Band and the librarians, session 10
I don't mean to put my band and library posts together, but that's how things have been going lately.
Band
As I'd already figured, I had to help put the band set-up back together. There was more mention of fining the group that, despite having multiple young bodies, neglects to put the chairs back to a reasonable facsimile of how the band wants them. Also, because it had snowed on Sunday, the ground was slushy and gross...and loved my shoes, so that everywhere I walked, everyone knew where I'd been. I swear I wiped my feet off on the mat as I walked in, but the treads must be pretty deep and I was leaving prints everywhere. Even after I'd been walking around for a while, I still left prints. Great. On the plus side, since we are down two flutes in our row, we were able to shift over as well as add the piccolo back to our row, so I ended up down a chair or two from where I first set my stuff down, meaning it looked like someone else tracked in the dirt. :P Of course, my moving over then threw off other people, who sort of judge where they should be sitting based on where other people fall in the set-up. We have the lead sax player who has been gone for a few weeks who was very confused to find me sitting in front of her, rather than off to her left.
I'm currently sharing a stand with a high school player, and she got to band late this week. Had she arrived even five minutes before band started, I could have gotten myself set up and ready to go right away. Alas, I hadn't turned my chair properly, so when we played our first song, I actually stopped playing after the first line or two because it was too awkward. And I couldn't turn my chair because I'd have whacked two-chairs-down, who has swapped seats with her stand partner because it's more comfortable, so I just sat there. Well, okay, I started looking through the folder, which I've lent to the high school girl, but I was having a hard time finding the music. Have I mentioned that I keep a folder of originals? This way I have something to turn in once we're done with a piece, but I still have the copies in my binder for myself. This worked out well when I gained a stand partner, because now she has her own music to practice, and she also had music to play when I was on piccolo for three weeks. However, since she'd gotten there late, that sort of screwed things up and I was kind of cranky at first. Eventually I did apologize and explain why it's better to get there on time, though I understand some people's schedules aren't conducive to that. I also got a chance to tell her she's doing a nice job, too, and the piccolo player concurred. There was also an amusing moment during the rhapsody we're playing, the one where two-chairs-down is playing something not written on the page. I did, in fact, say something this week, that I could hear that someone's playing it wrong and, you know, it's just rest, quarter; rest, quarter. I'm pretty sure her stand partner knew what I was trying to do. However, two-chairs-down then proceeded to pass the word along to the people down on the next stand. Yeah...they're not the problem. Consider, last week, there was ample space between her and the next flutes over, meaning I couldn't even hear them. Since it blends in, I may not mention it again, but it does throw my counting off. Otherwise I'm not recalling much from Monday so the rest of the night must have been uneventful.
Library
Harold Hill was there when I arrived a little early on Thursday. I didn't expect too many people--Marian's daughter had her baby on Wednesday, and Amaryllis had a college friend in town she was meeting with. Mrs. Paroo's new job is creating chaos with her schedule; she asked about coming in during some point this weekend to do some cataloging. The guy who helped out once, I've not seen him since. That left Harold, and me, and Mrs. Shinn showed up after a little bit. She's still sort of playing catch-up, but since we're back to going through the songs to check parts, that's not so hard once you know what to look for. Before she arrived, though, Harold and I were discussing the game plan. We've now found all the large Sousa pieces, and he thought about going through the march-size ones. I reminded him that his initial reaction was to get all the big pieces out of the way, and then we'd go through all the march stuff. There's a ton of it, not just on the big carts but also in bins, and right now we simply don't have the room to sort it all. If we clear out all the big pieces of music, that'll give us one full cart to work with, plus we can sort through the bins and get specific composers in them. He thought that made sense and so there we go. Much of what we're doing now is just making sure we do have all the parts we're meant to have, which sometimes is difficult, and then of course just within the Sousa songs we're finding duplicates of sorts, or else music that should have been in a folder but wasn't. There was a point where Mrs. Shinn had just spent probably half an hour just sorting one piece, only to go grab more music and find both its missing folder *and* more music for it to boot. That's not frustrating or anything. I had one song that was only half complete, though since we already had it in our library, we'll probably just absorb those parts into ours. And, I came across one song that seemed really interesting, though when Mrs. Shinn saw the doodle-y part for the third clarinets (what she plays), which was more like something the firsts would play, she balked a bit at it. I'm pretty sure this is the piece I figured we could do on the 4th of July concert, because I came across a part for cannon and gong. That is...not common, to say the least. And, well, we already have the cannons for the 4th, so why not get more use out of them, right? Another song had a harp part, and Mrs. Shinn discovered parts for Eb cornet, which I also then found. We're figuring it's smaller than a standard cornet but since it's obsolete in American music, we're just guessing. Also, as I was looking through the library's catalog of music to find if we already had some of the pieces we were sorting, I came across "Pink Lemonade" and "Pizza Party," which made me think we could do a "Picnic in the Park" theme for one of the summer concerts. I did share that with Harold but I'm not sure what he thought of it.
