But if I ever do get married, I don't think I'm ever going to live with the person.
I think that's right after the bad.
No living because the best time of your relationship is when you had your own place.
That was the best time.
When you had your own place and your own stuff where you wanted it, it was that.
And you had your own separate lives.
And you would still spend time together, right?
You know, you'd go on dates, you'd go on trips, but then you'd go home.
And you go, God, I love her.
And I love my cable and my refrigerator and my couch and my rights.
But then they move in and they just write in your face and talk to him.
Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, we live together now, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, what are you doing?
What are you thinking?
How about now?
We're now, we're now, we're now, we're now, we're now, we're now, we're now, we're now, we're now.
That was yesterday.
What about now?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now, what do you do?
Where you going?
Who is that the call?
Why are people calling here?
Why do you know other people?
Do you still love me?
I'm not there to see you, so I'm going out.
And you know that you want more to be.
You're a heart wriggle, dream wriggle, I'll take you told you this is round me.
You're a heart wriggle, dream wriggle, I'll take you told you this is round, I know.
Oh, you can love this in my soul, I'll fire, burn a mad at control.
You taught me the ways of the style.
Now we're taking a toll.
You're the right kind of thing, I'll do it.
I ain't not there to see you, even so the way that I'm.
And you know that you want more to be.
You're a heart wriggle, dream wriggle, I'll take you told you this is round me.
You're a heart wriggle, dream wriggle, I'll take you told you this is round, I know.
Alright, heartbreakers, you can hear the Racine Concert Band play that song at Horlick High School.
Coming off, they've got a version of it.
You're going to love heartbreakers.
You're the right kind of thing to release my inner fantasy.
Alright, that's just not good.
Mark Eichner is here.
He is the conductor of the Racine Concert Band.
Thanks for joining us this morning, Mark.
It was good to see you.
Good morning.
Outside the summer.
I never see you outside the summer usually.
It's from July through August.
I see you and that's it.
So it's good to see you again.
Of course, the Racine Concert Band conducts their concerts all summer long at the Racine Zoo.
You can see them in the band shell.
And I don't know the start date.
It's right after the fourth of July or right around the fourth of July.
You guys start.
Actually, the first concert this year is June 30th.
Whoa.
That's the Sunday before July 4th.
Oh, it's okay.
Which is on the Thursday this year.
Creeping it up a little bit.
Alright.
And then it runs through like six, seven weeks.
It runs through August 10th this year.
Okay.
And it's seven weeks in a row.
That's good because it's getting dark.
And pretty soon you're doing the concerts in the dark.
Only once.
It's hard to believe.
Only once it rained really heavily.
And I remember there was thunder and lightning and you had your back to it.
And I remember you couldn't see it.
And I went up to you and I said, I think it's over.
There was lightning bolts flying.
But you didn't see them because you had your back toward it.
And you got soaked because you're right out front.
You're not really under the ban shell.
I noticed everybody in the bank can move back a little bit to get out of the rain.
I was soaked.
You were wet and had a good time.
Good story to tell.
Okay.
So Mark is here because they actually do concerts outside of the ban shell at the Racine Zoo.
And this one is coming up Tuesday, February 27th, a week from this Tuesday, right?
A week from this Tuesday.
At 7 p.m. at Horlick High School in the Joseph Mooney Theater.
That's on Rapids Drive.
Can't miss it.
Horlick High School.
And this is the third.
You did want to Washington Park High School.
And you will have one at Case High School in May.
This is the third.
Every household had one with Walden at in October.
All right.
So this is the winter concert.
Right.
And I can play Christmas songs.
Are you?
I'll tell you why in just a second.
I brought that up.
So this is going to be...
Now it says here...
Oh, the Horlick Symphony Band is going to join you.
Right.
So this is a combined concert.
They all are.
The high school bands played part of the program.
And then we come on to the full set.
And then we rehearse with and perform with the students.
I was about to say you've got to work together and rehearsal to get these things down.
Sure.
Otherwise, you know, it's...
You know, I went to a concert.
It was a combined school concert.
It was last year.
And it was at a giant gymnasium type of order.
It was, you know, chairs weren't auditorium style chairs.
And they had different schools there.
I mean, they had like six different teachers all around with each section of their students.
And then they did a combined song with one conductor up front.
He was a guest conductor.
