Concert #2: Guests all around
I feel like I have so little time or energy these days; might as well plow through as many posts as I can. (Well, up to my three-post-a-day limit. It's best that I have a cutoff.)
I'd gotten an email early last week from the section leader. My regular stand partner was going to be gone, and AD1 had a flute-playing guest that she wanted to have play with me. I had a feeling this was someone who'd sat in in the past, and I shared with her last year, so that was fine; it would be nice to say hello again. Sure enough, it was the flute player from Texas. She and her husband were instrumental in helping bring us to Texas several years ago, and they've been coming up to visit for a few summers now. The other thing with my section leader was that she wasn't sure she'd make this concert. I think she had another procedure done...AGAIN...so I'm not surprised. This woman may be more bionic parts than original at this point. I'm thinking this time it was a knee replacement, but I'm not sure.
What I didn't get was that our second chair flute also was gone. That meant chairs 3 and 4 got bumped up and took on some of this week's solos. That's nice that they got to do that, since they don't often have the chance, but weird things happened. Fourth chair took the solo in the second movement of the Dello Joio, but during rehearsal played it on alto flute. Um...it's a cool sound, but it can't be heard. We're playing outside, not in the concert hall, remember? Like, she sits directly in front of me and I could barely hear her, and in the parts where it's a solo but doubled in a couple instrument voices, the flute voice got lost. (For the concert, she did it on standard flute and was fine.) Third chair got a couple of solos. The one in the "King and I" excerpts was fine. The one in the Bernstein piece...not so much. Bernstein liked his syncopation, so you do have to count like mad; first chair would usually, cough, take liberties with it. However, in the run-through, third chair didn't take liberties so much as simply didn't play in one part for whatever reason, and in the concert had issues as well. I don't know if it was nerves or what, but what a bummer for her. Meanwhile, I had my own inadvertent solo in "King and I"--we had a passel of rests at a page turn, and I counted and counted and counted, then completely forgot about the rests at the top of the next page and came in six bars too early. Oops. Lucky for me, it was not a very exposed section, so I'm not sure many people heard me, phew.
One of our sponsors this week was the Lions Club, and last week at the concert they were announced so that if people wanted to donate glasses this week, they could. Actually, that was fantastic--I did have a couple old pairs of glasses that I've been meaning to donate somewhere for years. The members were all helpfully dressed in yellow, so I was able to find someone and turn in the bag of glasses and cases. Sweet.
This was AD2's concert, which was interesting; hers has typically been later in the summer, and AD1's concert would be this week or next (possibly part of why his friends were visiting from Texas). However, this summer's schedule is a bit off kilter; the jazz group is way early this year, this coming week. Normally they're after the 4th of July concert. Not sure why they were moved around, but whatever. And I don't know why AD1's concert is so late in the season, unless he's trying to get away from rain. Seriously, it seems like it always rains on his concert! We did skip the rain this past week, phew, but it rained for the rehearsal. We weren't able to practice with the door fully open, but had it cracked since it was humid and stuffy. A number of people were pointed out in rehearsal, starting with the Texas guests, and one of the scholarship winners from last week will end up playing with us this summer, so he was officially welcomed, and the euphonium player who'd had the motorcycle accident on Memorial Day was back, and there were probably a half-dozen people called out. Then, someone toward the back went, hey, who's the new guy in the tuba section? Another person cracked, security must be lax around here. ...It was the director, heh. Whenever AD2 conducts, he plays. What, he's a tuba player, she's a tuba player (he taught her at one point), it's an even exchange. Oh, yes, one of the new players this week was one of AD1's students who recently graduated from high school. I was walking to the bathroom to freshen up when he walked in and said, I'm new. He happened to have some high school paraphernalia on him so I figured where he was from, and walked him over to the French horn section to introduce him to one of those players and get him settled. We had 10 horns this week, wow. If only we could keep them during the indoor season!
