Carolyn Deuel
When WyoHistory.org published its history of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra in October 2021, the editors realized that there were many more people available to contribute their thoughts and memories of that organization. The American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming was also interested, and offered to contribute funding to support an oral history project to capture more information on the history of the symphony.
The Casper College Western History Center transcribed most of these interviews. In addition to being available here, at WyoHistory.org, the audio files plus transcripts are also available at the Western History Center and the American Heritage Center.
Thanks to the interviewees for donating their time; to the Casper College Western History Center for transcribing the audio files; to Kylie McCormick for transcribing some of the audio files; to the American Heritage Center for funding the project; and to the trustees of the George Fox Fund, Inc. for donating the use of its Zoom account.
Wyoming Symphony Oral History Project
Rebecca Hein interviewing Carolyn Deuel, June 4, 2022
Date transcribed: July 11, 2022
Rebecca: Great, so can you still hear me?
Carolyn: Yes, I can.
Rebecca: Okay, thank you very much for giving your time today. Let’s start with your name and your instrument and a little bit about your musical background, how you came to play that instrument or those instruments. Then we’ll go from there.
Carolyn: Okay, Carolyn Deuel and I play percussion in the symphony mostly mallets. I have a degree in piano from the University of Northern Colorado. A degree in organ from the University of Iowa and while I was at Iowa I took percussion from Tom Davis who was the head of percussion and actually a Casper native. And so, when I got done with my master’s I came back to Casper in the summer of 1976 and they were doing the musical 1776. Tom Kinser [Head of the Casper College music department, saxophone instructor, and conductor of the stage band, in the mid-1970s] was one of the ones knowing I took percussion at Iowa so he invited me to play in the city band, and when Curtis Peacock was looking for another percussionist for 1776 Tom sent him my way.
Rebecca: Okay, can we backtrack a bit and can you explain exactly what mallet percussion is?
Carolyn: Yes, it is a percussion that is playing keyboard type instruments, but you are playing them with mallets. Instead of your fingers like on piano or organ. That’s like the glockenspiel or bells, xylophone, the stand up chimes, the vibraphone and the marimba. But then I also play, when it’s needed naturally, things like triangle, claves and you know those kinds of things as well as bass drum.
Rebecca: Right. So the vibraphone and marimba it’s my understanding that those are larger versions of the xylophone? One with wood and one with metal?
Carolyn: The marimba is wood and it has bigger keys or pieces of wood for the different pitches just like a piano has. Also bigger vibrating pieces of metal tube underneath, and it’s a more mellow sound. So, often the xylophone is a brittle sound and it will cut through things and marimba is more of a solo instrument. The vibraphone is totally metal keys and the thing that is different about it is it has a pedal like a piano so it’s the only one of the mallet instruments that has that feature and therefore, you can make the sound ring and mold different sounds together so it is a frequently used instrument to make ringing melodic sounds.
Rebecca: Yeah, can you explain a little bit more in detail what the pedal does on the piano? So that we have a point of reference.
Carolyn: The pedal, there are dampers on each of the strings the strings make the sound on a piano. There are dampers on the strings, so if you just play a piano note then the damper goes right back on the string and it stops the sound. But if you have the pedal on, then the dampers are raised and all the sounds you play will mush together until you release the damper pedal and stop the sound by having the dampers go back on the strings.
Rebecca: Okay, thanks!
Carolyn: Mhmm.
Rebecca: Okay, okay I’ve got a question I don’t know if I asked it or not. What is mallet percussion exactly? Did I ask you that?
Carolyn: Yeah, and I told you that they’re instruments that have keys like a piano like C, C#, D all of the different keys. But, you play them with mallets so you have a stick that you’re holding in your hand that has a ball on the other end of it and you strike the different notes with the mallets. So, for most of those we’ve talked about you’ve got either a plastic or yarn head on the mallet that strikes so that naturally your not going to hit the vibraphone or the marimba with a hard mallet that’s going to damage the marimba or be too much of a brittle sound with the vibraphone. But, with the bells and with the xylophone you want a bright sound so those mallets are plastic or even when you are doing marching band or something where you really want the mallets then it’s a metal ball on the end that strikes the bell. Then with the chimes, the stand up chimes, you have a wooden thing that looks more like a hammer and so you strike the lip of the chimes with that.
Rebecca: Okay, and I’m for some reason thinking about the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Nutcracker—
Carolyn: That is—that instrument is written for celeste [pronounced chell-essta] and in the old days with the symphony we had an actual [celeste] that looked like a teeny tiny grand piano. So that it had a lid that you lifted, it had two rows of metal tubes that stood up and then on the end a piece of metal that was hooked to the key it had a square block that would hit those and so they have a very special sound as you know, anyone who hears the Nutcracker, knows that sound of the Sugar Plum Fairy. But, it was a small instrument so there wasn’t the full range that I needed so I would have to play, you know bring the music down a octave to play within scope of that and now what they use is just a, go ahead and use a synthesizer a celeste sound on it. So you are playing it like a keyboard, like a piano.
