Pipes, Drums & Doo Wop for Albany College of Pharmacy

Dedicated band members sacrificed a Sunday afternoon that might have been spent relaxing beneath glorious spring skies to don the kilt and enter the cavernous, windowless, marble-lined halls of the Empire State Plaza. The band performed for the 128th commencement ceremony of the Albany College of Pharmacy, held at the Plaza convention center. This is one of our band's long-standing gigs. You can set your watch by fixtures of the band's yearly performance schedule such as this one. For the past few years, the College of Pharmacy graduation has coincided with Mother's Day. Undeniably, the band places great demands on our members' time. Juggling band and family commitments is a constant struggle indeed. On this day, we may have missed the sun's rays, but the new graduates certainly radiate an energy of their own. From the minute you step off the elevator to the concourse, you hear the din of lively students and their families echoing through the halls, like the sound of the sea in a conch shell.

Speaking of the halls, pipers and drummers must step carefully when walking the concourse at the Empire State Plaza. We wear these shoes called ghillie brogues. Sure footing seems not to have been a priority for the practical joker who invented this footwear. Considering that the Highlands of Scotland abound with wet, grassy hillsides, it boggles the mind why you would design a shoe with a smooth leather sole that causes one to careen down such slopes with the velocity of a ski jumper. My guess is that, along with golf and deep-fried Mars bars, ghillie brogues belong to the pantheon of Scottish inventions conceived under the influence of copious amounts of alcohol. In any case, as if poor traction weren't enough to seal our fate, these brogues have a small metal plate embedded in the heel of the sole, which is intended to cause a sharp clicking noise with each footfall. A full pipe band on the march, clicking away with military precision, can produce an impressive effect. Slightly less impressive is a piper or drummer, footing hopelessly undermined by heel clickers, on polished marble floors, flailing about like some new-born giraffe trying to stand for the first time. So if you were at commencement Sunday, you may have seen the band tiptoeing cautiously down the concourse halls toward the warm-up room. This was a factor of our shoes-of-death. Nothing would be more embarrassing than a fall that would leave one broken and immobile, lying there on cold marble, until a Plaza maintenance crew could be dispatched to drag you off to some infirmary with one of those little golf carts they use.

Everyone arrived unscathed and off we went to open the ceremony. When we play a graduation, the typical format is for the pipe band to play the graduating class into the ceremony and then exit after they are seated. At the end of the commencement, we return to lead the class out and then we perform a few sets as people disperse. Timing is essential with these events, as the band needs time to re-tune and get back in position to lead the class out just as the commencement comes to a close. "Let us know when you get to the S's," we usually say to our liaison, referring to the conferral of degrees by last name, "that'll give us enough time to get ready."

Typically, the first performance of a graduation is the shorter of the two, especially with a relatively small graduating class like that of Albany College of Pharmacy. But on this day we were not to escape so easily. We were instructed to play until the graduates were seated and then stand at attention for the opening remarks and the singing of the national anthem. The opening remarks were quite extensive. A professor stepped to the podium to offer a truly epic Invocation. In hindsight, we should have been concerned immediately when the professor opened by observing that he presumed he had been chosen to speak because they were unable to find a better choice. This was a man with nothing to lose. The ensuing address consisted of a lengthy philosophical exposition. I can only assume that accompanying footnotes and a bibliography were printed in the program. As far as I can tell, this is the Shock and Awe approach to commencement ceremonies. After such an opening rhetorical barrage, the audience will gladly accept just about anything that follows as a welcome respite.

With the Invocation-To-End-All-Invocations behind us, the Albany College of Pharmacy A Capella ensemble, One Man Short, came to the stage to sing the national anthem. These guys were great. They sang The Star Spangled Banner with four part harmony, in rounds. Pretty cool. This national anthem concluded the opening cermonay and the band was dismissed. As we marched out of the convention center, One Man Short launched in a medley of Doo Wop songs starting with Get A Job. We were all duly amused by their song choice for the graduates. Many of us stayed in the wings of the convention center to hear One Man Short finish their set.

We are officially fans of One Man Short now. The Band sometimes takes bus trips to competitions and, on the way home, especially if we've proven victorious on the day, we often sing a few songs ourselves. Doo Wop songs always figure prominently in our bus song repertoire and it was decided on Sunday that One Man Short should come along on the next trip. I'm sure they'll be happy to hear we've lined them up a gig. I wonder if they can manage a Doo Wop version of Mairi's Wedding?

- JSS