Music Stands
Created | Updated Dec 11, 2007
We are all familiar with music stands. These slick devices provide the best in sheet music holding technology, while maintaining maximum portability. They are designed to hold your music at an angle were you can see it. Concert music stands are, unfortunately, not. Concert music stands are designed to look like they are, a) not actually made out of cardboard, (which they are), and, b) sleezy. They are also, c) developed so that it is not possible for the musician to see the music at a comfortable angle without positioning himself in the most silly way that he can think of. I remember once playing at an outdoor festival where I had to stand with one foot on my water bottle and the other on a passing carnival float, and even then I could only see half of the page. Somewhere in the beginning of the third song the trumpets just seemed to give up trying to position the music stands and they started playing from memory. In the music business, playing from memory usually means playing wrong, which was what the trumpet section was doing. I was playing trumpet at the time, but I am a mental note to myself to remember to say that I was a saxophone player if anyone asked about the festival later on. As you can see from all this, concert music stands can cause much distress, usually during concerts, which is never a good time to be distressed, as any musician will gladly second. I therefore propose a complete boycott of all concert music stands in any coming concerts. My slogan is: “If you can read this, it’s not on a concert music stand!”