Rebecca: Ah, and in your opinion does the synthesizer really sound like an acoustic.
Carolyn: I like the celeste better. And I’ll tell you what this past...Christmas when we were doing the Nutcracker just a suite from it. They really had trouble coming up with a sound they all liked and so it was a problem but they finally came up with one they accepted.
Rebecca: That’s rather interesting, personally I’ve always felt that synthesizers were never going to replace actual instruments and people—
Carolyn: I’m with you. But unfortunately they’re cheaper and they stay in tune so a lot, a lot, a lot of people are using them, you know.
Rebecca: Yeah, okay well I have to tell you this, maybe it will interest historical records but um. I was a freshman at the University of Wyoming and I was killing myself trying to learn to play the cello and it was so hard because I was still at the stage where I was struggling to play in tune and things like that. So one day I went into the sound lab. There was a guy there whose whole life was composing music on the synthesizer. I think I said something like, “Can you really compare what you’re doing to what I’m doing?” He knew I was a cello performance major and he said “Yeah” and I said, ‘How can you figure?” I was trying not to be adversarial but it was such a struggle to—a
Carolyn: Oh boy—
Rebecca: Learn to play the cello. He said, “Well I think it’s the same because I control everything this synthesizer does.” So he was saying he played it like anyone else plays an instrument. I went away from that conversation feeling really stunned because if there’s one thing I couldn’t do at that stage of my skills is control what the cello did.
Carolyn: (laughing)
Rebecca: It was a great conversation.
Carolyn: That’s neat, very cool. Well you know the Shepherd of the Hills [Presbyterian church in Casper, Wyo.] just got a new organ and they are very proud of it because they, they had an instrument that wasn’t very good and what they did. [Inaudible] is the organist there and they got one that has samples from the different organs of the world. So, they invited the folks of us who play the Bach’s Lunch concerts on the pipe organ at Saint Mark’s [Episcopal church in Casper, Wyo.] to play a recital there and it was fun! I played a Franck piece [Cesar Franck, 19th century French composer and pianist] with the French Cavaille Coll organ sound [Cavaille Coll was a 19th century French organ builder]. Those were special organs that had all kinds of different mechanisms to them. I used the samplings from that for the Franck. Then, I used an American organ for an American piece and it was fun to hear the difference, but still it's like you're hearing a recording, you know. And I don’t ever want to hurt their feelings but it isn’t the same as the pipe organ.
Rebecca: Well, organs are a very difficult instrument in my opinion because where you have your hands it seems to me there is more than one keyboard. Is that right?
Carolyn: Yes, and then you have the full pedal board too so you have your feet doing the third part you know.
Rebecca: That’s why I think it’s difficult, almost as difficult as the double bass.
Carolyn: Aha (laughter)
Rebecca: Okay great. Okay, is there anything else you want to add about your background before we go onto your affiliation with symphony?
Carolyn: No, I don’t think so. But I’m glad to get to tell the story about 1776 because that gave me an easy entrance into the symphony. It was the symphony that was doing the 1776 musical so by Kinser telling Curtis that I played percussion, and by my playing for him and doing an okay job in the musical. I’ve been in the symphony since 1976.
Rebecca: Okay, and what instruments did you play in the 1776, in that musical?
Carolyn: Well, that is the only time in my life that I ever played timpani. So he had a need for a person in the pit [orchestra pit, where musicians are grouped in an area lower than the stage] and he could only have two performers so I mostly played bells. But, I did do a little bit of timpani because that was needed. So, I am trying to think, am I right? Was I playing or was Roger Cliff playing? I know that I was doing stuff that I hadn’t done before, and never did again. And I can’t play snare [snare drum] because I never learned it. So, it was mostly: bells, chimes, triangle, I don’t think there was tambourine in 1776. That's another instrument that’s a common one. Of course, it’s been a long time since I did that.
Rebecca: Okay, for, for the historical record describe what a tambourine is.
Carolyn: It's like a drum head with jingles on it, they're actually called jingles, and they’re pieces of metal that are on the sides. So the drum head is on a wooden frame and it has these metal pieces that clink together and make a jingly sound.
Rebecca: So you hold the frame and you pat it?
Carolyn: Shake it, you either shake it or you pat it. Yeah, you either hit it like a drum or you shake it. All the pop stars, pop bands, had people who would shake it or hit it on their knee and then come up and hit it on their hand.
Rebecca: Okay, thank you.
