No! Not Rain!

Weather is extremely important in the world of music. I know what you are thinking. 'How on earth does the weather affect music?' Why, I sure am glad you asked.

Some reasons are fairly obvious, such as weather affecting the venue. Many performances are outside during summer time and during the marching season. Marching bands perform outside on the football field in all sorts of conditions. During band camp in late August, it is extremely hot and you must stay extremely well hydrated in order to stay healthy and to not pass out. As the season continues the weather starts to change to a nicer, more controlled temperature. Many days it is very rainy outside and students are forced to trudge through the muddy, soggy field every day for rehearsal. Towards the end of the season, the weather starts getting very chilly. The wool uniforms that once heated up your body on the hot summer days now provide no warmth what so ever in the brutal cold. Sometimes the weather conditions are so extreme that the band can not perform at all. Football game half time performances are often called off at the beginning of the season because of the heat, and in extremely rare cases competitions are called off near the end in the case of a very early snow. In addition to marching band performances, there are also many community bands that perform outside throughout the summer. Usually the only time these performances is called off is when it is raining because the musicians have no way to protect their instruments.

The weather does not only affect the playing venue, it also affects how the instruments sound when played. Many professional woodwind instruments are made out of actual wood, which is a difficult material to deal with. The wood moves very often in accordance with the weather conditions. When it is hot, the wood expands and your pitch is raised so you become out of tune on the sharp side. On the opposite end of the spectrum, when it is cold outside the woods contracts and the pitch is lowered. This is because as the temperature increases the speed of your air also increases, raising the pitch. Similarly, when it is cold the air speed slows down, causing the pitch to go flat. The same things happens to brass instruments and saxophones, except the metal those instruments are made out of expands and contracts instead of the wood.

While the temperature outside affects the way your instrument sounds while playing, other conditions such as rain affect whether or not you will be playing your instrument at all. Brass instruments have no trouble playing in the rain, but it is a very different story for most woodwinds and percussion instruments made out of wood. Everyone knows that you should never get wood wet. The moisture gets trapped in the wood and then it slowly starts to decay away. This happens with instruments too. In addition to the wood, the metals on woodwind instruments also start to rust when they get wet. All of these things are extremely expensive to repair, so it is best to simply keep your instrument dry in the first place.