Go on, yo know you want to

I have actually been doing a fair bit of playing recently, lots of practise / rehearsal on trombone for a concert in a couple of weeks, and a bit on the electric bass for services at Church, and of course my regular nights at CSB on tuba.

I have taken a plunge that I meant to make months ago, I have resigned as MD of the Brass Band, although I have enjoyed the job enormously and found the musical challenge very stimulating, I just don't have the time for the commitment, sometimes family is just more important.

Concert

Did I mention that I was playing a concert last night? Although I did have one or two problems relating to concentration I think it went pretty well. It was very nice of the conductor to come up and congratulate me afterwards, altough I may have had the biggest toy I was a very small part of a quite a big band, all of us working for a good performance.

We played a very entertaining programme, but one that was technically very difficult as well, this meant that the band and the audience were all on the edge of their seats with excitement for much of the time. Most of the second half was taken up with an arrangement of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana all 16 movements of it, in many ways this was one of the hardest peaces we have yet performed, a few years ago we looked at it and decided that we were only capable of playing a couple of the movements, now we have performed the whole thing to a high standard at the main Fairfield Concert hall.

The biggest toy

This is also an occasion when the ladies in the band like to dress up in their glam rags, well most of them anyway. Many variations on the theme of the Little Black Dress were in evidence along with some quite cute shoes. This generaly adds to the fun of teh occassion, but I did try to concentrate on playing the music.. Of course there are always one or two who just won't play the glam game, my friend S in one of them, just wearing plain black trousers and a shirt blouse, she did go as far as to buy some "Girly" shoes specially for the occasion.

That is quite an old photo if me, dating back a couple of years to my more hirsute days, the beard is now just a memory, but I thin I may grow my hair a bit longer again.......

Cut and Run

There are some really good things about my work, for one I can normally see what I have done, and most gardens look better when I leave than when I arrive, and that makes people happy. I started with a new customer today, pretty much all I did was cut her grass. However this made a big difference to the overall look of the garden and she was very happy to start getting her garden back.

Before I got started

It doesn't sound too much but the whole thing had to be strimmed before I could even think about getting a mower on to it. As we had more rain earlier in the morning the whole thing was pretty wet, in places sodden. As I started cutting with the strimmer a fine spray of water came off the grass, making a mist all around me. I was working with the strimmer for about two hours, and that was interspersed with raking up the cut grass. Only after I had strimmed the lawn, and raked up all the cuttings could I get my mower on. even then with the blade at it's highest setting it still clogged up, however after going over it twice I think it looks quite respectable, but I am exhausted, and my right forearm is almost in spasm..

The Supervisor

For a large part of the morning I was supervised by a large black cat, not sure he was impressed by the noise and the destruction of cover, still he stayed around to make sure I did the job properly.
There is a lot more work to do in this garden, but it is more a process than a makeover, I will be there for a few hours every couple of weeks from now on. After this start I should have it looking reasonable after a few visits, and next year it will be a real garden again.

Finished

That's about it on the work front today, but this evening I will be playing a big concert at the Fairfield Hall with the Croydon Symphonic Band.    Assuming that I manage to get any work done during the day I shall be making a quick change into my concert kit before getting over to the concert hall for a final run through before the performance.   Then on Thursday evening we have a meeting with my daughters teachers, all about A levels, she's only just half way through GCSEs and we have to start thinking about A levels and sixth form already. Like it says on the right I am many things, Gardener, Husband, Father, Musician.......

No Tuba

Nobody wants me to play tuba these days, it seems like ages since I last played a tuba in performance; that's not to say that I haven't been playing, I have had my fair share it's just not on tuba.   Of course for the Brass Band I am the stick waver, a position I am still surprised and honoured to hold, and at the Croydn Symphonic Band I am currently on Bass Trombone.   We have had a bit of a change round in the heavy brass section, still looking for a regular Euphonium player we have a "friend" who plays with us when ever he can, on top of that we lost one of our bass players and our bass trombone.   The first trombone is very committed to other things and finds it hard to make every rehearsal, so that leaves our new bass player, just back from Cardiff University, and me.

Having said all that we will be having a full section of three trombones, euphonium and two basses at our concert on Wednesday as well as for the National Concert Band Festival on the 1st of April.   The concert on Wednesday is at the excellent hall at Trinity School, we have played there a couple of times, and the only draw back it has as a venue that I can see is the lack of a bar.   The whole Croydon/Bromley/Sutton area has a real problem in that there is no suitable venue for amateur music outside of school halls.   We have the wonderful Fairfield hall, but this is simply too big, an audience of two or three hundred will just get lost, everything else is a theatre, very good theatres but they all have a presidium arch which causes acoustic chaos for some of us.   What we want are halls like the QEH and the Purcell Room.

CSB Strike Gold

Last Sunday the Croydon Symphonic Band, played at the Colchester round of the National Wind Band Festival.   Despite an absolutely horrible journey (for me because of my bad back, for others because a lorry shed it's load of Christmas Trees on the A12) we all arrived i decent time, had a run through ad then hit the stage.
The consensus of opinion in the Band is that we played as well as we could have, and quite possibly as well as we have.   I am glad to be able to say that the adjudicators seem to have agreed and given us a Gold Award.    couple of years ago BASWE introduced an extra, higher, standard of a Platinum award, and now it is only Platinum award winners who get an automatic invitation to the finals, gold award winners have to wait.   Given the standard of our performance we are hopeful of an invitation to the finals, which we are especially keen to be at this year, since they will be help at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Well we followed that with a fund raising concert lat night (Saturday) for Ifield Church.   As well as the program we played at the festival we added a few repertoire numbers including my favourite show selection - Les Miserables.   I get a tremendous kick out of playing with this band, I have been with them for well over 30 years now, and I think that overall we are better now than at any time in the past.   However we are short on numbers in the heavy brass, a shortage that is about to become critical as our first trombone is leaving due to a change in his work.   In consequence I don't know what part I will be playing when we start up again after Christmas, at various times this term I have played Bass, Bass Trombone, First Trombone and Euphonium.   The only one of these I would not be happy commit to would First Trombone.   I am not a tenor player, I never have been and never will be I just can't play up there.

How many Tuba players does it take to change a light bulb? None we can't reach that high.

Busy Weekend

I have a busy weekend looming ahead of me, on Saturday the Brass band has a gig in Surbiton playing for a Mason's dinner.   We are only doing a half hour slot, but it still takes up the whole evening, and off course I will have to take the band kit and give a couple of members a lift.   We will not be doing anything too taxing, but this job came in very late so quite a few members are already committed to other activities, still we should be able to give them an entertaining half hour with a few songs to sing along to.

Then on Sunday it all gets a bit more serious. CSB are playing at the Colchester area round of the BASWE National Wind band Festival.   I shall be playing Bass Trombone for this, I am glad to be getting the trombone out, but am still surprised at how little I get to play.   It is always an odd feeling when you look around the band and see everyone else blowing their hearts out while you are still counting bars rest.   Of course with a Bass Trombone there is always an impact when we do come in, especially if it's a ff fzf.

One orchestral conductor I had stopped the orchestra to point out to the violins that the Bass Trombone had a dynamic that no other orchestral instrument possessed, "Obliterato".

The Program

I should have said what the program for the festival is we are playing three pieces
Finnegan's Wake by Archibald J. Potter
The Sun Will Rise Again by Philip Sparke, and
The first three movements of Robert Russell Bennett's Suite of Old American Dances.

this is a good varied, and challenging program.   Let's hope the adjudicators agree.