Carolyn: huh
Rebecca: Okay, is there anything you want to add about the various percussion instruments you have played before we go into your time with the symphony?
Carolyn: No.
Rebecca: Okay, so you joined the symphony in 1976.
Carolyn: Right.
Rebecca: And have you played in the symphony ever since?
Carolyn: Yes.
Rebecca: Okay, and it’s my understanding, you referred to the timpani, that is a separate percussion instrument and you have a timpanist playing the timpani usually?
Carolyn: In the Wyoming Symphony? Yes. There is one person who plays the timpani. And the rest of us cover the other things.
Rebecca: Okay, but you have performed on the timpani before, and presumably could?
Carolyn: Just a fraction. No, in fact let’s erase that and pretend I never played the timpani.
Rebecca: Okay.
Carolyn: Okay, (laughter)
Rebecca: They have to be tuned, there’s three of them and they all have to be tuned, right?
Carolyn: They’re up to five and they do have to be tuned. They have a pedal on them that has several pitches so you have to tune. Each one has a range of about a fifth, about five notes. So then, you have bigger to smaller with different pitches and then by what is needed in a given piece that says how many and by the technique of it. For instance, a lot of pieces that use—let’s say you are playing in the key of C, you would use the pedal in a G [A musical “key” means the note on which the scale is built, that in turn, the piece is based on]. And if there is a lot of time to move, if you needed an A or a D or an F or something else you could change the tuning on it. But if it’s fast notes where you have to go quickly then you would add a third one to be able to play more pitches or a fourth one or a fifth one. So, it depends on the range of the notes and how fast everything is.
Rebecca: Now, that makes sense. Okay so-
Carolyn: Because each one can just play one note at a time. You know-
Rebecca: Yeah right, yeah because I am trying to make sure this is clear to the listener. Because each individual drum as it were, that is probably the wrong word for timpani-
Carolyn: No, their other name is kettle drum. So it is fine to call it timpani and drum.
Rebecca: Yeah, it can only have one pitch so it's the equivalent of having a keyboard instrument with only four keys or five depending on how many drums you have.
Carolyn: Right, then with your foot of course you can change them quickly. You know, but again you have to be sure it's in tune and it just depends on how many fast notes you have and things.
Rebecca: Yeah that makes sense. Okay, so I was sitting here doing the math you’ve been playing in the symphony for more than 45 years, 46 to be exact, is that right?
Carolyn: Right.
Rebecca: Have you played every concert?
Carolyn: No, and the reason for that is that the composers don’t always write us in.
Rebecca: That is very true come to think of it.
Carolyn: So we rarely play January concerts for the symphony because they usually do a smaller group of musicians and they often do classical music. And if there is any percussion it is usually just timpani. Now, Mozart once in a while would use triangle or something but generally the bigger use of percussion didn’t come in until the Romantic composers in the 1800s.
Rebecca: Yeah, let’s back up and just clarify the term classical, because you and I know what it means but it’s not generally known that there's basically two meanings of the word or two connotations-
Carolyn: Right, so when I’m talking about the classical literature of a symphony. I’m talking about the classical era of literature that went from 1750 to about 1810, and the main composers were Mozart and Haydn and the start of Beethoven.
Rebecca: Yeah, Okay great. Okay so- of all the concerts you have played with the symphony can you describe a few that were more memorable than others?
Carolyn: I’m trying to think. In the early days we did more with the [Casper] Civic Chorale. So the performances of the Verdi Requiem and the Brahms Requiem [Latin text of the Catholic Mass for the Dead set to music] were very special times and the fun part for me was that I had also done those pieces in Mexico with the Civic Chorale with the Wyoming State Choir actually. Um, we had done the Verdi Requiem and I had done the Brahms Requiem at the University of Iowa. So they were pieces I knew and had sung and enjoyed. [Giuseppe Verdi, 19th century Italian composer]
Rebecca: That always makes it easier.
