Fancy Band: Recording session #3
This was an odd mishmash of last cycle's songs and this cycle's songs. We've had two of the songs since December; the other three we've only had for a few weeks. One of the latter songs, we've only rehearsed once as a group--and never with Dr. K. This past Tuesday, he sent an email regarding what we'd be recording this week, as well as errata for the song he's never worked on with the group. He *maaaay* have gotten several frustrated texts from me, because, like, he was all, mark your parts and make sure you practice this before Thursday! ...Um. It's 9:15 on a Tuesday night. I'm tired as all get out. I'm certainly not practicing tonight. I am not about to practice tomorrow, my one night off during the week. So, basically, I will be going in cold to the recording session with the changes that need to be made from this PDF with tiny, tiny print that doesn't appear to be in an easy order to follow. GREAT! He chalked up my response to my "caustic" sense of humor (not the first time he's referred to it that way; I'm like, great, I'm human lye), but really, that's exceedingly frustrating. The errata list appears to have come from a fellow band member, and who knows when the guy came across it, but two days before we record is NOT the best time to do that. Luckily, for my part, half of it was easy to figure out and I'd already been doing it, but at the same time when I got there on Thursday, there was L the younger pulling up the list on her phone and correcting her music kind of as we were playing it. Not ideal.
Also not ideal: The smell. I got in, I sat down, I put on my playing mask. I then noticed this...odor...and wondered if it was the mask itself or what. Remember, I still have scent issues; they haven't entirely gone away. So I didn't know what I was smelling or if other people were even perceiving it. Then Dr. K got up on the podium and went, man, I don't know what that skunk smell is; I wonder if a skunk sprayed into the air intakes. (Aha. Coffee and skunk come across similarly to me, even pre-covid, and I wasn't sure if the smell was one of those things.) I missed what someone said but I'm guessing a comment was made about skunk *weed*, because the next thing I know, Dr. K is saying, ah, that's what that smells like? I've never partaken of that particular herb. (...Good to know.)
...I also feel like this recording should have the designation "recorded while high." I will say I did have a slight headache for a time but I don't recall anything out of the ordinary happening overall in relation to that.
It was also St. Patrick's Day, so a fair amount of people, including yours truly, wore green. I was disappointed that Dr. K didn't, but then again his name alone is more Irish than I am, heh. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen him in green. I also had on my festive four-leaf clover socks; B said she liked them. The band building is also very close to an Irish pub, which clearly was busy for the evening. I've not seen it that busy in the months I've been coming to band, and it explained the extra cars in the lot where I park. It also led to a humorous moment during the recording session. Some of the brass weren't cutting off in the right place during a phrase, and Dr. K said something like, don't hang over there...which is what the people at the pub will have in the morning. A good portion of the band chuckled. I was like, look! You made a joke and it was funny! People laughed! (It was about time, heh.)
Dr. K had planned to start off with one of the older songs, but when a particular player (probably percussion) hadn't shown up yet, he decided to work on the patriotic Ives song, which was the one with the errata. Good choice--while he'd replied to me saying he wasn't worried about this piece, we've only played through it once as a group, and there definitely were spots that needed help. He was now able to work on it with us. There's a flute section that's pretty hairy; it goes into double-tongued 32nd notes. If they were just chromatic or scalar, that would be one thing, but they're a mix of both and it's kind of a bear. I don't have it down just yet. When he had just the flutes play those measures, I left my flute in my lap. I'm not even going to pretend to play it at this point. We play it, it's kind of messy, he decides to have just M (on piccolo) and B (who's played it before) play through it, then added L the elder, and at that point he looks at the rest of us and goes, would you be insulted if I just have them play it for now? I went, nope! So, on the recording, it's just them.
Not having done a recording session in a while, I forgot that our goal isn't to play the whole thing all the way through in one shot. It's not a concert. The pieces were played in chunks. You might do 3-4 sections, then stop and get feedback. Dr. K's cohort, the bassoon teacher, was out in the audience listening and letting us know stuff like, the bassoons are out of tune, the clarinets and oboe can play out in X section, that sort of thing. During the piccolo and flute 32nd note run, she was saying, I can't hear the Eb clarinet. Turns out, that player thought Dr. K wanted the picc and two flutes only to play that section. Well...no...only out of the entire flute section; you get to play, too. So now he had to be added in and get caught up to speed. It ended up fine but this is some of what one has to deal with when you've barely played the song before. (And the other thing about the errata list--my music does not have measure numbers AT ALL, so part of my fun on Wednesday night was numbering my part so that I could figure out where all the corrections were supposed to go. In case anyone wondered why I was so cranky about it.)
