Some years ago, my wind band was participating in an event where you get graded+critiqued by experienced musicians. Specifically, we performed in a category where you’re given note sheets you’ve never seen before, then have 1 hour to practice and then you’re graded.

So, that’s 1 hour of concentration and no discussions. The conductor has to make precise calls and the players have to realize them.

Well, it was my brother and me on third trombone. We had a soloistic section, written in 𝆑. We already made sure to be heard, but the conductor told us to not play 𝆏 there.

There’s a joke to never tell trombonists to play loud, because our usual 𝆑 is just 50% of capacity. So, we had to assume our conductor knew what he was in for and rather than discuss, we just played that non–𝆏 𝆑 on the next cycle.

It would have been easy for our conductor to tell us to not play quite as loud, but well, he didn’t.

So, off to the performance we go. There’s a recording of it and it’s basically 80 musicians playing 𝆐𝆑 vs. 2 trombonists, who would win?