Carolyn: Yeah, and fun you know. Um, let’s see another one. ArtCore [Arts organization in Casper, Wyo.] did “Visas for Life” and it was in collaboration with Mariko Miller who was an Honorary Consul General of Japan. And her father was in the Japanese consulate at Washington D.C. when World War II was about to happen. He tried to avert that but there was nothing that could stop it. But her name, she was five at the time, her name was a code name. One day she was sitting at the table eating lunch and feeling perfectly fine and she heard her dad say ‘Mariko is under the weather today’. And of course it had nothing to do with her sitting there, it had to do with whatever message he was trying to pass on. So, in Casper then she was able to get another great story that happened in World War II. There were people in Lithuania, there was a Japanese ambassador to Lithuania. He woke up one day and there was sound outside and it turned out that there were many many hundreds of Jews that were trying to get to safety. To be able to get out of Lithuania they needed passports from the Japanese consulate, and they needed to be able to get on trains and get out of the country to safety. He had many wires with the Japanese government and they would not allow him to do it. So he was sitting there with all these people needing his help and not getting help from his government, and he finally decided he was going to sign them anyway. He signed well over 2,000 [passports] and in that time span the passport was made to the woman of the family. So they don’t really know how many that covered, but he was still signing them. He was recalled to Japan and he was still signing them out the window of the train as he was having to leave. But she [Mariko] was able to bring the son of that ambassador and his wife to Casper and the symphony and the Civic Chorale and the school system all worked together and did this concert. And they had a talk and a film from that family. Symphony played Fanfare for the Common Man [by American composer Aaron Copland] and then I don’t remember what else but we started with that and you know the only percussion in that is bass drum and timpani and then it’s brass players. So I got to play the bass drum and it was a very powerful thing. The school system had essay contests and the winners of those contests were honored on stage that night at that concert. The Civic Chorale sang, the symphony played and it was wonderful.
Rebecca: So Fanfare for the Common man is a piece by Aaron Copland-
Carolyn: Yes, yes-
Rebecca: Okay well that’s really interesting. Um, I want to jump over to various pieces you may have sung and or played in. I wanted to ask you about Beethoven’s Ninth. Have you sung in a choir for that?
Carolyn: I have, it was fun. Various times there would be concerts that would be different literature you would have. So with Beethoven’s Ninth I actually just sang, but there were other concerts where we would sing, like Messiah [An oratorio (composition for small orchestra, soloists and choir) by George Friedrich Handel, German-British composer of the late 17th and early 18th centuries] but they would have more literature for the concert and I would get to, like, to play in the first half and sing in the second half. That was a lot of fun. But, with Beethoven’s Ninth it’s very [inaudible] that we are talking about this right now because they [the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra] are getting ready to do it on October 8th. I will not be singing, but in the old days we had risers that had chairs so we could sit. Beethoven’s Ninth is written so it is 70 minutes of music and the choir sings only the last fifteen. So, you have the problem of what are you going to do? Are you going to make the choir stand there for 70 minutes? Or for 55 minutes? So in the old days with the seated risers it was no problem at all we could sit and totally enjoy the symphony and then stand and do our part when it was time. Then, somebody trashed those risers and another time we sang we were backstage and we were allowed to just come on for the fourth movement. It was very crowded because it was the Civic Chorale and College choirs so it’s not a comfortable thing to sing just because of the physical problem of it. We were squeezed onto risers. You could barely hold your music out and so it is not a favorite of chorale people, of a lot of us. We like it better when we are included in more of it and really are half of the show, but what’s going to happen in the fall is the chorale is- any of the chorale that wants to join the college choir will do that and will be rehearsing it separately. But there are a lot of us, about ten of us, that sit for performances. I actually sit when I play for symphony, most of the time I have a stool that I use. So, I am 70 years old and the only thing I cannot do is stand for a long time. So the word has come down that we won’t be able to have any chairs like we do at chorale concerts, so people will be standing for the fifteen minutes and I am not going to be there. But a lot of the people will enjoy doing it. They are going to allow them to come on just for the fourth movement and I haven’t really clocked how long but it will be a little longer than the fifteen minutes generally. At least they don’t have to stand for the 70.
Rebecca: Yeah, another question I have. This comes from having had some voice performance major friends in college. They always explained to me that the human voice is a very delicate instrument, it needs to be handled with care so that you’re warming up and not exceeding your range and not singing too loud and so on is all very important. I have always wondered how the choir and the soloists could manage sitting there through the first three movements and part of the fourth movement before they have to start singing. It must be very hard on the voice, is that true?
Carolyn: Well you know there is a difference between someone with the voices you are talking about- possibly a little more delicate. It's like we are generally run of the mill singers for the most part so- it's not that bad. You will have warmed up a little bit beforehand but it’s not like when you have the whole group around you you're not really having to strain. I mean yes you are full voice when you get to the fortissimo [loudest] sections and everything but it's not really that bad. The vocalists you are speaking with probably have maybe more delicate voices in terms of what they need to be doing in a solo capacity. But you know if you are at a party or something like that and then you decide- oh let’s do some sing-a-longs people can sing and for the generals one’s of us it is not that hard on our voices.
Rebecca: I see, so the four soloists don't really have any protective cover; their warmup that they did before the piece will last them.
Carolyn: They probably have--you can warm your vocal cords up by doing kind of a humming or an ‘n’ sound so they probably know what will work for them to be able to keep their throats warm and their vocal cords a little bit stimulated. So I guess it’s probably the people that can sing after sitting there for that long that are going to succeed as soloists because they don’t have the benefit of being able to baby themselves.