They brought him in.
Whoa.
I mean, it's hard enough to do it with adults and students who were, you know, in their late teens,
but doing it with children.
And they pulled it off.
And I said, oh, I can't think of this isn't going to work.
It's going to sound like...
It was great.
I don't know how they do.
So that's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about this morning.
Have you ever worked with children before?
Oh, sure.
I started my career as a junior high band director.
No, I'm talking junior.
I'm talking elementary school.
Oh, not that young.
Because I went to a concert the other day.
As a matter of fact, I held it up to you again.
This was at the 2024 Suzuki Strings and Orchestra of Winter Concert from Jefferson Lighthouse.
They held it at Starbucks School right down the block here.
And they had second through fifth graders.
In this poor guy, one guy, Ryan Anderson was his name, he was the conductor.
And the concert started at six.
By 555, they were running around like little insects all over the stage these kids.
I mean, they were running out to the audience of their parents.
Everybody's running around at six o'clock.
They're in their chairs ready to go.
How did he do that?
I mean, I said, who's never going to get this?
They could get these kids on the control.
Like little bugs running around the stage.
He had them in their chairs with their instruments.
He hit three notes on his keyboard and they were ready to go.
That is, I don't know.
I don't know.
You know, it was me.
I'd be screaming, sit down.
But you didn't work with kids that young though, you said?
Not quite that young.
No.
But it's going to be tough to teach children because I don't know why.
My wife has teaching me the piano right now.
And I'm taking piano lessons from her.
Here's the difference between you and me.
I'm looking at that music and I'm seeing dots on a page.
You see music on the page.
I don't see the music.
I see dots and I have to count those dots and look at them
and analyze each dot before I hit the note on the piano
where you don't do that.
You to play piano at all?
Sure.
I don't know.
I know you play trumpet because I've heard you play
you're beautiful on the trumpet.
So that's what I don't understand how you would get a child
to not see the dots and see the music on the page.
Well, that's the beauty of Suzuki is that they don't mess
with notation at the very beginning.
And so they don't, they don't deal with ink on paper.
And so they think a lot more about their sound
and their tone quality, which is really important.
I'm telling you, I, Kudo says, I had to get them on the air with me.
I'm still working to get this guy Ryan Anderson on the air with me.
I got to find out, how do you, how do you do this with second graders
and keep control of the, and they're all sitting in their seats.
And when he hits those notes, they, they stand up, they take a bow,
they sit down and they don't talk amongst themselves.
Now, yeah, you really get a kid turn his head and he, he's standing
and he's quiet until they're quiet.
It's amazing.
We were talking about the music man Robert Preston,
the music man, Professor Harold Hill, con man,
selling boys bands throughout the country.
And he got caught and he had to perform a concert with these bands.
And he said, we're going to use the think method, think the song
and you can play it.
And you said it's not as dumb as it sounds.
No, you really want, you know, young players
to not be dependent on the, on the notation
because playing it correct is not the end all be all
if they're going to play music.
Well, my brother plays about every instrument there is.
He could play woodwind, he could play the guitar, he could play the piano,
he plays all instruments.
He's able to read and write music when he was going through medical school
to make extra money to have these bands.
This is back in the late 60s, early 70s.
You see, they have these bands.
They want to copyright their music.
They'd send them a cassette with a song on it.
He'd do the sheet music.
And he said, here it is, mail it in.
It was copyrighted.
And so he was able to listen to the song
and write the notes down on the staff.
And he said, wow!
How do you do that?
He says, it's in my head.
I could hear the music and I translate it.
How did that not translate to me?
That's what I want to know.
How did I get no musical talent?
I tried to play the trumpet.
I couldn't do it.
They threw me out of the band, right in front of the band, the whole band.
They threw me out.
We had Mr. Mars, what's his name?
The superintendent.
And he said to everybody in the, this was in fourth grade.
It was fourth grade.
And he said, do we all agree that if people are holding us back,
we should not have them in the band.
And they all say, I was like, yeah, we should throw them out.
Yeah, hang them.
He said, Mr. Rosen, you're holding us back.
So you're not going to be with the band anymore.
Right in front of anybody.
So I went to the classroom and I sat there.
And in this belief that I was just thrown out in front of everybody.
And that got him.
Mr. Mars, funny how you don't forget people.
