Nov 02, 2022 21:37
We are less than one week from our fall concert. I was curious how things would go; this is one of the biggest concerts we've done in recent years, with enough songs that you can't possibly rehearse all of them regularly enough. Because we've done a lot of the encore marches over the years, those were mostly skipped over, and we've really only focused on some of the bigger pieces plus any of the solo accompaniments. This was our only time to run through the whole show.
Pretty much as soon as the piccolo player arrived and grabbed a copy of the order, she told me to pick several of the marches on which to play piccolo, because this was too much for her to handle all at once. Understandable. It's reminiscent of some of the circus shows we've done, where we go right from one song to another. There, we'd trade off the songs because one could play while the other was on standby for whenever the next song started. Don't forget, that was for our summer concerts, where everything had to be clipped down; it's not as simple as with an indoor concert where you simply move the page over and you're good. And those circus concerts, we'd be cut off, there might be a little fanfare, and then we'd be scrambling to start the next march. It was a marathon. Basically, I looked through my music to see which marches I already had piccolo parts for, and I had two of those; she gave me her copy of a third; and then she tapped me to do Stars & Stripes Forever with her. So much for not playing piccolo for a while. And, of course, those parts are different from the 2nd flute parts I've been practicing, so I got to essentially sightread music the rehearsal before the concert. Fantastic. But I totally get it and had been planning on asking her about S&SF as she'll sometimes do it by herself for the indoor concerts. I'm just glad I've been practicing it! With the way this concert works, we're playing the main piece, then almost immediately going into the encore march. I'm having to switch instruments before the end of the main pieces in order to be ready to go on picc for the marches I'm doing. It's fine; it's just a matter of figuring out the best place to do so.
Before we got started, AD2 let us know that the folders with the holiday music had been passed out. I got to see that in process as that's what the flute section leader had been working on in the band library last week. We have a whopping four new songs this year, which might be a record. I know I'll be playing piccolo for it, as one of the new pieces has not one, but two piccolo parts, and they seem pretty major, as in the 2nd flute part is mainly Piccolo 2 cues, wow. Of course, we need to figure out if the picc player will be there; her granddaughter's birthday is around that time and she lives out of state, so depending on when her celebration falls, the picc player may not be here. In which case, I'd be the main player, and I'd have to find someone to play the second part. But I'm excited. New holiday music is a big deal.
Onto the rehearsal. This was our dress rehearsal and we played everything in order, even when we didn't have the soloists available. We at least have our trumpet section players who were covering the cornet solo, but the two vocal pieces were just accompaniment--that is, when non-players weren't singing along, heh. Hey, when one of the pieces is from a well-known musical, you can't help but sing.
Our fair director was back. He seemed no worse for wear. He's been through enough in the past 5 years or so that gallbladder surgery wouldn't keep him down, though he did spend his non-conducting time in the flute section leader's chair; she was absent. She's still recovering from her own surgery and always knew she wouldn't be playing this concert.
All told, this rehearsal wasn't too bad, though some of the songs were taken painfully slowly. And the cornet solo, there were weird things happening, particularly with the second solo portion. B, the default flute section leader, was trying to get me to play on it. I kind of freaked out on her, going, I haven't practiced this at all, I never planned on playing this, and I am not coming for Saturday's rehearsal with the soloist or coming early on Sunday. I did apologize to her after rehearsal because I'm sure I was overly brusque about it, but no. We don't need that many people playing. So long as the accompaniment people can be nimble, they'll be fine. I'm certain the director was taking it too slowly, and there's no way the band can be slower than the soloist--he'll have learned it at a particular tempo and, for breathing purposes, it'll have to go that speed. But the second section of the solo, the band member playing the solo was going her own tempo, oblivious to the conductor, it appeared, and he did not follow her and the band didn't follow her, so it felt disjointed. I hope things go better on Saturday.