Rebecca: And it makes sense that there are probably lots of places where the orchestra is playing loud enough where they could do a bit of humming and never be heard.
Carolyn: Exactly.
Rebecca: Well that is very interesting, to an instrumentalist all I know is suddenly they are having to sing and they didn’t get to warm up. That must be- the only thing that would be harder would be singing in a seven hour Wagner opera.
Carolyn: (laughter) For sure.
Rebecca: Okay, well great let’s see I am trying to cross out the questions as you answer them so I don’t ask them twice. Oh- You referred to the Messiah let’s go back to that and say a little more about it. Who it’s by, what it is, and why it’s significant.
Carolyn: Okay well its actual title although I’ve seen printed other copies is accepted I think among the musicologists it is just called ‘Messiah’ rather than ‘The Messiah’ but Messiah. But Handel is the composer he was born the same year as Bach 1685 and he was in Germany but then he went to England and Bach stayed in Germany and there were various times when they could have met and I think they chose not to. (laughter) Because there isn’t any reason they couldn’t have crossed paths.
[Audio cuts out 32:52-32:55]
Carolyn: Hi, my screen went funny for a minute and then came back. Can you still hear me?
Rebecca: Yeah, I can hear you. Great. And- the recording is still going.
Carolyn: Very good, okay so. One story is the King was sort of snoozing and the piece finished and his wife jabbed him. And he was so startled that he stood up, and when the King stood up everyone stood up. So it has become a tradition that everyone stands for the Hallelujah chorus which is the end of Messiah.
Rebbecca: It is the end of the Christmas part of the Messiah.
Carolyn: Exactly, and when people are only doing the Easter part they still do the Hallelujah chorus because of course that is the most popular piece from this work.
Rebecca: Right.
Carolyn: But the people from this- whether you are doing the Easter section or the Christmas section or the whole thing you end with the Hallelujah chorus and people generally stand up. But, it was kind of an accident in the first place.
Rebecca: That’s a great story. Okay and the thing that I think is kind of interesting about the Messiah is it is one of the few choral pieces where the libretto [the words that go with the music] was originally in English.
Carolyn: Right.
Rebecca: I mean you look at the Brahms Requiem and that libretto is presumably in German?
Carolyn: Right.
Rebecca: And Verdi Requiem is in Italian, I assume and
Carolyn: Right, but see Handel was in England.
Rebecca: He is basically considered a British composer, I think.
Carolyn: Yeah and so- so that’s why it was in English.
Rebecca: Yeah, well cool.
Carolyn: But of course he started over in Germany.
Rebecca: Yeah, okay let’s see. We’ve gone over what instruments you play as a percussionist and you have described them. You have defined mallet percussion. We have clarified what you meant by classical music. Oh, you referred to ArtCore. Can you say a little more about ArtCore? What it is and what it does?
Carolyn: Sure- sure- we made up the name ArtCore from Art Coordinating Representatives. And so it was very strange when we went to get a web address. We tried to get just plain ‘Art Core’ and someone in England had gotten that name 17 years before that. So what we had to do was use ‘Artcorewy.com’ for our website because by adding the Wyoming part- and of course it’s worked out well because it lets people know where we are. But anyway, we made it up and someone else had it. So what we do is to present concerts for student and community audiences. For instance, when we had the ‘Fire Ants’ which is a group from Buffalo, Wyoming this spring they actually worked with the students at Kelly Walsh [high school in Casper, Wyo.] and worked with band, orchestra and choral students they all came together. Then the day of the concert we had a 12:45 session that students could bus in and homeschool families could come to. So, by having a general place they can come we can provide for all the schools. And then, they do a 45 minute program that incorporates part of their performance but also they talk about what inspired them to take up music and working hard enough to become professionals. Frequently the message that they give the children is, find something you are really good at and pursue it. It doesn’t matter if it’s music whatever it is but really make your best efforts to excel. Then they do standard evening concerts that are open to the public, and we have- not every artist does that but a majority of them do. For instance, for 22-23 our first concert is going to be Riders in the Sky which is very popular in this western town. And they do the western music like Roy Rogers and they’ll only do a concert so they don’t have outreach with theirs. Another one that we have is Urabe Mexicano. Casper has a Fiesta WYO on Labor Day Weekend on that Saturday and this is a group from the San Diego area, that’s a Mexican group, and it is a free concert to draw people in from the community. And so- because it is Labor Day Weekend we do not have school outreach with that because school is not in session. The other thing that would be of interest maybe besides doing the concerts. We do a rotation of competitions. We have a new music competition that is for composers in Wyoming and they can write for up to eight performers up to twenty minutes and we help mount the concert the next year for the winner. That alternates with the one act play competition and official arts competition. And within our presenting series which is about forty to thirty-five shows a year we do championing of our local performers and state performers as well as bringing in Riders in the Sky, Tenors Unlimited from England so a wide variety. Every summer we do a music and poetry session so we include the written word by having a musician and a band and a writer for each of four week and the fifth week it is a musician and open mic for writers. And, I am the executive director of that group.
