Concert #3: The sky and the temps are falling
As we're in the director's final summer of conducting, every concert is special in some respect. That means even though the third concert was supposed to be AD2's alone, the director was asked to conduct a couple of marches. Give the crowd what they want, which is to see him. They already question if he's okay if he's not there, you know. This is how we got him making this pronouncement on the podium Wednesday night: In 57 years, this has happened only twice, where he's been asked to guest-conduct his own band. Cue AD2 going, that's not what happened! It was a lovely gesture on her part to do that, and he was joking, but yeah. This is what sticks in other people's craws, that he thinks of it as his band and his alone, not the city's. Considering we're subsidized by the city it's in, we're really the people's band.
Ahem. Anyway.
Despite Tuesday's rain, the air quality has remained suspicious. I went to Target before rehearsal on Wednesday, and when I arrived at the park at 6:30, it was hazy enough that the lamps were on in the park. At 6:30 in June! Sunset is two hours later. Oy. We did welcome back the piccolo player, though one of our pieces ended up having two picc parts, so I did need mine for the third concert in a row. Goodness, that piece. It's by Sousa and I had been practicing it, and I had it at a pretty good clip, then AD2 took it more at tempo di tear something (her specialty, heh), and it ended up seeming very frantic, at least on Wednesday. There's also part of it, where both piccs are now in (we both started on flute for most of the piece--nearly 2 of the 3 pages are flute only), where much of the band appears to cut out and it honestly sounds like a little duet between us. That was unexpected but kind of cute. I really tried to do my best with it Thursday night; more on that shortly.
AD2 talked with us a bit about last week, thanking us for a good show and helping her out during her iPad fiasco. She confirmed that there was a multi-page-turn issue and that's what happened during the Richard Rodgers medley. Apparently there is a setting that can prevent that from happening that she was not aware of, but she decided to go old school with paper scores for this concert. As we quickly found out, there are pluses and minuses to both. It was VERY windy both Wednesday and Thursday, to where music was blowing around on both nights and one of her scores flew off her podium during the concert. ...I'm curious to see how she'll deal with things the next time we play.
Part of why it was so windy on Thursday was our good ol' back door cold front that swung in Thursday afternoon. We were warned it was going to go from the 80s to the 60s. This was no joke. It was barely 60F at our concert, and with the wind it felt much colder. I honestly wanted long underwear at times because while I had on three layers on top (cami, band polo, band sweater), I only had my regular pants on bottom. One gust about 2/3 of the way through the concert had me keeping my foot on my stand the rest of the time, as the front two rows of musicians nearly lost their stuff. Not good. I told people the next day that I've never seen *that* many winter coats in one place in June! This happened to be a concert Laura and Munchkin were interested in attending, and when she asked what she should bring aside from bug spray and maybe chairs, I went, blankets! Totally necessary. Boo.
At least the concert seemed to go well, even as we watched people getting up and leaving as the night wore on. I don't blame them. Especially for our older crowd, I'm sure it was miserable. We were not all that thrilled about it onstage, though at least while we were playing it took our minds off things. The theme of this concert was sky-related, so we had lots of songs and medleys involving the words "sky" and "moon" and "rain" and such. We also received three new pieces to sightread Wednesday night, including one based on a Middle Eastern folk tune. This was one that AD2 was discussing last week, how she'd done it with her school band and afterward, parents were coming up to her pleasantly surprised to hear a song from their homeland being played at their children's school. That was really cool to hear. I would've loved to have more time with it, as the scale used in the melody is very similar to Klezmer music and it takes a few reps to make sure you're hitting the right notes, as when you play an F#, your tendency is to want to play E natural next to it, not Eb, for example. I think it went well, and I actually ended up on 1st flute for that. One of our sound guys, C, came up to the flute section leader to say she was being mic'd up for the flute duet in that song. We hadn't even seen the music yet so we pulled out our respective parts and she said, since there's a small solo in the 2nd flute part, we'll give it to 2nd chair B since the mic is between us. I ended up getting B's original music so she could get my part. And good thing they were mic'd, since wind and flutes aren't a good match.
