Butchering the classics — and loving it. Meet the Triangle’s Really Terrible Orchestra.
In 2008, a retired software architect with a treble clef tattooed on his shoulder launched his own amateur orchestra, inviting 50-odd closeted musicians to dust off their cellos and pull bassoons out of their attics.
He called it the Really Terrible Orchestra Of the Triangle, or RTOOT for short, and it quickly grew into a musical community where nobody cared if your French horn warbled out of tune, your clarinet skipped the hard notes or your violist came to practice sporting a propeller beanie.
W. Sands Hobgood Jr., who died in 2016, took deep pride in his band’s lack of virtuosity, bragging that RTOOT had corporate presidents and a roller derby professional in its ranks.
“Maestro is spelled my strow,” he explained in a short documentary. “Or my Stroh if you happen to be a beer drinker.”
And on Dec. 7, when RTOOT holds its holiday concert, the orchestra will hold to its relaxed musical tradition by inviting the audience to play along during the Hallelujah Chorus — on kazoos they pass out.
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“We joke in our concerts to turn your cellphone on,” said violist Douglass Payne. “To distract from the music.”
The Really Terrible Orchestra takes inspiration from a Scotland-based group of the same name, profiled in the New York Times and featuring a bassoonist unable to play a C-sharp.
‘We don’t care’
And while “really terrible” might be an exaggeration, conductor Robert Petters has been known to turn away musicians for possessing too much talent. Beethoven might not actually roll over, but he probably makes a face.
“We allow mistakes,” Petters said at last week’s practice. “There’s some people who don’t play all of the notes, and if we pass over some, we don’t care.”
RTOOT’s goal lies in pulling symphonic music off its pedestal and placing in the hands of anyone able to breathe and read music at the same time. Performers wear sparkling tiaras, and sometimes bunny ears, to concerts.
Some of its 98 members picked up their violin bows late in life, while others are reigniting musical brain cells gone dormant since middle school.
Hardly anyone flunks the audition, so the instrument mix depends on who shows up. Last week, French horns outnumbered trumpets, and RTOOT boasted as many bassoons as clarinets.
But they launched fearlessly into Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain,” which presents a violin player with a dizzying string of sixteenth notes.
“This is kickin’ my butt,” said Debbie Moose, the freelance food writer formerly of the N&O, who only took up her instrument at age 50. “I just kind of wave at it as it goes by. Air fiddling is acceptable.”
‘Under-promise and over-deliver’
Often, creativity can flourish in environments with low expectations. Anyone who ever graced a middle school band stage knows Leroy Anderson’s arrangement for “Sleigh Ride,” which RTOOT plays in its holiday singalong.
But the song’s ending calls for a loud crack to simulate the sound of a buggy whip, a task normally handled by a percussionist with a pair of boards. Lacking that equipment in last week’s practice, the timpani player yelled “Whip!” at the appropriate moment.
“We don’t want to raise expectations too high,” Moose said. “What do they say in business? Under-promise and over-deliver.”
So warm up your kazoo embouchure and come out to RTOOT’s big gig next week, knowing that some of the melodies will probably manage to fight their way out of the cacophony. And even if they don’t, the players will probably be available to sign autographs afterward.
Mussorgsky forgives you in advance.
Maybe they’ll even sign your kazoo.
The Really Terrible Orchestra of the Triangle all 2022 concert will be on Wednesday, December 7 at 7:30 p.m. at the Cary Arts Center. Tickets are $10 for adults and $2 for children under twelve. See the website for ticket options: https://rtoot.org/
This story was originally published November 28, 2022 at 6:00 AM.