So maybe I was 10 minutes late for the pizza party, the dress rehearsal was at 1:30pm, I was there perfect for that. The one thing I hated was that the room where we were to place our cases and extra stuff was on the second floor and walking in the front door, I wasn't going to look for an elevator. I just grumbled to myself and made it slowly up the stairs (my right knee has been in pain). The room was huge and there were maybe 10 boxes of pizza and a bunch of 3 liter soda bottles. Some people ate, others talked, I did the minimum of both and then made my way to the big church room, where we played.
I have to say the 1st Baptist Church is a fine facility. It looks new-ish and like a good buck or two were spent there. Everywhere, the ceilings are extra tall, from the entrance where the stairs seemed to lead up to the third story without a 2nd story to the actual room where we played which had the feel of a good sized concert hall. I arrived by myself and followed along as I was supposed to. Wife showed up about 2:30pm, the concert started at 3:00pm. Once I saw them walking in, from the stage, I could then see my in-laws trailing behind them by a few minutes. This made them all go back out to the entrance area so they could talk and not distract our dress rehearsal.
We went through all the music pieces one last time, from top to bottom. Like I said, once I decided I wasn't going to worry about being perfect, I found it quite enjoyable. Stand By You, for example had 6 sharps, which meant most every note had to be played differently. They told us this was done because the singers sing in whatever key, I just know this made the song extra hard. Anyway, I just played extra soft where I wasn't sure and a little louder where I was. We went through all 7 songs in about an hour, then we were given a 20-30 minute break.
Everyone seems so comfortable to leave their instruments just on the ground or on their chairs. I decided I would just keep mine strapped to my neck and carry it down. I went down to say hi to my people, my in-laws seemed very excited, my older sister in law was talking about wanting to break out her clarinet after hearing me do this.
Suddenly, Wife said it was 2:59pm, I made my way up and the next 40-50 minutes were just a blur of play and wait. We would play a song and the conductor would tell a little about its history. Before I knew it, we were done and it felt like Mission Accomplished. I had seen some of their concerts from other years and this one had the most people, from what I could tell. I brought enough people to fill a whole pew, so that was my contribution.
I thanked the guy that got me involved for letting me be a part of this amazing experience and then I said what happens next, we just chill and you will contact us? He said yes, that is generally how it goes. He gave me one of those "you'll be back?" I said "yeah, I loved this." Another lady, I am not even sure what she plays also asked/told me "you'll be back?!" almost as a question, but kind of like a demand. I smiled and said "yes, I am in, this is my kind of thing."
It was very interesting on FB after, Wife put a few clips and pictures and she got about 60 people liking and commenting. It was pretty cool to be clapped on by some of the people in band from back in my high school days. I wish I could reach out and motivate those few players that really had a passion, that they would just get up and join. It has been a really good thing, for me. The only bad thing is the school isn't buying me a big ole baritone saxophone and it kind of hurts that they run close to $8,000 for a good one, but now I have a hobby.
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