Sunday, January 17, 2010

stuff goin on

After my last post the conductor of the little symphony called and asked me to play the tenor sax for our next concert (which is in 6 days). I was kind of glad, because I'm trying to improve my doubling chops, I'd like other musicians to see that I can play sax, this is a kiddie concert and I don't have a lot to play, but still! It was a bit nerve wracking to have less than 12 hours notice (and no music) before playing an instrument I'm not all that comfortable with. AND I had actually forgotten that my "new" sax has not been played with others - but it went fine (at least no one told me I was terrible). We are doing the Shaw Clarinet Concerto (jazz) and my old college roomie is just wailin' on the clarinet part!

The Laubin also made it's public debut on Thursday - big success I think. Seems to have a really lovely tone and the pitch is great. I ALSO played my new Laubin bocal (in the english horn, part of the mouthpiece) and that is great too! I do need to get more familiar with the upper register, the notes just seem to sing out there but I'm not used to it being so easy and was overadjusting.

We are doing the Mother Goose Suite, and I will play eh for that, the only piece of any difficulty on the program. The eh has a few solo-y bits that are higher than the usual eh fare. The biggest worry is that we are in a new venue (a church with a carpeted stage). We don't get any time in there except the hour before the concert! We did do a Messiah concert in the space, but I really don't have a sense of the sound - one of the attendees just told me you couldn't hear ANYTHING from the audience except through the mics. I hate the idea of mics for the orchestra, and I don't think we have anywhere close to the equipment that would take, but DD is trying to build a stage before next week! Just plywood sheets painted black, but what a huge undertaking, and all without being able to test at all before the concert. Crazy.

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