Or should that be brass? Meh, either way it’s a pretty naff blog post title but it’ll have to do. If you follow me on Facebook or have talked to me in person at some point over the past week, you’ll have have seen/heard me wittering about my latest musical adventure. Yup, that’s right, the euph has had a polish and is now going to be played on (most) Monday nights. Bring on the Lips of Steel!
Really, this is all Simon’s doing. A few months ago he mentioned that Andrew (the conductor of the WCO) put together a little band to play carols at the local pub in Winterbourne Bassett and Simon managed to convince me to go along. Sight reading was a bit of a shock to the system, I can tell you, but even though my playing was a bit sporadic I had a marvellous amount of fun. In short, I got the brass playing bug again. I was doomed (but in the best possible way)!
I’d been uhm-ing and ah-ing over whether or not to go along to the Swindon Concert Band since December but it wasn’t until I was in Glasgow (admittedly on a bit of a music-high and with 20 minutes to kill on the internet) that I sent off an e-mail asking if they had room for another euphonium.
Well, you can probably guess what the answer was.
Funnily enough, the SCB rehearse 10 minutes walk from where I live. I’m trying to be a little more eco-conscious at the moment so I though “10 minutes? I can walk that with no problem!” It did occur to me about half way there that 10 minutes walk while carrying a euphonium in a hard case does end up feeling pretty far (or so my arms were telling me). The 10 minutes walk UP the hill felt even longer.
It was pretty nerve-wracking sitting with new music in front of me (I tend to go a bit ‘bunny-in-headlights’ the first couple of times I play unfamiliar music) and I quickly realised just how rusty I was. It probably didn’t help seeing that some of the notes in the baritone/euphonium part for the first thing we played were out of my range even when I was playing 6-8 hours a week back at school. Still, Darrell and Ben (the other two euphonists, both of whom very good) were really encouraging, as was Mike the conductor. While my first instinct was to ‘run away, run away’ just like I did at uni *cough*seven*cough* years ago, I’ve decided to ignore said instinct and go back. After all, there’s no way I’m going to get better unless I try, right?
So, yes, I pretty much suck at keeping up and playing at the moment (though my range is still almost what it was 7 years ago – silver linings…). However, one thing I did learn during my years of playing at MTMC is that playing as part of an ensemble will make me progress faster than practising on my own because I will HAVE to keep up.
I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes (although I doubt I’ll be joining the SBC in Glasgow in April for the National competition they’re taking part in – I kinda want them to have a change of winning after all!). It’s really nice to be playing Cuchulainn* again after almost 7 years of him sitting in his case. It’s like meeting an old friend again and it makes me very, very happy.
*All my instruments to date have names from Irish mythology. There’s your random fact quota for the day fulfilled. Enjoy!
). The first FO isn’t really something I finished knitting than something I had to fudge-fix once I got the left over yarn back from Ali – I did my usual thing of accidentally leaving something at her flat (those of you who know me in person know that this ALWAYS happens).
