact: You can get better at playing by ear. A little better.  First, close your eyes for a minute before practicing.  Listen to the clock and your neighbor’s barking dog.  Then play a couple notes, eyes closed, like C, D, and E, and imagine why they’re different.  What is the distance between the notes?

You have no idea.

Follow up with a chromatic scale, C-C#-D-D#-E, and you’ll have an idea.  The chromatic run sounds like swarming bees, à la “Flight of the Bumblebee.”  This chromatic run “looks” zig-zaggy, as if you’re walking up the fire-exit steps at a downtown hotel.  C is the first floor, C# is the landing, and D is the second floor. You begin to feel the intervals (the leaps).

Don’t underestimate the eyes-closed part.  Pretend you have eye strain and need to rest your eyes.

If you’re a professional musician, try playing with your eyes closed on stage occasionally.  It’ll clear the visual clutter.  I spent 30 minutes at a concert trying to remember my kids’ preschool teacher’s name.  She was in the audience.  My kids are in their twenties.  I should have had my eyes closed.

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I encouraged a gentile Yiddishe Cup musician to attend KlezKamp, the klezmer convention, to learn klezmer conventions.  When the KlezKamp registrar asked his Yiddish name, I interrupted, “Farbisener.” (Bitter One.)

My musician wore his Farbisener ID badge for five days.  He could take a joke — barely.

I’ve had goys in Yiddishe Cup since the beginning.  That’s no surprise.  Have you been to an Orthodox Jewish wedding in the Midwest?  The sole Jewish musician is often the singer, because he has to know Hebrew.  The rest of the band might be jazzers, many of whom are cool dudes with cigs, fraying tuxes, and war stories about backing up Jerry Lewis and Tom Jones.  Divide everything they say in half.   But they can play — anything from Charlie Parker to Madonna.

Some subs, on the other hand, are not old jazzers; they are young music school grads who don’t smoke, don’t dress like shlubs, and know all the tunes — and are also full of BS.  If a young sub says he just made $500, that means he drove to New York, slept on a couch, and didn’t calculate his travel expenses.  He has never heard of depreciation.

I hired a sub from a small town near Canton, Ohio.  (Yes, Canton is small, but this guy’s ville was very small.)  He played terrific guitar and sang in Italian, Spanish and English. He had grown up in three countries.  He claimed he did 260 gigs a year — a lot.  Most were quality gigs, he said, although some were “wallpaper” (background music), and some outright sucked: “I had a gig playing dinner parties for the Hoover vacuum family.”

Subs need quips like that to regale the band at breaks.  The regulars demand it; they are sick of each other’s jokes and stories.

The toughest job in music — subbing.

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This vid clip is from the “Driving Mr. Klezmer” show.  Includes klezmer and Mickey Katz’s “16 Tons,” followed by Alan Douglass, on keyboards, reciting the first verse of Genesis in Hebrew.  Not bad for a gentile.

See “Driving Mr. Klezmer” 7 p.m. Thurs., July 29, at Cain Park, Alma Theater, Cleveland Heights.  $20 in advance. $23 at the door.  Call 216-371-3000 or visit www.cainpark.com.

“Driving Mr. Klezmer” is a clutch-popping trip through the states of klezmer, pop, Tin Pan Alley and spoken word.  The ride: a Ford Tsuris.

The show is a nudnik/beatnik mash-up of music and comedy.  Bert Stratton is on clarinet and spoken word (i.e., this blog). Alan Douglass, the chauffeur, is on vocals and keyboards.

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