Thursday, February 13, 2020

2/13/20 Second Band Practice?

    As they say, better late than never.  I was so busy this weekend  that I managed to get to my rehearsal about 15 minutes late.  I was very tempted to just tell Wife that I wasn't going.  I felt really bad because I never practiced, and one of the songs is especially hard with five flats in the key.  I am barely remembering what letter I am supposed to be playing, and then to think whether the notes are regular or flat is quite a challenge.
    Before practice I had taken Wife to the airport to pick up her rental.  I then hurried back thinking whether there was going to be time for breakfast, there wasn't, and my parents had left.  I only had an hour to shower and get to San Marcos, that was going to be tough.  Still, I am not going to sit amongst new people and risk smelling like a-hole or worse, so off to the shower I went.  By the time I got dressed, Wife was back home and she offered to go with me, even though she had a conference in Marble Falls and wanted to leave and get there before it got dark.  She got a really nice car, it was an upgrade from the economy shitbox she tried to rent.  They gave her a Ford Fusion Titanium, which means fully loaded.  It was a pretty dark red on the outside and I would say a darkish reddish leather inside with a sunroof and a bunch of nice options.  The hardest part for me was getting in the car with me having to fold my neck over to fit my fat head in.
    We got to the rehearsal place about 15 minutes late and by the time I walked in, they were broken into sections, such as brass in one room, woodwinds in another and so forth.  I don't know if I should say luck or not, but I barely got the tail end of rehearsing on that one piece of music with the 5 flats.  We were only broken into sectionals a few more minutes before we joined the rest of the group as a full orchestra.
    They keep oohing and awing about how great it is to perform with a singing vocalist, but I don't like the spotlight to be taken from us for a single person with no instrument, but what are you gonna do?  Most of the songs have vocal accompaniment.  We went through two more songs that
honestly I hadn't even looked at.  Luckily, they were quite easy and I was able to play most of them from start to finish on the first pass.  I was giddy inside because I kind of kick ass when I am not being confused with a ton of flats or sharps.  The two "hard" songs have either five flats or five sharps.  These last two songs had just F#, which is quite normal and the other added C#, which again is very manageable.
    Time just flew by, before I knew it, it was past 4:30pm and they try to stick to the times pretty good, so the conductor just apologized and said "excuse me, it is 4:30, sorry guys, but we are done."  I told Jeremy, the guy that recruited me, that I felt highly embarrassed that I wasn't better prepared, he was all "no worries, man, you sound great."  I told him but I am a perfectionist, I feel shitty I don't know the music completely yet, I almost didn't come.  He said (like a mafia boss, but smiling), "don't do that, we are counting on you now, you are important to the whole program.  If you try to escape, we will hound you and harass you on the phone."  I guess it is nice to feel like I am needed and I belong, but I really need to practice some this week, I am better than that.

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