Regular Band: Open the door
This was my first week off from Fancy Band, so I didn't feel pressured to have to write up what happened at Regular Band before yesterday. Good, because I've been exhausted this week.
Weird, because it's been lovely outside. Not cold, not wet, just pleasant. I purposely got away from work earlier than usual on Monday purely so I could go hang out on the park benches and read my paper. I clearly was not the only person with that idea as several people were at the park. However, it's still early enough in the year that the angle of the sun wasn't high enough to really warm me, even at a far bench that stayed in the sun the longest. I was glad to have my jacket that day, but it was still pleasant and I love being outside regardless.
When I went inside, it was definitely warm. But not unpleasantly so to me, the person who might be part cat. No matter the season, I love standing in a sunbeam for warmth. However, the others, particularly those who sat toward the back, really pushed to have the door open. It got cracked a bit for a while but eventually the true wood wind players--who are, in fact, woodwind players--requested the door be closed. Cold air and wooden instruments do not mesh.
AD2 is still MIA. I was reminded of what happened by someone; she'd had surgery on at least one foot and cannot stand for the time being. Goodness, she's going to be bionic before long. This meant the director led the whole rehearsal, again, and we now had a new person sitting in with the trombone section. This happens to be a minor acquaintance of mine so I did go to say hi to him after rehearsal. I imagine this is a weird time to add someone to the band. It would be one thing if AD2 were here, but when it's all the director...and he has to conduct something in 7/8 (which...did not really happen)...I sort of wonder what goes through the new person's mind, you know?
I helped out again. I saw the director with a sheet of paper and I figured it had the night's itinerary in it. I asked him if we wanted me to write it up on the board and he said sure. We were pulling from three different summer concerts for this rehearsal--a couple from concert 1, a couple from concert 2, and many from concert 5, which is the big 4th of July show. Well, concert 1 is all me on piccolo; concert 2 is a maybe for me on piccolo; and concert 5 has the big piccolo duet (not to mention Stars & Stripes Forever), so guess who mainly played piccolo Monday night. I was glad I had the plastic one as I don't know how the wood one would've reacted. The official piccolo player was not thrilled that the door was open, that's for sure.
Now that I'm back to dealing with lip issues, playing picc was not ideal. I had a hard time with my embouchure, especially early on. Oh, my mouth felt like it was on fire for a bit, though at least it wasn't as bad as last week's concert. Once we hit the concert 5 material and I switched to flute, I slathered on some lip gloss and that made a big difference. I have a hard time playing picc with a mask on, so I actually kept it off for the rehearsal; that's where having the door open helped. I was also sorting through a TON of music. I realized I didn't have picc copies for much of concert 1, and if there's a chance I'll be playing concert 2 on picc (PP is not sure yet and must have put down "no" for the summer schedule survey for that week), I should make copies of that music, too. But if I have the music, PP needs something to play, so here I am digging through her music for picc parts, then digging through my music so we can trade and she has something to play for the evening, and doing this for three different concerts made me a little nutty. It'll be nice to have my own copies of all this stuff, but there will be so much music, PP was going, you're going to need another binder! Probably.
At least most of the evening was uneventful. For the fifth concert, there must be some sort of march we haven't done in a while; I don't have it in my stash. It's a concurrent flute/picc part and at the trio is marked "picc only first time," so that when we played it, the flutes cut out. Holy cow, it's a bear, and PP did it masterfully. I cannot tell you how glad I was not to have to play it, heh. I mean, I'll need to practice it regardless, but sightreading a bunch of jumpy 16th notes is not my idea of a good time, at least not at tempo. And then there was a less-common medley, meaning one we don't do every year, which included the 7/8 section. Wow, was that a mess. The director appeared to have no idea how to count it. That's...a problem. Me, just give me the 8th notes and I'm good to go at this point, thank you, Dr. K. I've had way too much experience with weird time signatures in the past two years care of Fancy Band.
After band, I found myself talking with Two-Chairs-Down for the first time in a while. She's technically three chairs down from me now, with the addition of DB, but E hasn't shown up in a while so there's still just one physical body between us. Her chair is pretty far away compared to where she might have been pre-pandemic. Anyway. We were talking for a bit and she was mentioning a future trip in June to visit family, and then she said, you know, I noticed you and DB were wearing masks at the last rehearsal! Why was that? Um...I've been wearing a mask in rehearsal the entire year...today was the first time I *didn't* wear a mask since I was on picc and the door was open. And DB had a bad cough last week and felt better playing in a mask just in case. (She still had the cough this week but it's gotten better.) TCD has been an anti-masker from the get-go so I'm kind of surprised she seriously never noticed that I've been wearing a mask. Oh well.
