PMP25: Musical Instruments + Football

I'm glad I included the "if you didn't have your question answered, contact me" thing in the last post because two people reached out to say that their questions hadn't been answered yet. One email had been screened out as spam and the other one was a donation that never processed (which is why this summer's fundraiser will be using a completely different fundraising website). So I still have two Pick My Post articles to write.

The first one:

I have a family history of band music. And we are all Illini football fans. Here’s my request:

Compare high school band position groups:
Flute, 
Clarinet,
Sax, 
Oboe/bassoon, 
Lower brass (tuba/euphonium), 
Trumpet, 
Trombone, 
French horns
Percussion 

with their equivalent college football position groups:
QB
Receiver
Offensive line
Tight end
Running back
Defensive line
Linebacker
Corner
Safety

In other words, something like the defensive line equates to the trombones because they are under noticed until they mess up while receivers are the flutes because they are always screaming high notes asking for attention.

~Dan

Dan noted that his father, a former high school band director, passed away in January. So this one is dedicated to Dan's dad.

My credentials for writing this: I was in high school band (percussion). I was in symphonic band at Illinois for one year (tympani, mostly). Music was such a part of my family's life growing up (I also had piano lessons for 10 years) that after my dad passed away, a scholarship was established at my high school for students who wanted to continue their (often expensive) pursuit of music beyond high school. This scholarship – the Dr. Robert L. Rosenthal Memorial Scholarship – is the whole reason for this fundraiser (with these Pick My Post articles written by Robert A. Rosenthal). So this is basically the perfect question.

First one is so easy:

Percussion = Offensive Line

You might think low brass for offensive line – the whole "big guys playing the tuba" trope (and my dad was a big guy who played the tuba) – but let me assure you, percussion = offensive line. There is no doubt in my mind.

Who are the meatheads? Point to the big dumb animals on the football team and then point to the big dumb animals in the band. While riding a bus to a game and/or performance, who would be most likely to throw a tuna salad sandwich at a car passing the bus? The answer is percussion, and the answer is offensive line.

Big. Dumb. Animals. And proud of it.

Quarterback = Trumpet

This one seems fairly obvious to me as well. Who gets the melody? Who gets to set the tone? It's the trumpets and it's the quarterbacks.

Just think about it. When you come home from a high school band concert, you basically remember whether the trumpets were any good or not. Their mistakes are easily the most predominant. If you have a solid trumpet section – if you have a really good lead trumpet – then that's all anyone will remember.

The success of the high school football team? How well the quarterback plays. The success of the high school band ripping through Leroy Anderson's "Sleigh Ride"? How well the trumpets play.

Tight End = Low Brass

This one is for my dad. He was a tight end on his high school football team and he was the tuba player in the band. So my brain is obviously going to shift in that direction.

But I really do think it works. Tuba is almost always just one guy (unless we're talking about a marching band with a bunch of sousaphones) and tight end is almost always one main guy. And that guy, in both scenarios, is way more important than anyone realizes.

A good tuba player? Sets the tone for everything. A good tight end who can block and also catch? Invaluable.

Safety = Saxophone

What is the one position where a mistake is glaring? It's safety and it's saxophone.

Think about the safety who makes the wrong read. He's expecting a slant and he's charging towards the spot while the receiver that the corner released streaks right past him for a walk-in touchdown. Everyone in the stadium knows exactly who made the mistake. If there's a long run where a linebacker read the wrong gap, often it's not known who gave up the big play. But for the play described above, the entire stadium is wondering why the safety bit and got burned.

Now think of every saxophone you've ever heard. The end.

Cornerback = Flute

This one makes sense in my head because of the tone. My sister played the flute (she still plays the flute) and so I've heard a lot of flute in my life. Fun fact I think I've shared before: had she qualified for All State band in 1988/89 (I believe she was first chair at districts but did not make All State), then she would have performed that day with All State tuba player Bret Bielema.