Rebecca: Well, I have noticed that ArtCore does a very wide variety of things. They present a wide variety of types of music and artists which kind of characterizes ArtCore in my mind.
Carolyn: And that is why it is interesting when we do surveys because we find that we have a lot of different audiences. We have people who will only come to the locals. You know they come to the Tremors and to the different ones with the local performers. And then we have the people who are really tied into dance, and we present dance every year. This next year we will have Soul Street Dance which are street dancers from Houston who are fabulous. We will have Rory Woodbury which is a modern company from Salt Lake and we will have Chicago tap Theater which includes live instrumentalists and tap dancers on stage for the concert. All of those will be doing a lot of outreach with master classes, school shows, and Soul Street even goes to the juvenile detention unit.
Rebecca: Okay, that is all very enlightening. I didn't know that you guys did all that. Okay I want to jump back just quickly. You said Kelly Walsh, let’s just clarify, that is the high school on the east side of Casper.
Carolyn: Correct.
Rebecca: Okay, well let’s see do you have anything to add and or- maybe I asked you this already I don’t have the question written down or crossed out. The high point of your time with the symphony. You have been playing with the symphony for- I did the math here, for more than 45 years, 46 years. Does any concert jump out at you as being the absolute most transcendent, fun, inspiring experience of your musical life?
Carolyn: (laughter) Oh my, well it has been a joy to do all of them. I think the two that I told you about are probably the. You know the Visas for Life was very very special that we were able to do that and then it was a lot of fun to play in the musical- you know. I played violin in orchestra when I was in high school before my wrist wrecked up and so I had played in Camelot and Carnival and I am trying to think of what the other one was. But, 1776 is the only one I got to play percussion in and that was a lot of fun.
Rebecca: Okay, is there anything else you would like us to know about your involvement with the Casper Symphony or the Wyoming Symphony? Or whatever various names it has had over the years.
Carolyn: No just that it is tremendously exciting to get to be on stage and to be part of symphonic music. You know it is just- to be on the stage and be embroiled with the sweep of the sound you wish that the audience could be there with you. And it is much better now that NCHS, Natrona County High School, its stage has been redone because it has a lot better sound with the orchestra pulled out to the front. It used to be that the sound would go up into the catwalk and not go out into the people like you wish it would. So the sound is much better, but it is never the same as being in the middle of it.
Rebecca: It is interesting to hear you say that, describing what it is like to be in the middle of the sound. I know it is something I have always treasured about playing in an orchestra. So you are on the very periphery of the orchestra playing in the percussion section but you still have that experience of being immersed apparently.
Carolyn: Yes, see I am lucky because they usually put me in front so I am very close to the harp and the piano and I often have similar parts. So I am very much in with that part of the orchestra. Jane Hammond and I are often side by side a lot of times and Kathy Williams on piano and then other-. You know, it is possible that the drum set might be beside me but a lot of times the snare players and gong and others like that are either beside me or in back of me. So I really do get to be part of the main part.
Rebecca: Have you ever been called upon to play piano? As a percussionist in the symphony?
Carolyn: Yes, there was a time when Betsy Taggart was actually the symphony pianist but she was doing a solo piece with us and so I got to cover the other parts she would have played if she were just playing the symphony. So that was fun.
Rebecca: Well you have to have so many skills and know so many things to play percussion in an orchestra it seems to me-
Carolyn: (laughter)
Rebecca: It’s not like me with the cello where all I have to do is hold the bow and move my fingers. You know that is a big job but it is only one instrument. And only one line of music, so.
Carolyn: Sure, but but- what you are doing for the most part- I mean you may have a four part chord or something but generally what you are doing is reading the melody of a piano piece. Or say the left hand part if you are playing in some things if you are accompanying a woodwind instrument or something. The fact is, compared to what I read on piano or organ, the reading part of it is very easy for me. Now, for everybody- just like I didn’t learn snare theoretically percussion people when they are coming up through school they learn all the different percussion instruments. They play cymbals, they play snare, they play bells and stuff. But I found a lot of times when the scores come to us that we use for a given concert. A bell part will have every note written in. So that says to me that it is someone that does not easily read and you know, so- the skill level of a mallet percussionist coming from piano and organ world is far greater than coming from the percussion world. And there was another fun concert in Laramie that was a celebration of- I think a concert of the opening of the Civic Center. Excuse me, I meant to say Cheyenne. It was in Cheyenne and they invited people from the different symphonies to come. So there were five of us in percussion that were going and the principal percussionist divided up parts. It was very scary for me because I was supposed to play a snare part, which I couldn’t do. But, instead of telling him I waited until I got there and then the group of percussionists were meeting and I said, ‘I don’t play this, I can’t do this.’ and somebody else said, ‘man I was really worried about a mallet part.’ So we switched and we were in great shape.