We ended up just recording the Ives after working on it, which made sense; it was already up and we had it under our fingers. No sense leaving and coming back to it. I think after that we did the driving song, which overall went fine. Then I think came the slow, pretty song from cycle 3. This was one where B came up to me to check our pitches and tuning; it's just us two in the flute section at the very end, and she wasn't sure if she was out of tune, I was out of tune, maybe both of us, but she wanted to work on it a little bit. Fair enough; I'm pretty much concerned that I hold the pitch, versus listening to each other, to be honest. There was good reason for that, as it turns out. We played through the ending several times, and on the third time, the second to last note of the piece, my embouchure gave out and I frapped the note, sort of going "fwa" to get it out. Argh. Sorry! I basically deflated at that moment. Sigh. Dr. K was kind about it, thankfully--okay, let's do it again. That time was fine, and I think we called it a song, phew. I'm glad we're done with it. And I will say, the beginning of that piece, it probably took a dozen tries to get a good start for it. The clarinets speak more quickly than some of the other instruments like the lower woodwinds, so the beginning was kind of disjointed. The clarinets were told to slightly delay themselves and that seemed to work. I'm sure I wasn't the only person ready to move on from it, heh.
And the good news is that my mistake at the end of the song was at least musically related. We moved on and did the chorale, I think, then the march. I mean, it's a march. There's not a lot to it. Hit the accents, get the louds and softs, you'll be fine. I will say I partially redeemed myself, because after one of the run-throughs I was able to go, hey, can you remind everyone that after the trio, it's concert Eb? Trios in marches almost always have a key change, and this one goes from F to Bb, meaning E goes from natural to flat. A handful of people were missing that note in a few spots and it was bouncing around the band. Dr. K would later say he wondered if it was a tuning issue; no, it's legitimately getting missed. I said, I've done this with younger bands; it's a common mistake. (Thank you, camp.) We played through the trio again; it was fine. See? Using your words can work wonders. ...Unless the words come out at an inopportune time. So we're running the march, and I feel like we've done a full-on run-through, and we get to the end. Dr. K likes to let the final note ring in the hall, so we have to hold everything for several seconds to let the resonance die out, then he gives us the cue that we can relax and let our horns down. He finishes, he holds his arms up...and there's this talking. It's clearly not anyone in the band or even a live person. Someone's phone must've had a video or something turn on. It was the weirdest thing. Across the band, a young-ish voice goes, I'm so sorry! I have no idea what it was, but I can tell you that after rehearsal I saw a couple people standing outside his office while he was inside with the bassoon teacher (and he retreated really quickly once we finished--it was only 8:35 to boot); this was when I went to the bathroom before leaving. Then, when I left, one of the people (who looked like a young person) was still standing outside, the other person was gone, and his office door was closed. Hmm. I have no idea if that's related, and it might not be, but it was unusual.
At this point we've recorded all three of our new songs plus two of the older ones. I did ask once the session was over and he said we did not need to record last cycle's march; the recording from the concert was good enough. Next week's rehearsal is our final recording session of the year, and we have only two songs--the symphony and the gospel one. I imagine we'll do the gospel one first to get that out of the way, and then he can focus on the symphony. I wish I could say we'd be done with those two after this Thursday, but they're on the docket again for the final concert. I mean, I enjoy them, but I'm ready to move on. Then again, after next Thursday, we have one more rehearsal and then the concert and we're done entirely for the season. I keep wondering what I'm going to do with my Thursday nights for the rest of the spring. I'm not going to know what to do with myself, heh, but I'm sure I'll figure something out.
Also not ideal: The smell. I got in, I sat down, I put on my playing mask. I then noticed this...odor...and wondered if it was the mask itself or what. Remember, I still have scent issues; they haven't entirely gone away. So I didn't know what I was smelling or if other people were even perceiving it. Then Dr. K got up on the podium and went, man, I don't know what that skunk smell is; I wonder if a skunk sprayed into the air intakes. (Aha. Coffee and skunk come across similarly to me, even pre-covid, and I wasn't sure if the smell was one of those things.) I missed what someone said but I'm guessing a comment was made about skunk *weed*, because the next thing I know, Dr. K is saying, ah, that's what that smells like? I've never partaken of that particular herb. (...Good to know.)
...I also feel like this recording should have the designation "recorded while high." I will say I did have a slight headache for a time but I don't recall anything out of the ordinary happening overall in relation to that.
It was also St. Patrick's Day, so a fair amount of people, including yours truly, wore green. I was disappointed that Dr. K didn't, but then again his name alone is more Irish than I am, heh. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen him in green. I also had on my festive four-leaf clover socks; B said she liked them. The band building is also very close to an Irish pub, which clearly was busy for the evening. I've not seen it that busy in the months I've been coming to band, and it explained the extra cars in the lot where I park. It also led to a humorous moment during the recording session. Some of the brass weren't cutting off in the right place during a phrase, and Dr. K said something like, don't hang over there...which is what the people at the pub will have in the morning. A good portion of the band chuckled. I was like, look! You made a joke and it was funny! People laughed! (It was about time, heh.)