The tone of the flute is this very... light and fluttering tone. If I were doing comparisons to insects it would be a butterfly or a moth dancing on the wind. Every flute solo is essentially a butterfly floating around the piece of music.

And that's a cornerback, right? I've often said that successful cornerbacks have to be waterbugs. They have to be able to run across the surface without breaking the surface. They have to change directions on a dime. And that, to me, is the flute.

Wide Receiver = French Horn

I am 53 years old. That's apparently the exact age for the words "wide receiver" to mean "Lynn Swann making that circus catch in Super Bowl XII." For my entire life, that's the image I think about when thinking about wide receivers. My dad told me back then that the Swann took ballet lessons in order to work on his body control and that has forever stayed with me.

The suggestion above was "wide receivers = flutes." But I see french horn. The best way I can explain that is to use a clip from the opening of the Jurassic Park music. To me, this opening right here is Lynn Swann tipping the ball to himself and catching it as he falls to the turf:

To me, the french horn is the most symphonic of the wind instruments. And to me, wide receiver is the most symphonic of the football positions. Brandon Lloyd getting one toe down to beat Wisconsin. Pat Bryant juking the cornerback on the edge and getting to the Rutgers endzone? I hear a soaring french horn in my head.

Defensive Line = Clarinet

What's the difference between a lawn mower and a clarinet?

You can tune a lawn mower.

Here's why I paired these two. And I need to be careful here. When I say this, you're going to hear "Robert doesn't think the defensive line matters" and that's not true. When I write my yearly "Interceptions" article each July, I mention how a good defensive line matters just as much to the interception total as a good secondary. This fall we're really going to find out that defensive line matters.

But I paired these two because... you don't know that you don't have them until they're gone (if me typing those words made you think of Cinderella singing "Don't Know What You Got Til It's Gone", you might be in your early 50's). Clarinets are to the band what violas are to the orchestra. They carry the lower notes of the upper register and you don't realize they're not there until they're gone. And when they're gone, everything sounds a bit off.

Which is how we might feel about Tomi Durojaiye and Angelo McCullom this fall.

Running Backs = Oboe/Bassoon/English Horn

This one is so very clear in my head but I might not be able to describe it. I think I first need to let the general reader know what the double reed instruments sound like. Here's the most famous English Horn solo in music history:

That is, in my mind, one HUNDRED percent running back. Not only in the role that a tone like that plays within a piece of music written for band, but also in its difficulty. Ask any music major who had to learn every instrument as part of their curriculum and they'll tell you that the double reed instruments were the most difficult.

So just think about that and compare it to Illini running backs past and present. It's the most "either you have it or your don't" position on the field. I think that Ca'Lil Valentine being the featured tailback this fall and Kaden Feagin moving to tight end is pretty much just "Valentine can find the embouchure to play the oboe and Feagin cannot."

That's not an insult. It's impossible to define. You just need to have... it.

Linebacker = Trombone

I was just discussing this post with Scott Beatty as we sat down to gameplan for the next episode of Light The I. He was a music education major (I wonder how good he was at the double reed instruments?) and so he's the perfect person to bounce this off. When I proposed that I had the trumpet as the quarterback (he's a trumpet player), he agreed wholeheartedly. "Trumpets are clearly offense", he said. I agree.

And trombones are clearly defense. If trumpets are the quarterback and when you hear them you want to hit the accelerator, trombones are often brake pedal. And I mean that in the best way. If you're composing a piece of music and you want to redirect your listener, send in the trombones. The difference in tone says "OK, so now something different is going to happen."

That's a linebacker, no? They're the brake pedal of the band. They can play with the high brass and they can play with the low brass. They can be scary or they can be whimsical. They literally slide from note to note. Yeah, that's 100% linebacker.

Is that it? I think that's it. I think I've covered all of the instruments listed. I'm glad this was "band" and not "symphony" because the strings would be impossible. Cello is a... fullback? Man that would be rough.

With wind instruments, though, this was fairly easy. Give the melody to the trumpets. Have the French horns soar through the air.

And let the big dumb animals bang on things.