Know-It-All

I’m not going to name names here because I really don’t want to offend anyone or get myself into hot water, but I know someone rather well who is a classic “know-it-all.” Now, we all know such people, so this isn’t going to be news to you. I remember my first encounter with one of these types. It was back in university, and I was in the middle of a rehearsal for one of my compositions. We were on the rehearsal stage, and my musicians were playing through the first movement of a chamber piece using a rather strange combo of instruments (a flute, an English horn, and a bass clarinet). From the wings of the stage, after we’d run through a particularly tricky passage, I heard an excited voice yell out, “That’s supposed to be a Bb in the English horn! She played a B natural!” Everyone in the group turned in bewilderment. Who the hell was that, and why was this any of his business? And how did he know what pitch the English horn was supposed to be playing? (I never did figure that out.)