Band
As I'd already figured, I had to help put the band set-up back together. There was more mention of fining the group that, despite having multiple young bodies, neglects to put the chairs back to a reasonable facsimile of how the band wants them. Also, because it had snowed on Sunday, the ground was slushy and gross...and loved my shoes, so that everywhere I walked, everyone knew where I'd been. I swear I wiped my feet off on the mat as I walked in, but the treads must be pretty deep and I was leaving prints everywhere. Even after I'd been walking around for a while, I still left prints. Great. On the plus side, since we are down two flutes in our row, we were able to shift over as well as add the piccolo back to our row, so I ended up down a chair or two from where I first set my stuff down, meaning it looked like someone else tracked in the dirt. :P Of course, my moving over then threw off other people, who sort of judge where they should be sitting based on where other people fall in the set-up. We have the lead sax player who has been gone for a few weeks who was very confused to find me sitting in front of her, rather than off to her left.
I'm currently sharing a stand with a high school player, and she got to band late this week. Had she arrived even five minutes before band started, I could have gotten myself set up and ready to go right away. Alas, I hadn't turned my chair properly, so when we played our first song, I actually stopped playing after the first line or two because it was too awkward. And I couldn't turn my chair because I'd have whacked two-chairs-down, who has swapped seats with her stand partner because it's more comfortable, so I just sat there. Well, okay, I started looking through the folder, which I've lent to the high school girl, but I was having a hard time finding the music. Have I mentioned that I keep a folder of originals? This way I have something to turn in once we're done with a piece, but I still have the copies in my binder for myself. This worked out well when I gained a stand partner, because now she has her own music to practice, and she also had music to play when I was on piccolo for three weeks. However, since she'd gotten there late, that sort of screwed things up and I was kind of cranky at first. Eventually I did apologize and explain why it's better to get there on time, though I understand some people's schedules aren't conducive to that. I also got a chance to tell her she's doing a nice job, too, and the piccolo player concurred. There was also an amusing moment during the rhapsody we're playing, the one where two-chairs-down is playing something not written on the page. I did, in fact, say something this week, that I could hear that someone's playing it wrong and, you know, it's just rest, quarter; rest, quarter. I'm pretty sure her stand partner knew what I was trying to do. However, two-chairs-down then proceeded to pass the word along to the people down on the next stand. Yeah...they're not the problem. Consider, last week, there was ample space between her and the next flutes over, meaning I couldn't even hear them. Since it blends in, I may not mention it again, but it does throw my counting off. Otherwise I'm not recalling much from Monday so the rest of the night must have been uneventful.
Library
Harold Hill was there when I arrived a little early on Thursday. I didn't expect too many people--Marian's daughter had her baby on Wednesday, and Amaryllis had a college friend in town she was meeting with. Mrs. Paroo's new job is creating chaos with her schedule; she asked about coming in during some point this weekend to do some cataloging. The guy who helped out once, I've not seen him since. That left Harold, and me, and Mrs. Shinn showed up after a little bit. She's still sort of playing catch-up, but since we're back to going through the songs to check parts, that's not so hard once you know what to look for. Before she arrived, though, Harold and I were discussing the game plan. We've now found all the large Sousa pieces, and he thought about going through the march-size ones. I reminded him that his initial reaction was to get all the big pieces out of the way, and then we'd go through all the march stuff. There's a ton of it, not just on the big carts but also in bins, and right now we simply don't have the room to sort it all. If we clear out all the big pieces of music, that'll give us one full cart to work with, plus we can sort through the bins and get specific composers in them. He thought that made sense and so there we go. Much of what we're doing now is just making sure we do have all the parts we're meant to have, which sometimes is difficult, and then of course just within the Sousa songs we're finding duplicates of sorts, or else music that should have been in a folder but wasn't. There was a point where Mrs. Shinn had just spent probably half an hour just sorting one piece, only to go grab more music and find both its missing folder *and* more music for it to boot. That's not frustrating or anything. I had one song that was only half complete, though since we already had it in our library, we'll probably just absorb those parts into ours. And, I came across one song that seemed really interesting, though when Mrs. Shinn saw the doodle-y part for the third clarinets (what she plays), which was more like something the firsts would play, she balked a bit at it. I'm pretty sure this is the piece I figured we could do on the 4th of July concert, because I came across a part for cannon and gong. That is...not common, to say the least. And, well, we already have the cannons for the 4th, so why not get more use out of them, right? Another song had a harp part, and Mrs. Shinn discovered parts for Eb cornet, which I also then found. We're figuring it's smaller than a standard cornet but since it's obsolete in American music, we're just guessing. Also, as I was looking through the library's catalog of music to find if we already had some of the pieces we were sorting, I came across "Pink Lemonade" and "Pizza Party," which made me think we could do a "Picnic in the Park" theme for one of the summer concerts. I did share that with Harold but I'm not sure what he thought of it.