The vocal solo pieces were awkward as well. There was something going on in the trumpet section; they seemed disheveled for some reason. The one section leader, L, mentioned something about "the shenanigans from last week"--ooh, what did I miss?--and they suspected my college friend D took the 2nd trumpet part home to practice it. I looked over at his brother and asked, was it your day to watch him? He emphatically replied, no! I think the trumpets got it all sorted out, and according to P the trumpet player later, the music was actually in the section leaders' folders after all. I mean, so long as the part gets played, who cares. I was just amused that "shenanigans" got thrown out in the middle of rehearsal.
We also haven't sen much of the oboe player this time around. She came to one rehearsal a couple weeks ago and that's basically been it. She has a big solo in one of the overtures we're doing, which at least is cued in the clarinet part, but the clarinet section leader was asking, will she be here Sunday? ...Who knows? That's a great question.
Monday was Halloween. The last time Halloween fell on a Monday, I wore a purple wig the whole rehearsal. E had shown up that day, though late, and about peed her pants when she saw me. This time around, I left the wig in the basement but was resplendent in orange and black from head to toe, even wearing my flats so my striped knee socks could be better seen. Most people were in normal clothing, though Amaryllis, she of her own sense of style, did come in costume; she was a bee. She was really cute, too. Of everyone in the band, she's the most likely to have done so, truthfully. Also, one of the marches we did, the director asked us, what's the first thing you look at when you start a march? We said, the key signature, then maybe the time signature. He went, then what's the next thing you look for? The stinger! Or if it doesn't have one! This particular march did not have a stinger, which is the emphatic note at the end of the piece. Many marches have one and it's sort of reflexive to play it, which is why it's so important to *not* play a stinger if one's not written. However, he can say "no stinger!" all he wants; when we have a bee in the band, she's just automatically going to have a stinger. Can't help that.
Once we were finished with rehearsal, DB was asking me about S&SF, since of course we didn't run through that. DB went, this is probably one of those songs you play often enough that he doesn't feel the need to run through it, right? Yeah, pretty much. I talked to her about some of the quirks of this piece with this band, namely that the flutes don't play the trio, it's only the piccolos playing the obbligato the first time, and at the back half of the final strain, second time, the entire band stands. She's a good enough player to not have issues with the playing portion of it, and the rest is easy enough to figure out if you follow along. She then went, so...some of these other songs...the director gave us instructions but then didn't do those things. I went, that's the joy of having an 83-year-old director. She pretty much went, got it. So, I mean, keep your eyes on him in those places; there's an excellent chance he'll do *something*; it just may not be what he told you to anticipate. It keeps us on our toes. Welcome to the band! It sounds like she's played in enough groups over the years that she gets it; you just have to roll with it. I like her. She sounds like she's doing a fine job and she's getting to know people. She said something about creating a seating chart so she can learn people's names. Yeah, that's a great idea. She mentioned that she teaches group lessons and how she does her best to learn her students' names, but it usually takes a few weeks. She said, if I know your name by the end of the first lesson, that's usually not a good sign. Ha! That made me think of teaching Flutophones, where at my one school I had about 75 kids, and I didn't really know their names, but one little boy was such a pill that I knew who he was--and was not at all surprised when he showed up at camp the following year on percussion.
Meanwhile, DB had been tapped to play the cornet solo, and the piccolo player probably has a picc part for it, but the picc player was saying how she couldn't make the Saturday rehearsal; it wasn't going to happen. And then she said to DB, hey, are you in the such-and-such flute choir? Yes, she is; DB just switched to alto flute and is borrowing so-and-so's. I then put two and two together--this is the same flute choir big clarinet T from Fancy Band is in. Sure enough, DB said she had the seating chart on her phone and pulled it up; she's two chairs away from him. Oh, wow. Their next rehearsal is this Saturday; aha, no wonder the picc player can't come to the Regular Band rehearsal. The flute choir only meets a handful of times. They have a concert the weekend before my birthday, on that Saturday. Now that I know three people in it, plus I know of at least one more--the lady borrowing the alto flute to DB was my town's flute teacher when I was in high school--I'm kind of intrigued. They were both trying to get me to play in it but I am at my limit with the two groups I'm already in. Thanks, but no.
halloween,
bees,
band,
holiday