What I Learned from a Malfunctioning Smoke Alarm

I once had an intriguing conversation with a mentor about whether we tend to take concerts and all their formal trappings too seriously. Sure, it all seems to be a big deal, but in the grand scheme of things, such events don’t even compare to other, more serious life experiences. My mentor related this observation to a story of a baseball game in California he had once watched on television. The game was part of the World Series, and so there was obviously a fair amount of hype surrounding it. According to my mentor, the bands were playing, the players were nervously huddled together, and the fans were pumped for what was sure to be an unforgettable face-off–when all of the sudden, as is not unusual in California, an earthquake struck. Fortunately, it was relatively minor, but it nonetheless prompted a drastic change in the mood of the stadium. Forget the World Series, everyone thought. We just had an earthquake! The intrusion of mother nature into the relatively tiny world of baseball served as a humbling reminder that all the formalities of the event were just an illusion, an almost comic mirage conjured by unsuspecting humans. Luckily, the earth hadn’t opened up and swallowed the stadium whole, but if it had, the local fault line probably wouldn’t have given the baseball teams preferential treatment, and nobody would be caring all that much about their E.R.A.

This story came to mind the other night when I was at a concert presented by the Midsummer’s Music Festival, which is drawing to a close up here in Door County, Wisconsin. As my loyal base of regular readers will recall (at least, I hope I have a loyal base of regular readers), I have been quite busy up here serving dually as intern and cellist. This particular concert took place in the fellowship hall of a local church, and while I wasn’t playing, I had been engaged as a page-turner (a task which, I’ve discovered, is harder than it looks!). So, a minute before start time, I found myself lingering slightly offstage with the performers, looking out at the sizable audience comprised of parishioners, tourists, and locals. Although the atmosphere was not quite as intense as it might be at a prominent orchestral venue, it was definitely serious. The audience was conversing in low mutters, the musicians were studiously examining their music, and as I watched, our tuxedo-clad artistic director was walking purposefully to the front to introduce the first piece on the program. It seemed as though it was going to be a typical concert–until, a minute into our director’s remarks on the Schubert “Adagio and Rondo,” an odd beeping sound suddenly began to emanate from the arched wooden ceiling. Heads turned skyward, and brows furrowed. Jim, our artistic director, looked worriedly to the back.

“Can someone get Mark?” he called out.

Mark is our dedicated executive director, and a man of many talents. It so happened, however, that he wasn’t in the church, having decided to take advantage of a respite from the action to take down our advertisement signs by the highway. Abandoning my page-turner guise, I hurried outside to fetch him, and within minutes, he, Jim, and the pastor of the church were all gathered beneath the smoke detector on the ceiling, which had been determined to be the source of the disturbance. Given that it was protected by a thick sheet of glass, the usual solution of removing the battery wasn’t an option. Envoys were sent to the fuse box to see if it could be disabled from there, but to no avail. Audience members pitched in with some suggestions, but none seemed to be feasible . The custodian was called, but she wouldn’t be able to get there for at least twenty minutes. My Dad, who is also a cellist in the group, determined that the incessant beeping was at the precise tempo of 102 to the quarter. Finally, Jim decided that since the room was so resonant (we’re talking major hardwood here), the music would (hopefully) drown out the beeping, and finally invited the musicians to take the stage. As I took my seat by the piano, I marveled at how quickly the atmosphere of the concert had changed. It no longer felt as though the musicians were separated from the audience; it was if we were all suddenly a cheery group of friends, silently chuckling to ourselves about the unfortunate nature of the situation. Of all the times for the smoke alarm to malfunction, it just had to happen during a concert! Clearly, we had some bad karma going on with the technology gods.

Luckily, Jim’s hunch turned out to be correct; you could barely hear the beeping at all during the Schubert. However, when the last chord had faded and the subsequent applause had died away, the insufferable annoyance resounded from the eaves once more. I had only just remarked to the pianist that it seemed to be a lost cause when Mark emerged from the hallway carrying an exceptionally long pole, an intensely determined expression etched upon his face. Actually, it looked a little as though he were a hunter preparing to strike his prey. Positioning himself directly beneath the stubborn device, he aimed a couple well-placed jabs at its glass encasement. It was an admirable effort, but the alarm continued its tried-and-true “beep…beep…beep…”

The custodian hadn’t arrived yet, and it seemed as though there were no avenues left to pursue, so we went ahead with the next work on the program. As I positioned the pianist’s music on the stand, I thought I observed some movement in the audience beneath the alarm. Suddenly, right before the first chord, the noise stopped. I couldn’t believe it. How had they done it? Had the alarm at last run out of battery? Had Mark secured some techno-enhanced laser pointer to deactivate the thing?

The real explanation was actually not too far off from the laser pointer speculation, but just as bizarre. It turns out that an elderly audience member had brought an oxygen tank with her as a precautionary measure, and there was a transmitting device inside that was intended to alert necessary medical personnel in the event of the device’s malfunction. Somehow, the transmitter’s signal had locked onto the transmitter in the smoke alarm, since the patron in question was sitting almost directly beneath it–even though the actual machinery in the oxygen tank was operating normally. Someone had pointed this out to Mark, and after he gently moved it away, the noise stopped. Needless to say, it was the talk of the audience at intermission. Even the patron herself was flummoxed (“it’s never happened before!”) but made the decision to banish the device to the car for the remainder of the evening (“I’ll be fine, really,” she assured the pastor). I guess “transmitters in oxygen tanks” might merit an inclusion in the list of devices to deactivate prior to a concert.

All practical issues aside, I did find it very interesting–and ultimately, very telling–how an unprecedented complication effectively broke down the so-called “fourth wall” between the performers and the audience. Although not on the scale of the World Series earthquake, it did cause us to realize that hey, we’re all in this together. Formalities are important, but when it comes down to it, a concert is really just a bunch of humans coming together to make music and enjoy it. I don’t know about you, but I think that definition makes the whole business a lot more friendly.