Rebecca: (laughter) That is a great story.
Carolyn: (laughter) And we got to play not only some separate literature but we got to play some pieces with Ballet Wyoming and that stage was big enough that they could have our symphonic group and then a screen that was projecting some images and then the dancers in front of that. So that was very cool.
Rebecca: Okay, let’s back up you used the word snare. Can you define that a little better?
Carolyn: Snare instrument is a drum that has some pieces of metal attached to the bottom and they can either be on or off. If they are on then it is the rattling sound you hear when people are doing any of the marches for military things or to accompany the Star Spangled Banner. Or it is the general sound you hear with drums that are played with two sticks that just play evenly on the drum head. If you don’t have them then it just kind of thuds more like a standard drum but with the snares on it is the more rattly, higher pitched sound that everybody would know from marches and the anthem.
Rebecca: Okay, let’s go back to the piano for a minute and clarify. The right hand is the hand that usually plays the tune and the left hand is- usually but not always- is that right?
Carolyn: That’s right, there are pieces written to highlight your left hand or something you know but generally the right hand is more like the sopranos in a choir. It's doing the melody.
Rebecca: Okay, and left hand is playing chords whether all together or-
Carolyn: Individual notes. Right.
Rebecca: Now I want to go back to something you said about every note being written out. The implication being that if a person had a higher skill level they would just need chords indicated?
Carolyn: No, it’s just a matter of- it’s just a matter of when I read piano or organ music like organ music I am reading two hands and feet. And on piano I might have all ten of my fingers busy. But generally with the mallet instruments you are playing a melody note that would be on the- it is just one note that you are reading at [a] time. So I am not reading full compositions where the piano is trying to be the full orchestra. Instead you are just reading one line. In a lot of the European scores they would write just one instrument’s notes. So just like what you have for cello. You have a single line right?
Rebecca: Right.
Carolyn: And that is what the mallet instruments would have for the most part. But if you look at piano music we may have four or five notes that we are playing at once.
Rebecca: Right.
Carolyn: So it’s just that you have a single line that you are reading.
Rebecca: Okay, I want to ask you about attitudes. You are a percussionist and I am wondering if either from your fellow musicians or from non-musicians if you have encountered a stereotype that percussionists are a little bit dim witted and that they don’t really need the same level of skill that a string player or something like that would need. Do you run into that attitude?
Carolyn: I have not, the thing I have noticed about percussionists and I think we all realize is that there are a lot of people, especially people who are drummers, who are always their fingers are moving, they are always doing rhythms. You always figure they were doing that from the time they were little kids on their mom’s pots and pans in the kitchen. But when they are just sitting waiting between pieces, or something like that, they will have music going through their head and they will be doing rhythms. So I think of the drummers as kind of being engaged in and thinking about music all the time, and if I see someone doing that- out in public. I tend to think that they may be a drummer but I don’t- the only thing I have noticed is that people will kid us about being paid by the note.
Rebecca: (laughter)
Carolyn: Because of course we don’t have as many as the string people and so- I don’t know if you knew Leah Sprague but she played flute and then went to piccolo and she had rheumatoid arthritis and in the later years she couldn’t hold the flute. But anyway, when she was playing piccolo we did a piece and I had a triangle ding and then I had 82 measures [rest] and then I had another triangle ding and then I had a hundred and some measures and then I had another and that is what I had for the piece. I found out later, after the concert, that she was waiting for my second triangle ding to be her cue for an entrance and I said, ‘My gosh! What if I missed it?’ and she said, ‘Well you didn’t’ (laughter) you know but I could have!
Rebecca: [Inaudible]
Carolyn: For sure, but so- then an example of what happened you know we just premiered a piece in March that was a suffragette piece for I am trying to remember the woman’s first name but her last name was Boyles. She did some traveling around Wyoming and she studied some history and then she did this work that we presented. I was told when we got the assignments that I didn’t have an assignment for that piece. Then it turned out that she had written the bass drum part that Ron Colter was playing so that it went immediately to a snare part and he didn’t have time to put down the bass drum mallet and pick up the snare sticks. So he let me know that they needed me for that section. The stage was crowded so if you see the recording of it you can just see my head in the back behind the bass drum because I was sitting beside the risers and right behind the bass drum. I was squishing in my shoulder as he was playing the bass drum and I was needed for exactly seven measures. But, it was loud bass drum playing fast notes and it couldn’t be covered any other way than to pull one person while the other did that… isn’t that insane.