The wind and cold was a recurring theme throughout the night. Since my piccolo is wood, and I literally only played it for half a song, it sat there cold for much of the night. That did not make me happy but oh well. I ended up stopping playing much earlier than required by the piece in order to warm up my picc prior to my entrance. Somehow I was relatively in tune, which is really impressive given the circumstances. A couple songs later, P the trumpet player had a solo, to where he got to stand in front of the band to perform. This is what gets me about him: He's someone who plays prominently in the area and probably has 50 years of experience playing, yet despite the conditions he almost didn't lock down his music on his stand. It was so gusty that as soon as he walked up front with the stand, it blew off while the emcee was introducing him. He then produced this gigantic binder clip, which he put at the top of the stand to hold the top of his music...but what about the sides? As soon as he started playing, one side of his music curled over on him due to the wind. Dude, come on. You gotta be prepared! So on one side he has the flute section leader with clothespins, and on the other side here's one of the sound people handing him a clear plexiglass sheet. He would say later that there's a glare with the plexiglass so he didn't want to use that over his music, but he did at least put it on one side to hold that down, and the clothespin on the other, and that got him through. Honey, the goal is to do all that *before* you start playing so you don't have to worry about it. But that's P for you.
Meanwhile, I was scouring the audience for Laura and Munchkin. I had no idea where they ended up, if they did end up bringing camp chairs or if they sat on the benches, what have you. Plus, with it being so cold, I wasn't sure I'd necessarily recognize them. One of the pieces they'd wanted to hear was selections from Up, as it turns out they love the music from that movie. It was around that time that I finally spotted a familiar figure in her Canada hoodie in the back. Aha! They did make it! They came up to the front of the stage after the concert so I got to talk to them for a few minutes, and since I was there, another girl I know--one of our room renter clients; her family's been coming to concerts since before I knew who she was--came over to say hi as well, which was really nice. I just felt bad because next week is one of the two jazz shows so here's the rest of the band clearing the stage and I'm yakking away leaving my junk on my chair and stand. When we said goodbye and I went to put my stuff away, I was literally the only person left there, so people started joking, are you playing a solo? Yes, that seems wise as it's only gotten windier! Right around then, here came a huge gust that blew a bunch of programs off the conductor stand; somebody said it looked like Harry Potter with all the Hogwarts envelopes flying around. She wasn't wrong.
All things considered, it went well, though I really hope we have seasonal temperatures the rest of the way. This cold stuff is not ideal. And it'll be nice to have the week off from rehearsal.
Ahem. Anyway.
Despite Tuesday's rain, the air quality has remained suspicious. I went to Target before rehearsal on Wednesday, and when I arrived at the park at 6:30, it was hazy enough that the lamps were on in the park. At 6:30 in June! Sunset is two hours later. Oy. We did welcome back the piccolo player, though one of our pieces ended up having two picc parts, so I did need mine for the third concert in a row. Goodness, that piece. It's by Sousa and I had been practicing it, and I had it at a pretty good clip, then AD2 took it more at tempo di tear something (her specialty, heh), and it ended up seeming very frantic, at least on Wednesday. There's also part of it, where both piccs are now in (we both started on flute for most of the piece--nearly 2 of the 3 pages are flute only), where much of the band appears to cut out and it honestly sounds like a little duet between us. That was unexpected but kind of cute. I really tried to do my best with it Thursday night; more on that shortly.
AD2 talked with us a bit about last week, thanking us for a good show and helping her out during her iPad fiasco. She confirmed that there was a multi-page-turn issue and that's what happened during the Richard Rodgers medley. Apparently there is a setting that can prevent that from happening that she was not aware of, but she decided to go old school with paper scores for this concert. As we quickly found out, there are pluses and minuses to both. It was VERY windy both Wednesday and Thursday, to where music was blowing around on both nights and one of her scores flew off her podium during the concert. ...I'm curious to see how she'll deal with things the next time we play.
