Gleason 1

Ben Gleason
Prof. Gregory
Eng-1101.5B5
27 October 2020
Incidental Suite
I have few fond memories from my time in middle school and none of them came

from my symphonic band class. My teacher was not a sour or rotten man, but in many

cases, he lacked the patience necessary to be a middle school band teacher. I

remember that on more than a few occasions he would break one of his batons by

tapping it against the music stand that he kept at the front of the class. At first it would

start relatively quiet and only just loud enough to be heard over the music. But much like

his frustration and temper; the volume of the tapping would rise with each repetition of

the section that was being practiced. By the time he decided he was satisfied with the

section in question, his tapping could be heard reverberating down the cider block halls

of my old school. His little fiberglass baton would snap at some point along its length.

He would proceed to stand up and stalk over to his desk and pull out a new baton still in

its nice plastic case. He always seemed to have another baton in his desk drawer. I

can’t recall how many he went through in my three years at the school but I would

wager it was at least 10 that I knew of.

The piece that we were learning was called “Incidental Suite”. It has an amazing

driving section at the beginning of the piece that leans heavily on the low brass to keep

the tempo steady. I was one of the poor suckers that had to play a tuba in the middle

school band and was one of the aforementioned low brass that the piece required to
 Gleason 2

keep their time. Unfortunately, on the day in question I was speeding up as the piece

went, and therefore earning the ire of the one and only Mr. Sivertsen.

He started with his normal counseling, “Hey Ben, you are rushing that section.

Let’s go from the top.”

You may be surprised to hear that I was still rushing through that section, so the

tapping began. Again quietly, only loud enough to be heard over the other instruments.

By the third playthrough, I was surprised the principal hadn’t sent a maintenance person

to look for the source of the rhythmic metallic clicking that she must have been hearing.

He later brought out the metronome and let that take over the tapping duty while he

stood to the side and listened to the band played. When the rushing issue was fixed in

one section it would start up in another. Of course, none of us planned this but when

you repeat a piece of music that much at a middle schooler’s skill level, you are bound

to make mistakes, especially once you attracted the unwanted attention of Mr.

Sivertsen. This went on for the majority of the hour-long class. On and on, we repeated

this section ad nauseam. The only difference between each repetition was the color of

Mr. Sivertsen’s face and the volume of his critique. I remember checking the clock after

each repetition and hating that each run-through took 45 seconds if we were lucky,

significantly less if we weren’t.

With great apprehension I raised my hand, “Mr. Sivertsen, can you please turn

the metronome up so that I can hear it clearly or turn it off. I can barely hear it back here

and it’s more distracting than helpful.”

 Gleason 3

His face changed to a new shade of red that I had never seen before, “you know

what Ben”, There was venom in the way he spoke my name. “I will turn the metronome

down so I can see it and will be able to keep perfect time,” he took extra care to

pronounce, “perfect.” He let the last sentence hang in the air, “but it won’t make a

sound!” he said the last bit as if he were in some sort of rush.

I nodded perplexed, “okay, thank you Mr. Sivertsen.” I technically got what I had

wanted minus the additional attention that I would garner from Mr. Sivertsen on this

playthrough. The band started from the top of the piece and played through the section

in question. It sounded good to me, but then again, I hadn’t had the years of training

that Mr. Sivertsen did. Like a fire coming to life, I could see his scalp slowly turn red

through his thinning grey hair. Without looking up from his stand he spoke in a tight

tone, “next page.”

The last part of the class went by without too many more hitches and without him

tapping. I remember the sweet electronic tones that passed for bells in the decrepit

school blasting distortedly through the speakers in each room, cutting Mr. Sivertsen off

mid-sentence. We all rushed to pack up. Normally, he would have stopped us and made

a comment about him dismissing us and not the bell, but he saw that he was beaten. He

stepped down from his podium wordlessly and let us pack up and leave his classroom. I

hung my head as I walked to my next class. I felt like it should have been lunch time

even though it was only second period. Mr. Sivertsen served as a reminder that I need

to be patient with myself when I am learning something new. I also promised myself that

if I was ever teaching anyone anything, I would be far more patient than he was.