Stroke of Midnight New Year’s Improv

January 1, 2023. Midnight- I have always loved listening to the year roll over. Before cell phones, the pops and bangs and car horns and yelling would start trickling in several minutes before midnight—building to the maximum noise making at midnight. Then, after a minute or so of lots of yelling and some fireworks added to the mix, the loud sounds would thin out and the night would return to whatever state of steady ambience it normally lived in.

Since cell phones, this whole progression happens more “precisely” than in the days when each of us personalized our time keeping devices. Some of us ran a few minutes fast in order to be “on time” for appointments; others synchronized to some standard; still others didn’t keep time accurately at all but wore for watches for other reasons. This looseness of how each of us considered time- affected the sound of “midnight” on New Year’s Eve so that it was a rather drawn out, raggedy affair—

Now it seems that the whole noisy progression is more compressed. The first sounds start later and everything dies down more quickly. It has more of an ensemble feel to it – more predictable, a little less wild.

It’s still an amazing way to travel into the new year – listening in the darkness and celebrating with unknown and unknowable people playing this special once a year piece of music together.