Live Piano

On the 18th of October I performed a job with the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps that also happened to include piano. The job was a memorial service for the victims of the Beirut barracks bombing in 1983. It took place in section 59 of Arlington National Cemetery under the cover of two tents and on a wooden platform brought in specifically for this ceremony. I was part of the presentation of the Joint Forces Color Guard at the beginning of the ceremony. Before the ceremony began, however, pre-ceremonial music was provided by a vocalist and a pianist from the United States Army Band, "Pershing's Own." The female vocalist and male pianist performed for a group of about 50 people as they were arriving for the ceremony and taking their seats. Since the ceremony took place in the middle of the cemetery, it would have been difficult to truck in an upright piano over the uneven ground of the cemetery. So the pianist played on a more portable electronic keyboard that would not have been bothered as much by the moving or the chilly, damp weather.

The musicians performed the song "Morning Has Broken" particularly skillfully given the performance conditions. Their rendition of the piece would have been much more effective except for a few facets of the performance that were out of the control of the musicians. The electronic piano itself either did not use or simply did not have a very realistic or pretty-sounding piano timbre. The arrangement of the piece was also not ideal. It sounded somewhat dated and schmaltzy. However, the talented musicians more than made up for any shortcomings of the arrangement and the performance was still very effective.