Music, music, music...Oh, right! We *finally* got our new folders. The company that makes them is like the ONLY folder company, and it takes them months to fulfill what one might think is a simple order. The director and Marian spent Tuesday unstuffing the old folders and stuffing the new ones. Ooh, shiny. Some of the old folders were in terrible shape, so everyone was excited to get the new ones. However, some people, like Two Chairs Down, don't like to leave their folders in the music slots, and I got asked, who has Flute 5? Well, it turned out I wasn't asked that because the main folder was missing; I was asked that because the manila folder from last week's concert wasn't turned in. (Now Marian has a better appreciation for what the crotchety old librarian went through in trying to collect and re-file everyone's music.) She asked me to check with TCD about last week's music, though I think Marian actually beat me to it, since TCD has to walk right past her to get into our row. I watched TCD go through her folder and I don't believe I saw folder 1, and upon thinking about it, she went, I *did* turn it in! We're supposed to pile the envelopes on the table behind the band, so unless it fell back somewhere...who knows. Obviously, given TCD's situation last week, we knew she wasn't in good shape then, and it's possible she did something wacky, but still. It's weird for the music to go missing entirely.
(I forgot this from last week. TCD's daughter, who's roughly my age, came to last week's concert. The three of us were waiting to use the bathroom afterward, and they mentioned that the daughter is REALLY fast when it comes to using the bathroom. TCD went first, then her daughter, and TCD was thanking me for being so kind to her given her health situation at the time. She's a sweet lady who needs help sometimes; I don't mind giving it to her. She was very appreciative, and I was saying, no problem, then starting to joke about it, and--holy crap you ARE fast! Like, it took the daughter between 30 seconds and a minute to get in and out of the bathroom. How do you DO that? Do you not wipe or wash your hands? Seriously.)
AD2 likes the harder music that challenges us. This is all fine and dandy, and I like how she works through things, but she can't play the music for us. We were back running through the New York piece, the one with the third section that is chaotic, like a frantic cab ride through Midtown Manhattan, and the meter changes and the saxes just. can't. count to save their lives. Like, subdivide in your heads and you'll be fine. But they're not doing that! And I'm pretty sure I know who it is, and it's the grande dame of the section; second chair wasn't here this week. This is the same person who was confused last week, which concerns me. This woman is in her 70s and I sort of wonder how her cognitive abilities are. The good news is that for one part of the section, prior to the concert, AD2 gave a specific instruction--clarinets and saxes, at measure *whatever*, wait for count 2! And they did! And that part was right on. That doesn't mean the earlier portion wasn't a mess, but it's the best we've played it in a while, so I'll take it. Even better, weeks ago AD2 had passed out her sheet that had both the concert order and, on the other side, rehearsal order, including the timing for how long we'd rehearse things. This is how good she is: She was right on with that timing. She knows what she wants and how to get it, and it's impressive to watch.
Finally, there had been something on the board that we found intriguing, but we had to wait until after rehearsal ended to find out what it was. Turns out, nobody knows exactly what's going on, but it seems like one of the local morning shows is doing a live shot in town next month. Whoever the local coordinator was, she said, sure we'll have bands there! Not considering that school would be out for weeks and, therefore, bands would be temporarily disbanded. So, they reached out to us. Apparently they wanted us to do a two-block parade; the director went, uh, no. We'll stand in place and play, if we can get enough people to do it. It's during the morning on a weekday, and he's like, don't they know that people work?! (Uh, this has never been a problem before for things like September 11th and Veteran's Day, so I'm not sure why he's all up in arms about it now.) Yes, well, enough people appear to be willing to do it, me included, so we'll see if it ends up happening. I usually skip out on the things that happen on a workday, because, well, I'm working, but this seems pretty cool and I was sort of like, screw it, my boss and the manager step out for stuff all the time; it's about time I do so as well. My boss was out of town at the end of last week so I didn't get to mention it to him, but I told the manager, who didn't seem to think it would be a big deal. And, given the proximity of work to band and this location, I could potentially park at work and walk there, because somehow I doubt parking will be readily available in the area. So, I might be an hour and a half to two hours late to work that day. I think they'll live.