Part of why it was so windy on Thursday was our good ol' back door cold front that swung in Thursday afternoon. We were warned it was going to go from the 80s to the 60s. This was no joke. It was barely 60F at our concert, and with the wind it felt much colder. I honestly wanted long underwear at times because while I had on three layers on top (cami, band polo, band sweater), I only had my regular pants on bottom. One gust about 2/3 of the way through the concert had me keeping my foot on my stand the rest of the time, as the front two rows of musicians nearly lost their stuff. Not good. I told people the next day that I've never seen *that* many winter coats in one place in June! This happened to be a concert Laura and Munchkin were interested in attending, and when she asked what she should bring aside from bug spray and maybe chairs, I went, blankets! Totally necessary. Boo.
At least the concert seemed to go well, even as we watched people getting up and leaving as the night wore on. I don't blame them. Especially for our older crowd, I'm sure it was miserable. We were not all that thrilled about it onstage, though at least while we were playing it took our minds off things. The theme of this concert was sky-related, so we had lots of songs and medleys involving the words "sky" and "moon" and "rain" and such. We also received three new pieces to sightread Wednesday night, including one based on a Middle Eastern folk tune. This was one that AD2 was discussing last week, how she'd done it with her school band and afterward, parents were coming up to her pleasantly surprised to hear a song from their homeland being played at their children's school. That was really cool to hear. I would've loved to have more time with it, as the scale used in the melody is very similar to Klezmer music and it takes a few reps to make sure you're hitting the right notes, as when you play an F#, your tendency is to want to play E natural next to it, not Eb, for example. I think it went well, and I actually ended up on 1st flute for that. One of our sound guys, C, came up to the flute section leader to say she was being mic'd up for the flute duet in that song. We hadn't even seen the music yet so we pulled out our respective parts and she said, since there's a small solo in the 2nd flute part, we'll give it to 2nd chair B since the mic is between us. I ended up getting B's original music so she could get my part. And good thing they were mic'd, since wind and flutes aren't a good match.
The wind and cold was a recurring theme throughout the night. Since my piccolo is wood, and I literally only played it for half a song, it sat there cold for much of the night. That did not make me happy but oh well. I ended up stopping playing much earlier than required by the piece in order to warm up my picc prior to my entrance. Somehow I was relatively in tune, which is really impressive given the circumstances. A couple songs later, P the trumpet player had a solo, to where he got to stand in front of the band to perform. This is what gets me about him: He's someone who plays prominently in the area and probably has 50 years of experience playing, yet despite the conditions he almost didn't lock down his music on his stand. It was so gusty that as soon as he walked up front with the stand, it blew off while the emcee was introducing him. He then produced this gigantic binder clip, which he put at the top of the stand to hold the top of his music...but what about the sides? As soon as he started playing, one side of his music curled over on him due to the wind. Dude, come on. You gotta be prepared! So on one side he has the flute section leader with clothespins, and on the other side here's one of the sound people handing him a clear plexiglass sheet. He would say later that there's a glare with the plexiglass so he didn't want to use that over his music, but he did at least put it on one side to hold that down, and the clothespin on the other, and that got him through. Honey, the goal is to do all that *before* you start playing so you don't have to worry about it. But that's P for you.
Meanwhile, I was scouring the audience for Laura and Munchkin. I had no idea where they ended up, if they did end up bringing camp chairs or if they sat on the benches, what have you. Plus, with it being so cold, I wasn't sure I'd necessarily recognize them. One of the pieces they'd wanted to hear was selections from Up, as it turns out they love the music from that movie. It was around that time that I finally spotted a familiar figure in her Canada hoodie in the back. Aha! They did make it! They came up to the front of the stage after the concert so I got to talk to them for a few minutes, and since I was there, another girl I know--one of our room renter clients; her family's been coming to concerts since before I knew who she was--came over to say hi as well, which was really nice. I just felt bad because next week is one of the two jazz shows so here's the rest of the band clearing the stage and I'm yakking away leaving my junk on my chair and stand. When we said goodbye and I went to put my stuff away, I was literally the only person left there, so people started joking, are you playing a solo? Yes, that seems wise as it's only gotten windier! Right around then, here came a huge gust that blew a bunch of programs off the conductor stand; somebody said it looked like Harry Potter with all the Hogwarts envelopes flying around. She wasn't wrong.
All things considered, it went well, though I really hope we have seasonal temperatures the rest of the way. This cold stuff is not ideal. And it'll be nice to have the week off from rehearsal.