And I know he's probably not around today.
But if I were running into him and say, see, I still can't play an instrument.
And I'm blaming you for it.
But I couldn't grasp.
The trumpet is a strange instrument because you got to, you don't blow into it.
You kind of spit into it.
Right?
You play the trumpet.
Well, there's definitely blowing involved.
I know, but it's not like, it's not like you're blowing up a balloon.
Right.
Because the instrument just amplifies the buzzing that you're making with your lips.
See, I can't.
I don't know how you do it.
I've seen you play you.
You play at bugleers, whatever that song is.
And it's just like, it just sings when you play the trumpet.
Well, thanks.
So that's good.
And so I, I, and all these people in the band, you say you have one rehearsal
with your band members when you do the summer concert, one rehearsal.
I've been to them.
And all of a sudden, music comes out and everybody's in sync.
I mean, when you, when you get up there, now I wouldn't know if there's a mistake.
You would know if there's a mistake.
If they had screwed up, I wouldn't know it.
I don't think anybody else knows either.
But it's just a wonderful experience.
So we're going to talk more about the Hallock High School concert coming up.
Find out what's involved there.
How you get into it.
And that's straight ahead.
We're looking for a partly sunny day today with a hot air 42.
Part of the cloudy lows around 30 tonight.
Sun shining tomorrow with a hot air 4650 on Wednesday.
I'm liking that.
Right now clear in 26 degrees.
I think the sun's out now.
It's not just clear anymore.
I think the sun is out.
It's 719 at WRJN Radio.
Home town radio refreshed a civic media station on this president's day.
It means no mail, no banks, no food, no air, no nothing.
It's president's day today.
Stay right where you are.
We'll make heaven a place on earth.
Who heaven is a place on earth?
721 at WRJN Radio.
There's another song that we're playing at Hallock High School.
The concert's coming up at Hallock High School.
The date is, let me just get all the information out there.
It's Tuesday, February 27th.
7PM Hallock High School.
The Joseph Mooney Theater that's on Rapids Drive.
You can't miss it.
Now, once you explain how you get in, the whole money procedure.
So people aren't shocked when they come to the front door.
Okay, the entrance to use is the West entrance,
which is just across the parking lot from the tennis courts.
And so it's the west part of the building.
And when you come in, you just walk straight ahead to the theater.
When you get there, there are no cash sales for concert tickets,
but we will be taking credit cards, which is an improvement of the QR system
we had used last year.
But no cash sales, and the admission fees are recene-unified,
standard activity admission fees.
It's $6 for adults, $5 for students, and $4 for seniors.
Now, what if I am going back to college,
which I am, I'll be going back to Hofstra University
to get my degree, am I a student?
If you have a student ID, you're a student.
I am a Hofstra ID card.
I can use that.
Who's that old man coming in?
What do you mean he's a student?
He's not a student.
Get him out of here. Call the police.
Okay, what kind of music can we get in here?
Now, we're not going to hear heaven as a place on earth.
Oh, but you never know, because they have these bands.
You watch them during the Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV,
the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
And also at halftime in college, they play that kind of music.
I mean, I'm joking about it, but they do.
But you're not going to play that.
So this concert is part of a four concert series,
which we call the Education Outreach Program.
And it's not just the concerts.
It includes some in-class instruction by the band members
with the sections in the schools,
and also with each band that we perform with.
I go into their rehearsals and rehearse with them three times
to get ready for a dress rehearsal
with the routine concert band.
And that results in a grand finale presentation,
which this time is going to be a piece by Stephen Reinecke.
This is the second time we played a Stephen Reinecke piece.
He's the conductor of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra,
which was made famous under Eric Kunzel.
And at any rate, he writes a very modern kind of flavor
that really connects with audiences.
We played a piece by him at a summer concert
that you particularly liked a couple years ago.
It was called We're Eagle Sword.
Remember that one?
Yeah.
So this is another piece kind of in that same vein.
It's called Sedona, which is a small city near the Grand Canyon.
And so as you might well imagine, the music is very outdoorsy
and kind of athletic and has nice fanfares.
And it's a beautiful piece.
And the students are really enjoying it.
And the band is too.
But one thing about these concerts,
that's very unlike the summer concerts,
is we get more rehearsal time.
So for this rehearsal, we get four rehearsals
and we can tackle more sophisticated literature
and get it right.