I'd gotten an email early last week from the section leader. My regular stand partner was going to be gone, and AD1 had a flute-playing guest that she wanted to have play with me. I had a feeling this was someone who'd sat in in the past, and I shared with her last year, so that was fine; it would be nice to say hello again. Sure enough, it was the flute player from Texas. She and her husband were instrumental in helping bring us to Texas several years ago, and they've been coming up to visit for a few summers now. The other thing with my section leader was that she wasn't sure she'd make this concert. I think she had another procedure done...AGAIN...so I'm not surprised. This woman may be more bionic parts than original at this point. I'm thinking this time it was a knee replacement, but I'm not sure.
What I didn't get was that our second chair flute also was gone. That meant chairs 3 and 4 got bumped up and took on some of this week's solos. That's nice that they got to do that, since they don't often have the chance, but weird things happened. Fourth chair took the solo in the second movement of the Dello Joio, but during rehearsal played it on alto flute. Um...it's a cool sound, but it can't be heard. We're playing outside, not in the concert hall, remember? Like, she sits directly in front of me and I could barely hear her, and in the parts where it's a solo but doubled in a couple instrument voices, the flute voice got lost. (For the concert, she did it on standard flute and was fine.) Third chair got a couple of solos. The one in the "King and I" excerpts was fine. The one in the Bernstein piece...not so much. Bernstein liked his syncopation, so you do have to count like mad; first chair would usually, cough, take liberties with it. However, in the run-through, third chair didn't take liberties so much as simply didn't play in one part for whatever reason, and in the concert had issues as well. I don't know if it was nerves or what, but what a bummer for her. Meanwhile, I had my own inadvertent solo in "King and I"--we had a passel of rests at a page turn, and I counted and counted and counted, then completely forgot about the rests at the top of the next page and came in six bars too early. Oops. Lucky for me, it was not a very exposed section, so I'm not sure many people heard me, phew.
One of our sponsors this week was the Lions Club, and last week at the concert they were announced so that if people wanted to donate glasses this week, they could. Actually, that was fantastic--I did have a couple old pairs of glasses that I've been meaning to donate somewhere for years. The members were all helpfully dressed in yellow, so I was able to find someone and turn in the bag of glasses and cases. Sweet.
This was AD2's concert, which was interesting; hers has typically been later in the summer, and AD1's concert would be this week or next (possibly part of why his friends were visiting from Texas). However, this summer's schedule is a bit off kilter; the jazz group is way early this year, this coming week. Normally they're after the 4th of July concert. Not sure why they were moved around, but whatever. And I don't know why AD1's concert is so late in the season, unless he's trying to get away from rain. Seriously, it seems like it always rains on his concert! We did skip the rain this past week, phew, but it rained for the rehearsal. We weren't able to practice with the door fully open, but had it cracked since it was humid and stuffy. A number of people were pointed out in rehearsal, starting with the Texas guests, and one of the scholarship winners from last week will end up playing with us this summer, so he was officially welcomed, and the euphonium player who'd had the motorcycle accident on Memorial Day was back, and there were probably a half-dozen people called out. Then, someone toward the back went, hey, who's the new guy in the tuba section? Another person cracked, security must be lax around here. ...It was the director, heh. Whenever AD2 conducts, he plays. What, he's a tuba player, she's a tuba player (he taught her at one point), it's an even exchange. Oh, yes, one of the new players this week was one of AD1's students who recently graduated from high school. I was walking to the bathroom to freshen up when he walked in and said, I'm new. He happened to have some high school paraphernalia on him so I figured where he was from, and walked him over to the French horn section to introduce him to one of those players and get him settled. We had 10 horns this week, wow. If only we could keep them during the indoor season!
