Unbanded, week 22 (or, not Summer Concert #11): End of the summer line
This week likely was the last of the summer band reruns on the cable access channel, bummer. (For some reason, the website only shows this week's schedule, not two weeks like it normally does.) The title matched up with the show from June 14, 2018--Flag Day. Look, not a second airing! Sweet! I was a little bummed that it's not the final concert from last year, but then again I can't recall if that one was recorded or not. I need to start writing that down.
See, I've wanted a recording of me playing "Stars & Stripes Forever." That was the one concert where I played it completely solo. However, being a patriotic celebration, not only did we play S&SF for Flag Day, we also did the "international" version during that concert. (I did not feel the need to have that recorded.) But...okay, can I see if this is doable?
...In case you were wondering how big of a dork I am. The biggest. That is all.
First, I had to see if I could set up my camera to do it. I wanted to plug it in and thought I would be able to do so using the older computer--because yes, I was taking a video of the computer screen. If I have a way of recording it off the actual computer, I don't know how to do that, and this computer is old enough that it may not have a decent way of doing so. Therefore, yes, it's camera aimed at computer screen time. Cheesy, I know. But the only thing plugging the camera into the other computer did was download my pictures. Okay, I did need to do that anyway. I just wanted to be sure the battery wouldn't die. I was able to find my power cord adapter, so that was good...but the cord is only so long. I was able to maneuver the power strip for the computer over to plug it in, but now I had to raise the whole strip up because the camera had to be a certain height to capture everything. It took some finagling, but I had a plastic file tub with a stool on top of that, plus the box from my copy of Finale, plus the small container where I keep my jump drives, onto which I had the camera on my little tripod. It was a whole thing.
Second, what would the quality be like? I then started to record whatever was showing on the website at the time, which was good, because I discovered I had to crank the sound in order for it to be heard on the recording. Okay. Phew. I think I can do this.
...And then not only did my browser crash, but while trying to bring it back up, the entire computer crashed. Fantastic. I ended up missing about 10 minutes at the start of the concert all told, but nothing went down again after that. I purposely did nothing but watch the concert; I didn't want to mess anything else up. Normally, I'd be putzing around the internet, but it helped that I had to set up the whole camera rig directly in front of the computer and keyboard, and wrap my arms around everything if I wanted to use the keyboard--sitting awkwardly behind it all, mind you--so yeah, I'm okay just sitting here.
It paid off. Not only did the recording go off without a hitch, it also looks like I'm the only soloist, even though you can hear two of us. For this concert, we'd stayed in place; no moving to the front of the stage. We also didn't sit next to each other. I have been told, possibly because of this moment, that if the cameras are there, they prefer us to be together so they can show us together. Now I know why: They didn't show the other player at all! Like, she got shown a fair amount during the rest of the concert, but not once during S&SF was she shown playing the obbligato. It was all me. I felt bad about that. What's funny is that, since we did perform in place, the camera was focused on the trumpets behind me as we ramped up to that part, and then all of a sudden, it's like Whack-a-Mole: I popped up out of nowhere, heh. The camera wasn't on me the whole time, but they did show me at the end of the solo. So...yeah. But I'm really happy I was able to get the solo on a recording for myself. I wish I'd thought to do it sooner, but that's okay. Better late than never, and I'm grateful, like, the dogs weren't barking behind us, or that the cicadas didn't suddenly start buzzing. They had earlier and they're really loud this year.
Meanwhile, band did have a rehearsal last night. There was a form one had to fill out, like a health pre-screening, in order to attend. They also asked for volunteers to be part of the new health and safety committee, something along those lines. Oh, gosh. Mom mentioned that she saw pictures of the rehearsal on Facebook. I just looked, and yeah, there were a lot of distanced people--maybe 20 band members attended? All I remember from last week's survey was that 24 people said they were interested in attending and 32 people were not. I guess these are the hearty ones.
See, I've wanted a recording of me playing "Stars & Stripes Forever." That was the one concert where I played it completely solo. However, being a patriotic celebration, not only did we play S&SF for Flag Day, we also did the "international" version during that concert. (I did not feel the need to have that recorded.) But...okay, can I see if this is doable?
...In case you were wondering how big of a dork I am. The biggest. That is all.
First, I had to see if I could set up my camera to do it. I wanted to plug it in and thought I would be able to do so using the older computer--because yes, I was taking a video of the computer screen. If I have a way of recording it off the actual computer, I don't know how to do that, and this computer is old enough that it may not have a decent way of doing so. Therefore, yes, it's camera aimed at computer screen time. Cheesy, I know. But the only thing plugging the camera into the other computer did was download my pictures. Okay, I did need to do that anyway. I just wanted to be sure the battery wouldn't die. I was able to find my power cord adapter, so that was good...but the cord is only so long. I was able to maneuver the power strip for the computer over to plug it in, but now I had to raise the whole strip up because the camera had to be a certain height to capture everything. It took some finagling, but I had a plastic file tub with a stool on top of that, plus the box from my copy of Finale, plus the small container where I keep my jump drives, onto which I had the camera on my little tripod. It was a whole thing.
Second, what would the quality be like? I then started to record whatever was showing on the website at the time, which was good, because I discovered I had to crank the sound in order for it to be heard on the recording. Okay. Phew. I think I can do this.
...And then not only did my browser crash, but while trying to bring it back up, the entire computer crashed. Fantastic. I ended up missing about 10 minutes at the start of the concert all told, but nothing went down again after that. I purposely did nothing but watch the concert; I didn't want to mess anything else up. Normally, I'd be putzing around the internet, but it helped that I had to set up the whole camera rig directly in front of the computer and keyboard, and wrap my arms around everything if I wanted to use the keyboard--sitting awkwardly behind it all, mind you--so yeah, I'm okay just sitting here.
It paid off. Not only did the recording go off without a hitch, it also looks like I'm the only soloist, even though you can hear two of us. For this concert, we'd stayed in place; no moving to the front of the stage. We also didn't sit next to each other. I have been told, possibly because of this moment, that if the cameras are there, they prefer us to be together so they can show us together. Now I know why: They didn't show the other player at all! Like, she got shown a fair amount during the rest of the concert, but not once during S&SF was she shown playing the obbligato. It was all me. I felt bad about that. What's funny is that, since we did perform in place, the camera was focused on the trumpets behind me as we ramped up to that part, and then all of a sudden, it's like Whack-a-Mole: I popped up out of nowhere, heh. The camera wasn't on me the whole time, but they did show me at the end of the solo. So...yeah. But I'm really happy I was able to get the solo on a recording for myself. I wish I'd thought to do it sooner, but that's okay. Better late than never, and I'm grateful, like, the dogs weren't barking behind us, or that the cicadas didn't suddenly start buzzing. They had earlier and they're really loud this year.
Meanwhile, band did have a rehearsal last night. There was a form one had to fill out, like a health pre-screening, in order to attend. They also asked for volunteers to be part of the new health and safety committee, something along those lines. Oh, gosh. Mom mentioned that she saw pictures of the rehearsal on Facebook. I just looked, and yeah, there were a lot of distanced people--maybe 20 band members attended? All I remember from last week's survey was that 24 people said they were interested in attending and 32 people were not. I guess these are the hearty ones.