Nigel Horne conducts last night’s open rehearsal of the Washington Metropolitan Gamer Symphony Orchestra. (Photo by Sriram Gopal)

“And you got the rhythm totally wrong,” the conductor said in a mild-mannered British accent.

“That’s because this piece is testing the limits of my sight-reading abilities,” I replied.

This exchange took place about three-quarters of the way into last night’s rehearsal of the Washington Metropolitan Gamer Symphony Orchestra, or WMGSO, under the direction of Nigel Horne. I was playing drumset as the orchestra rehearsed “Eternal Conflict”, a challenging piece that contains quite a few shifts in mood, meter, and tempo.

The orchestra held an open session designed to bring out perspective musicians who may be interested in joining. As DCist’s staff is full of intrepid journalists, I decided to try my hand at playing in the orchestra’s percussion section for an evening.

Formed in 2013, the WMGSO is the brain-child of about a half dozen former University of Maryland students, who played in a similar ensemble there. The concept: to bring the challenging and artful music found in video games to the masses.

“The music is really an integral part of our culture, and we’ve always maintained that video game music is just good music,” said WMGSO trumpeter Robert Garner, who also does public relations for the group. “We wanted to take steps to help change that, to bring these soundtracks to people who may not have played the games.”

That would include not only the bulk of WMGSO members, but also yours truly. If the Kingdom of Daventry and “up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A-start” mean anything to you, that’s the extent of my video game knowledge. I started to lose interest in video games during high school, and coincidentally, last night’s rehearsal took place in the band room at my alma mater, Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville, MD. I spent many hours in this space, but haven’t set foot in it since 1994.

With stick bag in hand, I took my place among the ensemble’s regular percussionists, which included John Burke, section leader Lee Stearns, and Marissa Troiano, whose brother plays baritone sax in the orchestra and also serves as its webmaster.

“It’s a way to keep up with the music after being in marching band and stuff,” Troiano said of joining the WMGSO.

The first piece Horne calls from the conductor’s podium is “Dummy!” from the game, UnderTale. Like most of the group’s repertoire, a member arranged and orchestrated the song.

“There’s very little sheet music out there that you can purchase for full orchestra and chorus,” Garner explained before the rehearsal. “Our team goes through a long process of listening to the music over and over and over, and writing out the songs a handful of notes at a time.”

“Dummy!” is an uptempo number and my part was fairly straight-forward, but at one point, the strings struggled with its swing feel.

“Brits can’t swing,” Horne joked as he sang the line. “Don’t ask me to, so you’ll just have to do it.” Things became tighter after the lead violinist—who wore an awesomely appropriate shirt that read “Lord Of The Strings”—demonstrated the phrase.

This moment was indicative of how the rehearsal was run in general. Horne was specific in his criticisms, but he was hardly a taskmaster. After all, this is an all-volunteer organization. Instead, the atmosphere was loose and cordial.

The evening’s second piece was “Town Pictures”, a medley of “town” themes from a variety of titles, including Super Mario 64, Final Fantasy VII, and others. There was no drum part for this song, so I took the opportunity to walk around the rehearsal hall and see what members were doing.

While it’s an amateur group, the players take the music seriously. There is an audition process and it’s open to anyone over 18 years old on a rolling basis, as slots become available. Tryouts usually consist of having prospective players sit-in at a rehearsal, rather than solo performances in front of the leadership. The full ensemble rehearses weekly and sectionals are held as necessary.

We finished the night with the aforementioned “Eternal Flame”, another medley, but this is of bad guy, or “boss,” themes from a number of games such as Wind Waker, Clash on the Big Bridge, Mass Effect, and others. A choir, which had been rehearsing next door, joined the orchestra for the piece. I struggled my way through each section, but somehow managed to earn some compliments from my fellow drummers. The rehearsal concluded with a round of applause from the choir to the orchestra.

The WMGSO’s season-ending performances take plane in June, in Falls Church and Rockville. After a summer break, it will reconvene to prepare for fall concerts.

“In the not-too-distant future, we’re looking to expand WMGSO’s geographic footprint, putting on concerts throughout the D.C. area,” Garner said. “A few of us have joked about recording a game soundtrack ourselves some day. It just seemed like pie in the sky, but three years ago we had no idea we’d be getting arts grants to perform video game music in front of hundreds of people, so who knows where we’ll be three years from now?”

Visit the Washington Metropolitan Gamer Symphony Orchestra web site for its performance schedule and information on how to join.