Music, music, music...Oh, right! We *finally* got our new folders. The company that makes them is like the ONLY folder company, and it takes them months to fulfill what one might think is a simple order. The director and Marian spent Tuesday unstuffing the old folders and stuffing the new ones. Ooh, shiny. Some of the old folders were in terrible shape, so everyone was excited to get the new ones. However, some people, like Two Chairs Down, don't like to leave their folders in the music slots, and I got asked, who has Flute 5? Well, it turned out I wasn't asked that because the main folder was missing; I was asked that because the manila folder from last week's concert wasn't turned in. (Now Marian has a better appreciation for what the crotchety old librarian went through in trying to collect and re-file everyone's music.) She asked me to check with TCD about last week's music, though I think Marian actually beat me to it, since TCD has to walk right past her to get into our row. I watched TCD go through her folder and I don't believe I saw folder 1, and upon thinking about it, she went, I *did* turn it in! We're supposed to pile the envelopes on the table behind the band, so unless it fell back somewhere...who knows. Obviously, given TCD's situation last week, we knew she wasn't in good shape then, and it's possible she did something wacky, but still. It's weird for the music to go missing entirely.
(I forgot this from last week. TCD's daughter, who's roughly my age, came to last week's concert. The three of us were waiting to use the bathroom afterward, and they mentioned that the daughter is REALLY fast when it comes to using the bathroom. TCD went first, then her daughter, and TCD was thanking me for being so kind to her given her health situation at the time. She's a sweet lady who needs help sometimes; I don't mind giving it to her. She was very appreciative, and I was saying, no problem, then starting to joke about it, and--holy crap you ARE fast! Like, it took the daughter between 30 seconds and a minute to get in and out of the bathroom. How do you DO that? Do you not wipe or wash your hands? Seriously.)
AD2 likes the harder music that challenges us. This is all fine and dandy, and I like how she works through things, but she can't play the music for us. We were back running through the New York piece, the one with the third section that is chaotic, like a frantic cab ride through Midtown Manhattan, and the meter changes and the saxes just. can't. count to save their lives. Like, subdivide in your heads and you'll be fine. But they're not doing that! And I'm pretty sure I know who it is, and it's the grande dame of the section; second chair wasn't here this week. This is the same person who was confused last week, which concerns me. This woman is in her 70s and I sort of wonder how her cognitive abilities are. The good news is that for one part of the section, prior to the concert, AD2 gave a specific instruction--clarinets and saxes, at measure *whatever*, wait for count 2! And they did! And that part was right on. That doesn't mean the earlier portion wasn't a mess, but it's the best we've played it in a while, so I'll take it. Even better, weeks ago AD2 had passed out her sheet that had both the concert order and, on the other side, rehearsal order, including the timing for how long we'd rehearse things. This is how good she is: She was right on with that timing. She knows what she wants and how to get it, and it's impressive to watch.
Finally, there had been something on the board that we found intriguing, but we had to wait until after rehearsal ended to find out what it was. Turns out, nobody knows exactly what's going on, but it seems like one of the local morning shows is doing a live shot in town next month. Whoever the local coordinator was, she said, sure we'll have bands there! Not considering that school would be out for weeks and, therefore, bands would be temporarily disbanded. So, they reached out to us. Apparently they wanted us to do a two-block parade; the director went, uh, no. We'll stand in place and play, if we can get enough people to do it. It's during the morning on a weekday, and he's like, don't they know that people work?! (Uh, this has never been a problem before for things like September 11th and Veteran's Day, so I'm not sure why he's all up in arms about it now.) Yes, well, enough people appear to be willing to do it, me included, so we'll see if it ends up happening. I usually skip out on the things that happen on a workday, because, well, I'm working, but this seems pretty cool and I was sort of like, screw it, my boss and the manager step out for stuff all the time; it's about time I do so as well. My boss was out of town at the end of last week so I didn't get to mention it to him, but I told the manager, who didn't seem to think it would be a big deal. And, given the proximity of work to band and this location, I could potentially park at work and walk there, because somehow I doubt parking will be readily available in the area. So, I might be an hour and a half to two hours late to work that day. I think they'll live.