Sunday, August 23, 2026
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Dig up your instruments! Polish that brass! But please read the "Rules" at the bottom.
Laurelhurst Park, 3500 SE Ankeny St
Meet near the bottom of the staircase, north side of the park.
Matt (and maybe Lauren)
Sun, Aug 23, 2026, 2:30 PM
2:30p gather, 3:00p warm-up, 3:20 "concert", 3:30 ride off to next park.
End location: Not a loop. Ends somewhere in inner SE. Maybe Piccolo Park. Maybe Sewallcrest. Maybe Ladd Circle.
Ride length: 0-3 miles
===== Listening to all of the instrumentalists warming up before an orchestra concert is a pretty great experience, right? Let's do that! Bring your favorite concert band or orchestra instrument. You don't need to be very good at it, just good enough to play "Happy Birthday" in concert C without hitting too many wrong notes. A few wrong notes is ok! This is all for fun, nothing serious ... but perhaps a _little bit serious_ because that'll make it more fun. Here's the general idea, after arriving at the starting location: (1) Spend 10-15 minutes warming up. THIS is the main activity, the bulk of what we'll be doing, not the "concert" part. Play whatever you want: scales, arpeggios, snippets of random pieces of music. Indulge, but not in a way that calls too much attention to yourself, please. Respect the cacophony. We're a collective. (2) Silence. Conductor. Strings and winds tune to a concert A. Hopefully we'll have an oboe player to tune to. (3) A teeny-tiny concert: everyone plays "Happy Birthday" in concert C, twice. First time through will be strictly in unison. Second time through, you can choose to play the melody line or harmonize however you want -- nothing over-the-top, nothing too attention-grabbing, but whatever feels fun and harmonious to you. (Percussion: keep it simple, but fun for you!) (4) Pack up. Ride to the next park, at most a mile, probably less. Start again at step 1, the 10-15 minute warm-up. Hopefully we'll have enough time to do this at 3 different parks, maybe 4. Bring friends! The more the better. If you don't have an instrument to bring, then you're part of the audience, all good! I haven't marked this ride as "Family Friendly", but kids are absolutely welcome. For very young kids, however, please make sure that they aren't going to run around so wildly that there's a risk of them knocking over someone's bassoon or getting jabbed in the face by a viola bow. RULE #1: No electric instruments, no amplification, no kazoos. Let's stick to instruments that you'll typically find in an orchestra, concert band, or marching band. (Percussion? Sure! Snare drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, whatever, as long as you can haul it on your bike.) RULE #2: No music while biking from one park to the next. Ding your bike bell to your heart's content, but *we're* the music on this ride, and I don't want other music to detract from that. RULE #3, #4, #5, etc: (reserved for future use).
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