Making instruments means than from time to time, I need to take a brake from all the work and go enjoy some music. It is a chance to get something of my own and put it to work. Perhaps even making a sale. Last Saturday was an example of both of this things. As I had a sale of a pair of Maracas and actually for to play with some of the amazing young musicians of the city. Come along to see the features of half a day of music.
I was invited to an active held at Guaqueri Park. It wasn't an exclusive thing. The park is open to the public and almost everything done by the government is free to go. This was a national wide activity held in every city with a branch of El Sistema (Venezuela's system of Orchestras and Choirs).
In this exposition, every instrument and group had got a stand. It was an interesting idea and the park was more than suits me for this. So, I went there with the idea of getting some business done, but stayed for fun.
My client was a member of the flute section. He had contacted me the precious day asking for a pair of Maracas and extended his invitation to go there and see the whole event. I went and I have to tell, it wasn't very impressive.
I'm always saying things about eh government and their lack of foresight. This activity wasn't out of this tendency. First, there wasn't a guideline for expositions. Second, no one was in charge of guiding people through the stands to keep all the event in order.
This last point is important since the idea of the whole thing was to give everyone a good look into the work inside the orchestra and every section of instruments. If they had had guides, like tourist guides, the whole event would have been a success.
Put simply, each guide would have taken a group and walk then through every stand, so each instrument section got some relevant action. The way it played out was the obvious. Parents and siblings went straight ahead to the stands of their relatives in the orchestra and didn't move too much. I was part of this since I came in and started with my greetings lap until I landed onto the flute stand and didn't move too much.
I'm also glad I did since they had some cool candy and we had the chance to play a little. Some of the guys are quite good musicians. There was also a rogue Cuatro Player with us. So, as I had the maracas on me, I couldn't miss the chance to play. It's like the songs says "here in the East, even the less gifted knows how to play and sing from broth". I also attended their speech about the history of the instruments, the types of wood-wind section on the orchestra and recorded some of the stuff they played to end their participation in the event.
Unfortunately, I don't have any actual footage of my time playing with some of them. I know people recorded it. So it might be around the internet somewhere. Anyways, here's some of the photos taken during this exposition.
I assume this is only a fraction of the flute section in the orchestra.
Gabriel Aroca, famous flute player from our city and now owner of a pair of Maracas made by yours truly.
Aroca was in charge of the flute stand, so he got interviews for a local TV channel.
Of course even when I couldn't get my videos playing with the guys at the stand, I recorded this piece played by the kids in the recorder and the flute section. The song is called Venezuela. It is a tune I dislike. It's been played to the point of exhaustion and it's another of this things tainted by the hands of government abuse of symbolism. However, I think I can make an exception here because of the effort these kids are making to play in of a recorder in such an open space. So I applaud their effort!