And so it's a lot of fun for the band and for me to do that.
Now, is it the same band we see at the summer concert?
So we have...
You bet.
Yes.
What instrument does she play?
She plays horn.
Which horn?
Oh, the French horn.
Okay, that's neat.
All right.
I always like the people who play the flute.
Because when they pack up and go in their pocket,
and they're out of there.
I mean, they care this little tiny thing.
Meanwhile, the poor people of the big instruments
like the Sousa Fone, and we call this Sousa Fone,
what do you do?
Tuba Sousa Fone.
And you get the drums.
You get all this stuff that's hard to pack away
and they'll pick a little player to go,
I'm out of here.
Before it's even, you know, the audience leaves.
They're out the front door.
You guys love to play...
You like to play marches.
Big on Sousa marches, big on circus marches.
I mean, every summer you can count on at least two or three marches
during a concert, including the opening and the closing songs.
Pieces are always marches.
The closing...
Is it always some Sousa at the end?
You always use the Sousa marches.
We always close with the Sousa marches.
Okay.
Why marches?
Just because they're rousing in there.
Because the audience does get excited toward the end.
Yes!
Screaming when they hear those Sousa marches.
Well, really, the entire template, you can say,
of the summer concerts, is lifted from the old Sousa band programs.
He had a formula that worked really, really well.
And, of course, I never use it exactly as he did it.
There's always variations.
But it has a nice flow to it.
And the audience kind of knows what to expect and they like it.
So in the summer concerts, yes, we always start with the march.
But you always start with the natural anthem.
Then you go to the march, right?
Right.
And then we get to do...
We do a few selections from the classical repertoire,
or maybe an overture, maybe a suite.
And then another march.
The best part about the summer concert series
are you always have a guest performer,
a guest artist in.
Usually a singer, somebody who sings.
Beautiful.
They sing an operatic song, a Broadway tune,
or just a popular song for the movies or wherever.
You're so lucky to have the same people come back and sing every year
because they are...
They're favorites.
They are.
They sing popular songs.
The opera stuff, I never understood.
How do you sing in a foreign language?
Do you speak that language?
She goes, no.
How do you sing in a foreign language?
How do you remember what the words are?
At least with a regular song that's in English.
You can remember the words because it makes...
It's a story when you're saying,
but in a foreign language.
And I'm trying to remember the woman who does it.
It's not the Miss...
It's not the Miss America one.
It is...
Oh, I can picture her face.
I just can't remember her name.
I should have brought a program guide in from last year.
Well, all of our...
Well, we're very lucky.
Greg Berg does that too.
He sings in a foreign language.
We're very lucky.
Because of where we are.
That we have relationships with singers
who sing on professional stages in the walkie in Chicago.
And they like the band and they like to keep coming back.
And you're very lucky to have them back
because they are so talented.
They are.
And you know, people say,
well, what happens when it rains?
I don't...
I can't think of in the last several years when you got rained out.
In the last couple of years,
there was one rain concert in the middle.
And that was a couple of years ago.
But usually you would call me and say,
well, rain down tonight.
I can't remember that.
Like Sunday nights are pretty blessed.
We've done well.
We had some drizzle last...
A couple of times last summer.
But not a rain.
And people don't run.
They go, run for your lives.
They don't do that.
They sit there.
They'll take the drizzle.
And people bring their own foods.
They hang out at the zoo beforehand.
And it's really fun.
You do a nice contest.
Come on.
Nice trivia question.
Nice prizes.
And especially the last day of the year.
You come up with some pretty big prizes.
I mean, there's...
You can eat it at...
I think every restaurant I've ever seen has a gift certificate.
So you win nice prizes.
The American flag.
We give out American flag every year.
Every concert.
And that's very nice.
And you do a great job.
Hold on.
We're going to talk more about everything concert band coming up.
And you got another concert coming up at Case High School in May.
Right.
Is that the same thing we combined with the students there?
That's great.
They get to play with the pros.
That's excellent.
I'm really enjoying it.
We're happy to collaborate with them.
And they've made it clear that for many of them,
it's the highlight of the school year.
Mark Eichner.
He's our conductor of the Racine Concert Band.
Our guest this morning.
729 at WRJ at hometown radio refreshed.
Civic media stations.
They were young.
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