{"id":1014,"date":"2008-06-17T23:33:09","date_gmt":"2008-06-18T06:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/?p=1014"},"modified":"2013-02-07T18:58:52","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T02:58:52","slug":"gig-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/06\/17\/gig-story\/","title":{"rendered":"gig story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I played a gig at a local mall.\u00c2\u00a0 It was for the opening of a new hearing aid store which specialized in their own brand of high-end hearing aids.\u00c2\u00a0 The ensemble for the group was a traditional string quartet.<\/p>\n

As we were walking up to the store, I remarked to my wife that at least we wouldn’t have to play out in the mall.\u00c2\u00a0 Famous last words…<\/p>\n

We were shown to a back room where we could stow our cases, and then we returned to the walkway in front of the store to set up.\u00c2\u00a0 I should remark right here that everyone who was involved with the store was absolutely very polite and enthusiastic about our playing for their opening, and that always counts for a lot when you’re doing these sorts of things.<\/p>\n

As we set up our music stands and got our music arranged we attracted quite a bit of attention from the people who were walking by – quite a few double-takes as people wondered what the heck we were doing.\u00c2\u00a0 As we tuned and began to play, I noticed the first of several ironies: that we were playing for the grand opening of a hearing aid store, and we couldn’t really hear each other as we played.<\/p>\n

After about 15 minutes of playing, a very tall gentleman in athletic gear came in, and I saw from the banners out front that he was former NBA star A.C. Green<\/a>, the “NBA’s Iron Man”.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure what Green’s connection to the store was.\u00c2\u00a0 He might have been a partner in the company, or a franchise holder, or something of that sort, or maybe he was just hired to bring traffic to the store.\u00c2\u00a0 I think that’s why we were hired, too, but it was a strange strategy.<\/p>\n

You see, having the quartet out in the mall was probably designed to bring people in, but if your clientele is shopping for hearing aids, they might not hear the quartet from any appreciable distance.<\/p>\n

Add to that the fact that there were plenty of people who had no interest in hearing aids that came in for autographs of their photos and sports memorabilia.<\/p>\n

Several people came up to us and asked if we played at high-end restaurants in town and other corporate events.\u00c2\u00a0 I said that we played wherever people wanted us and that it was interesting and fun.\u00c2\u00a0 Then we gave them a brochure for the Melegari Chamber Players<\/a> (a group of musicians that play events around the Portland metro area and beyond).<\/p>\n

Later, I thought that if anyone else came up to me, I would say that, no, we didn’t play those sorts of events – we were part of A.C. Green’s entourage, that he brought a classical string quartet with him to all public events, and that the string quartet was the new Cristal.\u00c2\u00a0 Sadly, no one else approached.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I played a gig at a local mall.\u00c2\u00a0 It was for the opening of a new hearing aid store which specialized in their own brand of high-end hearing aids.\u00c2\u00a0 The ensemble for the group was a traditional string quartet. As we were walking up to the store, I remarked to my wife that at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[44,115],"tags":[950,3680],"class_list":["post-1014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-freelancing","category-music","tag-ac-green","tag-string-quartet"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-gm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13708,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2015\/05\/03\/2014-2015-a-retrospective-part-one\/","url_meta":{"origin":1014,"position":0},"title":"2014-2015: a retrospective, part one","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 3, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"[Photo credit: Joe Cantrell] Ok, I've given myself about 24 hours of breather time, and so it is time for the first part of my taking stock postage. Part one is the stuff outside of my day job (the Oregon Symphony). One can argue that playing so much outside stuff\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/20150501_28_02.jpg?fit=1200%2C898&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/20150501_28_02.jpg?fit=1200%2C898&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/20150501_28_02.jpg?fit=1200%2C898&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/20150501_28_02.jpg?fit=1200%2C898&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/20150501_28_02.jpg?fit=1200%2C898&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12855,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2013\/07\/13\/slack-tide\/","url_meta":{"origin":1014,"position":1},"title":"slack tide","author":"Charles Noble","date":"July 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been an uneventful week, with the exception of the dental surgery, and I'm looking forward to completing this downtime to get ready for my next gig. That happens to be the Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival in the north-central reaches of Washington State. I played there once with my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/7696205290_27911bff12_z.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/7696205290_27911bff12_z.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/7696205290_27911bff12_z.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":15807,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2019\/07\/01\/two-ground-breaking-quartets\/","url_meta":{"origin":1014,"position":2},"title":"two ground-breaking quartets","author":"Charles Noble","date":"July 1, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"The Pyxis Quartet has just finished a month-long rehearsal and performance period that involved two of the most challenging pieces for modern string quartets (at least until we do an Elliot Carter or John Zorn cycle, that is) - Georg Friedrich Haas' Third String Quartet and George Crumb's Black Angels.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/IMG_2259.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/IMG_2259.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/IMG_2259.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/IMG_2259.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":13700,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2015\/04\/30\/third-angle-hearing-voices\/","url_meta":{"origin":1014,"position":3},"title":"Third Angle: Hearing Voices","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night I got to participate in a truly remarkable gathering of arts patrons in Portland. It was a Salon soiree at the loft home of Thomas Lauderdale, and the guest of honor was the renowned music writer\/critic for The New Yorker\u00a0Alex Ross. After a period of meet and greet,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "concert preview"","block_context":{"text":"concert preview","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/concert-preview\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12987,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2013\/09\/20\/heart-of-darkness\/","url_meta":{"origin":1014,"position":4},"title":"heart of darkness","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 20, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been quite a week. I've been spending the last three nights playing Georg Haas' Third String Quartet \"In Darkness\", which as you might expect, is actually performed in a completely darkened concert venue. In this case the venue was the hemispherical Kendall Planetarium at the Oregon Museum of Science\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":908,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/04\/02\/continuing-education\/","url_meta":{"origin":1014,"position":5},"title":"continuing education","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday, thanks to the generosity of Chamber Music Northwest, my string quartet [the Arnica Quartet] got the opportunity to get a two-hour coaching with an internationally-renowned chamber musician - Steven Tenenbom of the Orion Quartet and Opus One piano quartet.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a great experience for us to get some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}