Halloween and Music
Hello everyone! It's Friday, the last day of Blog Week in October! Speaking of October, who's getting into the Halloween spirit? I'm pretty excited for the holiday this year. I'm also thinking back on the last 4 years of celebrating Halloween at college. Here are the links to previous blogs that I've mentioned about my college experiences so far: School Is Over, I Sigh to Sing, and 1812.
So as I've mentioned before, I officially ended up choosing my voice as my "instrument" in my school's music program. But before that in my first semester, Fall of 2018, I played my Cello. Because of this, I was in the Symphony Orchestra that semester and got to participate with all the other cellists in playing a Halloween joke on our conductor.
Earlier that semester during practice, a few cellists noticed that our 2nd cellist was wearing the same outfit as our conductor that day- a blue shirt and tan khaki pants. Those few cellists quietly took a picture and sent it to the group chat that included all the Cello players. We soon decided that we would all dress up in that outfit for Halloween, and one cellist was even able to contact our conductor's wife who was willing to convince him to wear that outfit again on Halloween.
Halloween came and I found myself in my private Cello lesson wearing a blue shirt and tan pants. My Cello teacher was also in his Halloween costume. He loves to dress up in a renaissance outfit each year, and the Orchestra conductor interrupted our lesson by opening the door and complimenting my teacher's outfit. Sure enough, our conductor was wearing a blue shirt and brown pants. Thankfully, he was distracted by my private teacher's fancy outfit to notice what I was wearing. By the time Orchestra practice came, however, it didn't take long for him to realize that all the Cello players were wearing the same outfit as he was wearing! It was so funny to see him silently looking at each of us with an expression on his face that said, Wait a minute…you're all wearing blue shirts and brown pants…and so am I! That was a very memorable Halloween!
The next year, Halloween of 2019, wasn't as exciting or funny. I had started working at a store that fall which sold a lot of cheap, random stuff. This attracted lots of different people who would be looking for items that would work for their Halloween costumes. I can't really explain it, but seeing people obsessively look for Halloween stuff gave me the creeps and I didn't want to dress up that year.
I got over those feelings by October of 2020. Since I could get extra credit in my Music History 1 class by dressing up, I got back into the Halloween spirit. The Cello teacher taught this class, so of course he was dressed up like a musician from the 1700s.
I came to class that day dressed up like a Monk- or Guido of Arezzo. Guido helped with the invention of Solfege, and I absolutely LOVE Solfege!(If you can't already tell from the video I put up in September) What's funny though is that I bought a brown bed sheet to wrap around myself for the costume and I got it from the EXACT same store I worked at a year before! I also went to a Halloween party and dressed up as Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service since my hair was very short at the time. Brownie points goes to whoever knows about Kiki's Delivery Service and/or other Studio Gibli films! Comment below!
Last year, October of 2021, I decided to have even more fun and dress up as a music joke! The pictures should say it all:
Still not sure what my costume is? I'm a conductor! Both a musical and train conductor. I went around of my music friends and teachers and asked them if they could guess what I was for Halloween. They couldn't figure it out, but once I turned around and took off my blue coat they chuckled at the music joke I had tapped to my back. "I'm a conductor!" I'd say to them happily.
What about you? What was your most memorable Halloween costume you've worn? What are you hoping or planning to be for Halloween this year? Let me know in the comments down below! Please also make sure you get a chance to watch my YouTube videos and consider buying the sheet music of my original songs and/or donating to my website. I hope you enjoy Halloween this year!
Thanks for reading to the end of my blog.
