masterclass

Bunch of musical stuff this weekend, although rather LESS practicing than I had hoped! Sat we had our first and only orch rehearsal for WHite Christmas, the very nice, I think quite good, pianist they hired to take the place of the Fired Musical Director has never directed from a pit before. This is a bit terrifying, as she had never even heard of the concept of the "head nod", which is generally how you conduct from the piano - at least when you are changing tempos. They way our pit is constructed, there is no one in front of her, two groups out to the sides (we can't really see each other) and she is up on a 4 foot platform. She seems willing and interested, but it is hard to imagine it being a whole lot better before next week. Oh well!

I also had forgotten (from 2 years ago) a lot of the clar/sax stuff in there - much of it is fine but with 3 winds instead of 5 my part is much more exposed. And there are a couple of places I pawned off a hard part, and now I can play it (yay!)

Sunday I went to a masterclass on the Lindemann/Sobel method of wind playing - OMG this was a wonderful class. Those are saxophone players, and the teacher (email me if you're interested in his name) is also a sax player (and doubler of everything) - but the class had trombones, flutes, couple of saxes including me, and a euphonium player. I regret not bringing my oboe, but I wasn't sure what the class was about. This was high end stuff for sure, connecting the air with your fingers and body movement - subtle and amazing. Some of the participants were from the Big Symphony, and while they did play beautifully, he had great points to make for them as well as even me, the lamest of saxophone players.