The Information Super-Frog

A story from the not so distance past, shortly before it became common for people to carry a device in their pocket that could pull up sheet music or YouTube videos.

Our brass band lined up some 45 minutes before the start of an Easter parade to warm up and go over a few Easter related tunes not in our usual repertory. First: Bunny Hop. Easy. Then Irving Berlin’s “Easter Parade”. After a few choruses, we’d smoothed off the rough edges to the leader’s satisfaction.

Then the leader called for “Here Comes Peter Cotton-Tail”. We played the “A” section twice, then when it came to the bridge everyone but the drums stopped cold.
Discussion ensued. It turned out NO ONE in the band could remember how the bridge went. Not even to sing, hum, or whistle it.

After a bit someone came up with the clever suggestion to use the bridge from "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". We tried it, it worked, so we played it that way multiple times during the parade.


Here comes Peter Cotton-Tail
Hoppin' down the bunny trail
Hippity hoppin', Easter's on its way.
He sees you when you’re sleeping.
He knows when you’re awake.
He knows if you’ve been bad or good,
So be good for goodness sake…

The other day I got together with some musicians to rehearse a couple numbers for the Easter parade. Between us. we remembered the tunes of "Easter Parade" and "Here Comes Peter Cotton Tale". When we tried playing "Peter Cotton Tail", the lead trumpet counted it off too slow, but we kept going, playing it as a funeral dirge, then kicking it off as a second line. It worked. We wondered if we should do it that way at the parade. Isn't Easter supposed to have a death and resurection theme anyway?

Some of us are also playing for the Pyrate Parade this Friday. Any good pirate brass band numbers? Or maybe pirates don't have their own tunes, they just pillage other people's music.

May as well get good use out of songs we've run through. "Here Comes Pirate Cotton Tail"? "In Your Pirate Bonnet, With the Black Flag on it..."