Dr. K had planned to start off with one of the older songs, but when a particular player (probably percussion) hadn't shown up yet, he decided to work on the patriotic Ives song, which was the one with the errata. Good choice--while he'd replied to me saying he wasn't worried about this piece, we've only played through it once as a group, and there definitely were spots that needed help. He was now able to work on it with us. There's a flute section that's pretty hairy; it goes into double-tongued 32nd notes. If they were just chromatic or scalar, that would be one thing, but they're a mix of both and it's kind of a bear. I don't have it down just yet. When he had just the flutes play those measures, I left my flute in my lap. I'm not even going to pretend to play it at this point. We play it, it's kind of messy, he decides to have just M (on piccolo) and B (who's played it before) play through it, then added L the elder, and at that point he looks at the rest of us and goes, would you be insulted if I just have them play it for now? I went, nope! So, on the recording, it's just them.
Not having done a recording session in a while, I forgot that our goal isn't to play the whole thing all the way through in one shot. It's not a concert. The pieces were played in chunks. You might do 3-4 sections, then stop and get feedback. Dr. K's cohort, the bassoon teacher, was out in the audience listening and letting us know stuff like, the bassoons are out of tune, the clarinets and oboe can play out in X section, that sort of thing. During the piccolo and flute 32nd note run, she was saying, I can't hear the Eb clarinet. Turns out, that player thought Dr. K wanted the picc and two flutes only to play that section. Well...no...only out of the entire flute section; you get to play, too. So now he had to be added in and get caught up to speed. It ended up fine but this is some of what one has to deal with when you've barely played the song before. (And the other thing about the errata list--my music does not have measure numbers AT ALL, so part of my fun on Wednesday night was numbering my part so that I could figure out where all the corrections were supposed to go. In case anyone wondered why I was so cranky about it.)
We ended up just recording the Ives after working on it, which made sense; it was already up and we had it under our fingers. No sense leaving and coming back to it. I think after that we did the driving song, which overall went fine. Then I think came the slow, pretty song from cycle 3. This was one where B came up to me to check our pitches and tuning; it's just us two in the flute section at the very end, and she wasn't sure if she was out of tune, I was out of tune, maybe both of us, but she wanted to work on it a little bit. Fair enough; I'm pretty much concerned that I hold the pitch, versus listening to each other, to be honest. There was good reason for that, as it turns out. We played through the ending several times, and on the third time, the second to last note of the piece, my embouchure gave out and I frapped the note, sort of going "fwa" to get it out. Argh. Sorry! I basically deflated at that moment. Sigh. Dr. K was kind about it, thankfully--okay, let's do it again. That time was fine, and I think we called it a song, phew. I'm glad we're done with it. And I will say, the beginning of that piece, it probably took a dozen tries to get a good start for it. The clarinets speak more quickly than some of the other instruments like the lower woodwinds, so the beginning was kind of disjointed. The clarinets were told to slightly delay themselves and that seemed to work. I'm sure I wasn't the only person ready to move on from it, heh.
And the good news is that my mistake at the end of the song was at least musically related. We moved on and did the chorale, I think, then the march. I mean, it's a march. There's not a lot to it. Hit the accents, get the louds and softs, you'll be fine. I will say I partially redeemed myself, because after one of the run-throughs I was able to go, hey, can you remind everyone that after the trio, it's concert Eb? Trios in marches almost always have a key change, and this one goes from F to Bb, meaning E goes from natural to flat. A handful of people were missing that note in a few spots and it was bouncing around the band. Dr. K would later say he wondered if it was a tuning issue; no, it's legitimately getting missed. I said, I've done this with younger bands; it's a common mistake. (Thank you, camp.) We played through the trio again; it was fine. See? Using your words can work wonders. ...Unless the words come out at an inopportune time. So we're running the march, and I feel like we've done a full-on run-through, and we get to the end. Dr. K likes to let the final note ring in the hall, so we have to hold everything for several seconds to let the resonance die out, then he gives us the cue that we can relax and let our horns down. He finishes, he holds his arms up...and there's this talking. It's clearly not anyone in the band or even a live person. Someone's phone must've had a video or something turn on. It was the weirdest thing. Across the band, a young-ish voice goes, I'm so sorry! I have no idea what it was, but I can tell you that after rehearsal I saw a couple people standing outside his office while he was inside with the bassoon teacher (and he retreated really quickly once we finished--it was only 8:35 to boot); this was when I went to the bathroom before leaving. Then, when I left, one of the people (who looked like a young person) was still standing outside, the other person was gone, and his office door was closed. Hmm. I have no idea if that's related, and it might not be, but it was unusual.
At this point we've recorded all three of our new songs plus two of the older ones. I did ask once the session was over and he said we did not need to record last cycle's march; the recording from the concert was good enough. Next week's rehearsal is our final recording session of the year, and we have only two songs--the symphony and the gospel one. I imagine we'll do the gospel one first to get that out of the way, and then he can focus on the symphony. I wish I could say we'd be done with those two after this Thursday, but they're on the docket again for the final concert. I mean, I enjoy them, but I'm ready to move on. Then again, after next Thursday, we have one more rehearsal and then the concert and we're done entirely for the season. I keep wondering what I'm going to do with my Thursday nights for the rest of the spring. I'm not going to know what to do with myself, heh, but I'm sure I'll figure something out.