Rebecca: Mhmm, and the snare is played with wooden drum sticks. Is that right?
Carolyn: That’s right, sometimes they have plastic tips but they are basically wood.
Rebecca: Well, I have to tell you something that happened to me when I was at music camp at UW when I was in high school. We had a percussionist that was doing a demonstration or a performance for us or something and he asked us how many of us thought percussion didn’t take very much skill or that percussionists were second class musicians and so on. And a lot of us raised our hands. He is sitting up there with a trap set and I’m thinking maybe you should describe to the listener what is involved in a trap set.
Carolyn: Okay, it has a bass drum that is controlled with your foot so you are hitting the beater on that by depressing a pedal with your foot. Then it has a snare drum like we have been talking about that has the rattly sound and it often has a tom drum which has a non-rattle sound. That is just a general drum sound but it is higher than the bass drum that you hit with your foot and then it has cymbals. In this case the cymbals are a plate of metal that is on a stand and they are moveable; they are just hooked to the stand at one point. Then when you hit them with a drum stick they sizzle and they make a neat sound, but as opposed to the crash cymbals you would be hearing with the National Anthem and you hear snare and bass drum and cymbals all together. These are free standing so the person who is drumming the snare can lift his stick and hit the cymbal at any given beat. Frequently they will have two cymbals so you will have different sounds. So you are a one man band with being able to play the snare sound, the regular drum sounds and the cymbals.
Rebecca: And the cymbals the way you are describing them, they ring until they-
Carolyn: Until you stop them, that’s right. So what did this guy do with the trap set?
Rebecca: Oh well he said; ‘Okay, do this with your foot’ and he showed us what he did with his foot. ‘Do this with your other foot’ and he showed us what he did with the other foot-
Carolyn: Because you can do cymbals with your feet too.
Rebecca: Yep, ‘Do this with your right hand and do this with your left hand’ and we very quickly discovered that was a lot harder than we thought it was. So kind of put us in our places.
Carolyn: Excellent! And I was in a brass and percussion class at Greeley where we were learning a little bit about all the different instruments. So, we were trying out trap set and I was doing okay and the teacher was impressed until they told him I was an organ major.
Rebecca: (laughter)
Carolyn: At which point he said; ‘Well you should be able to have all your appendages work.’
Both: (laughter)
Rebecca: Well at least when you play organ you don’t have to play with your toes, just your two feet.
Carolyn: You actually play toe and heel to play the black notes and the white notes
Rebecca: Ah, so it’s basically the ball of the foot and the heel of the foot.
Carolyn: Right so, we frequently wear tap shoes because they have got about an inch heel on them and that lets our ankle leverage to let us go toe-heel-toe-heel along the keys. So even our toes happen on the white keys, not just the black ones but you are basically walking along or dancing along the pedal board.
Rebecca: Boy, playing an entire organ recital must require quite a lot of stamina in the legs.
Carolyn: It does, it really does. You know it is funny I had a roommate at Iowa that was a theater major and we were not friends the first semester. Then she decided we should be friends, she was a very strange person but she could never understand why I would be tired after I had practiced organ for a couple hours. Until she finally went to an organ recital and then she got it.
Rebecca: Yeah, I would imagine so.
Carolyn: (laughter)
Rebecca: Okay, is there anything else you want to tell us about involvement with the symphony.
Carolyn: Um, no I just think that it’s a wonderful part of Casper that we have had such a history of music. Because they count- the City Band has played every year except the Covid year since 1888. The [Wyoming] Symphony when they count the years that we are playing, we are 70 years old from World War II. But there was a symphony that came before us but they quit for the war and they don’t count those years. So you know the people that we bring in from ArtCore are just totally amazed that we have the symphony and if they happen to be in town and they go to a symphony [concert] they are astounded by the quality of it. And they are amazed that we have had amazing music teachers in the schools. And student ensembles [groups]. Another neat concert was when they included the string players with the symphony and we had 50 string players from the secondary schools that played in with the symphony for a couple pieces. But you know people don’t know what Casper is and then they come in and they find out what all is going on here and they are astounded.
Rebecca: Yeah, that is not surprising. Okay well I really appreciate you giving your time today to-
Carolyn: Well I thank you for-
Rebecca: Share your experience in the symphony.
Carolyn: Well it is nice to be asked and it is very nice to visit with you and hear your stories.
Rebecca: Okay, well thanks again and good luck with everything you are doing with ArtCore.
Carolyn: Thank you very much good luck with this project and everything you are doing.
Rebecca: Thank you Carolyn. Bye.
Carolyn: Bye, Bye.