Hey, Y'all, Watch This!

[Studlover (imported)]

Hey, Y'all, Watch This!

August, 1998, Montevideo, Uruguay

Paolo Esperanza, bass-trombonist with the Simphonica Mayor de Uruguay,

in a misplaced moment of inspiration decided to make his own

contribution to the cannon shots fired as part of the orchestra's

performance of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture at an outdoor children's

concert. In complete seriousness he placed a large, ignited

firecracker, which was equivalent in strength to a quarter stick of

dynamite, into his aluminum straight mute and then stuck the mute into

the bell of his quite new Yamaha in-line double-valve bass trombone.

Later, from his hospital bed he explained to a reporter through

bandages on his mouth, "I thought that the bell of my trombone would

shield me from the explosion and, instead, would focus the energy of

the blast outward and away from me, propelling the mute high above the

orchestra, like a rocket." However, Paolo was not up on his propulsion

physics nor qualified to use high-powered artillery and in his haste

to get the horn up before the firecracker went off, he failed to raise

the bell of the horn high enough so as to give the mute enough arc to

clear the orchestra.

What actually happened should serve as a lesson to us all during those

delirious moments of divine inspiration. First, because he failed to

sufficiently elevate the bell of his horn, the blast propelled the

mute between rows of players in the woodwind and viola sections of the

orchestra, missing the players and straight into the stomach of the

conductor, driving him off the podium and directly into the front row

of the audience.

Fortunately, the audience were sitting in folding chairs and thus they

were protected from serious injury, for the chairs collapsed under

them passing the energy of the impact of the flying conductor

backwards into row of people sitting behind them, who in turn were

driven back into the people in the row behind and so on, like a row of

dominos. The sound of collapsing wooden chairs and grunts of people

falling on their behinds increased logarithmically, adding to the

overall sound of brass cannons and brass playing as constitutes the

closing measures of the Overture.

Meanwhile, all of this unplanned choreography not withstanding, back

on stage Paolo's Waterloo was still unfolding. According to Paolo,

"Just as I heard the sound of the blast, time seemed to stand still.

Everything moved in slow motion. Just before I felt searing pain in my

mouth, I could swear I heard a voice with a Austrian accent say, "Fur

every akshon zer iz un eekvul un opposeet reakshon!" Well, this should

come as no surprise, for Paolo had set himself up for a textbook

demonstration of this fundamental law of physics.

Having failed to plug the lead pipe of his trombone, he allowed the

energy of the blast to send a superheated jet of gas backwards through

the mouth pipe of the trombone, which exited the mouthpiece, burning

his lips and face. The pyrotechnic ballet wasn't over yet. The force

of the blast was so great it split the bell of his shiny Yamaha right

down the middle, turning it inside out while at the same time

propelling Paolo backwards off the riser. And for the grand finale, as

Paolo fell backwards he lost his grip on the slide of the trombone

allowing the pressure of the hot gases coursing through the horn to

propel the trombone's slide like a double golden spear into the head

of the 3rd clarinetist, knocking him unconscious and fracturing his

skull. I would think the moral of this story is, Beware the next time

you hear someone in the trombone section yell out, "Hey, y'all, watch

this!"