Weird, because it's been lovely outside. Not cold, not wet, just pleasant. I purposely got away from work earlier than usual on Monday purely so I could go hang out on the park benches and read my paper. I clearly was not the only person with that idea as several people were at the park. However, it's still early enough in the year that the angle of the sun wasn't high enough to really warm me, even at a far bench that stayed in the sun the longest. I was glad to have my jacket that day, but it was still pleasant and I love being outside regardless.
When I went inside, it was definitely warm. But not unpleasantly so to me, the person who might be part cat. No matter the season, I love standing in a sunbeam for warmth. However, the others, particularly those who sat toward the back, really pushed to have the door open. It got cracked a bit for a while but eventually the true wood wind players--who are, in fact, woodwind players--requested the door be closed. Cold air and wooden instruments do not mesh.
AD2 is still MIA. I was reminded of what happened by someone; she'd had surgery on at least one foot and cannot stand for the time being. Goodness, she's going to be bionic before long. This meant the director led the whole rehearsal, again, and we now had a new person sitting in with the trombone section. This happens to be a minor acquaintance of mine so I did go to say hi to him after rehearsal. I imagine this is a weird time to add someone to the band. It would be one thing if AD2 were here, but when it's all the director...and he has to conduct something in 7/8 (which...did not really happen)...I sort of wonder what goes through the new person's mind, you know?
I helped out again. I saw the director with a sheet of paper and I figured it had the night's itinerary in it. I asked him if we wanted me to write it up on the board and he said sure. We were pulling from three different summer concerts for this rehearsal--a couple from concert 1, a couple from concert 2, and many from concert 5, which is the big 4th of July show. Well, concert 1 is all me on piccolo; concert 2 is a maybe for me on piccolo; and concert 5 has the big piccolo duet (not to mention Stars & Stripes Forever), so guess who mainly played piccolo Monday night. I was glad I had the plastic one as I don't know how the wood one would've reacted. The official piccolo player was not thrilled that the door was open, that's for sure.
Now that I'm back to dealing with lip issues, playing picc was not ideal. I had a hard time with my embouchure, especially early on. Oh, my mouth felt like it was on fire for a bit, though at least it wasn't as bad as last week's concert. Once we hit the concert 5 material and I switched to flute, I slathered on some lip gloss and that made a big difference. I have a hard time playing picc with a mask on, so I actually kept it off for the rehearsal; that's where having the door open helped. I was also sorting through a TON of music. I realized I didn't have picc copies for much of concert 1, and if there's a chance I'll be playing concert 2 on picc (PP is not sure yet and must have put down "no" for the summer schedule survey for that week), I should make copies of that music, too. But if I have the music, PP needs something to play, so here I am digging through her music for picc parts, then digging through my music so we can trade and she has something to play for the evening, and doing this for three different concerts made me a little nutty. It'll be nice to have my own copies of all this stuff, but there will be so much music, PP was going, you're going to need another binder! Probably.
At least most of the evening was uneventful. For the fifth concert, there must be some sort of march we haven't done in a while; I don't have it in my stash. It's a concurrent flute/picc part and at the trio is marked "picc only first time," so that when we played it, the flutes cut out. Holy cow, it's a bear, and PP did it masterfully. I cannot tell you how glad I was not to have to play it, heh. I mean, I'll need to practice it regardless, but sightreading a bunch of jumpy 16th notes is not my idea of a good time, at least not at tempo. And then there was a less-common medley, meaning one we don't do every year, which included the 7/8 section. Wow, was that a mess. The director appeared to have no idea how to count it. That's...a problem. Me, just give me the 8th notes and I'm good to go at this point, thank you, Dr. K. I've had way too much experience with weird time signatures in the past two years care of Fancy Band.
After band, I found myself talking with Two-Chairs-Down for the first time in a while. She's technically three chairs down from me now, with the addition of DB, but E hasn't shown up in a while so there's still just one physical body between us. Her chair is pretty far away compared to where she might have been pre-pandemic. Anyway. We were talking for a bit and she was mentioning a future trip in June to visit family, and then she said, you know, I noticed you and DB were wearing masks at the last rehearsal! Why was that? Um...I've been wearing a mask in rehearsal the entire year...today was the first time I *didn't* wear a mask since I was on picc and the door was open. And DB had a bad cough last week and felt better playing in a mask just in case. (She still had the cough this week but it's gotten better.) TCD has been an anti-masker from the get-go so I'm kind of surprised she seriously never noticed that I've been wearing a mask. Oh well.