Bad Friday, Good Thursday

It’s a bank holiday. If things were normal then you would be waking to the glorious freedom of not having to go to work today, having hot cross buns for breakfast and the inevitable family arguments about what you are going to do today. For several years, I have called this day Bad Friday. I wasn’t the originator of this term but somehow it has stuck.

I run a youth orchestra and we meet every Friday except for those in August and as we meet in a church, religious festival days. This means that we don’t rehearse on Good Friday. A few years ago one of the kids sent me a message to explain how if he couldn’t come to orchestra then it was definitely a bad Friday.

Making music is a human response. In times of crisis it makes us feel better. Playing music together is one of the most sociable but insular things you can do. You keep yourself to yourself; no touching but you connect through the music. The clapping for the NHS is a primitive form of this musical connection. Smarter people noticed this and brought out pots, pans and vuvuzelas. Then a musician, in a music teacher’s forum I’m on, suggested that we join the clapping by playing Somewhere Over the Rainbow. There was some discussion over the key (because musicians couldn’t bear the idea that they might play in a different key to their neighbours) and concert G was settled on.
I wrote it out for my orchestra members and suggested that we have a remote rehearsal, every Thursday (sharing videos) until we are able to meet again.

I’ll be honest, even though I had suggested it to them I still felt awkward about actually doing it. Luckily, I wasn’t alone. I live with a violinist and there is an oboist opposite, so we went for it.
“This is weird,” the violinist said.
“Very,” I agreed, waving at the oboist.
We might have been in the same key but keeping in time at a distance was tricky and there were the usual problems of playing outside in the dark, of music blowing off stands and not being able to see the sharps. However, every musician should give it a go.
As Michael Ball said on Twitter after the first Thursday clapping session, “So proud of my street in London. Nearly everyone came out and clapped and cheered. A beautiful moment...mind you I’m so starved of applause I wanted to walk into the middle of the street, bow, wave and thank everyone for coming #needy.
“That was nice, actually,” I said.
“Lovely to be clapped all the way through a performance,” the violinist agreed.

For a while, we will have to put up with bad Fridays but at least we can have some good Thursdays.