11/1 - Brass Band Concert

Sorry I didn't update on Friday. I was taking care of a drunk friend. Everyone but me had a pretty craaaazy Halloween weekend. But I had a hangover-less weekend.

Happy November, by the way. It's nice in Texas, it's hoodie weather, and not big poofy jacket weather like it is in New York (pobre Zoe) or I think Colorado right now. I don't know about CO.

I haven't told you much about Brass Band, have I? We're going to fix that.

Brass Band meets on Mondays and Wednesdays at 2:15 in the orchestra hall in the music building. It's kind of a bad location, for two reasons; they don't keep a lot of percussion equipment up there, and it's a pain in the butt to move everything you need to play either up a staircase or in a slowwww elevator.

Now, when I say they don't keep a lot of stuff up there, I mean they keep a bass drum with no stand, mismatched timpani, three snare drums but no stand (?), chimes missing a wheel, an old kevlar xylophone, some cheap crash cymbals, and a gong on a bad stand. It's pretty sad.

So in the final weeks of rehearsal before the concert, I'd get there at 1:45, start hauling bells, vibes, 5 toms and stands, drum set, suspended cymbals and stands, bongos and stands, field drum and two stands, shaker, maracas, bell tree, claves, guiro, and big mallets (i'm probably forgetting something too) up the elevator or stairs. I had to get the key to get to most of it at 2, so that kinda kept us from being on time. So by the time we really got set up, it was 2:30 and they were halfway through the first song.

Also, because of this class I've purchased a tambourine and two triangles, which cost a total of way more money than I wanted to spend.

Complaints aside, it's a lot of fun. We play some loud and crazy music, I play a whole lot of instruments, and no piccolos! I'm not taking it back, I really do hate piccolos. I play with Jordan, a 4 semester vet, and Taylor and Jeremy, two freshman roommates. They're kinda funny.

I arrived to set up for my 7:30 concert at 5:30 today, because we all knew that it'd take a while to move all of our crap and make it look nice before our mini rehearsal at 6:30. Aside from my little break before the concert and playing drumset, I stood up for like 4 hours. I need a nap.

Or sleep.

We started with a little overture, I played tambourine and triangle. Still can't play thumb rolls, but my fancy new triangle sounds pretty.
Then we played a Rossini overture and a British march about a Russian, I played snare on both.
Played a lengthy, strenuous piece before intermission. I played timpani, and I was pretty glad I had gauges. Tell me if you don't know what gauges are and I'll fill you in. Lots of tuning and a fun tom-tom part in the middle.
After intermission we played another long, difficult piece, again on timpani. Oh and I played some vibes. But this one was definitely cooler because I had a timpani solo and I used extra hard mallets.
Then I played maracas and toms on Postcards from Mexico. There's a drunken section in the middle and it was really hard to keep myself from doing a dance to it. Hardly even a dance.
We played a Gordon Goodwin arrangement of a Cole Porter song, and I played drumset, without any toms and on a concert snare drum. Awesome. It was fun, and I did pretty well.
We finished with Pines of Rome, and I nailed all my gong parts. Except I might have played ffff instead of fff. Sorry.

So, overall it went pretty well. I usually don't remember much that happened in a performance, maybe because I'm concentrating on playing, but the gong hit in the beginning of Pines of Rome was perfect. I remember smiling really big and forgetting to count my rest.

That's how brass band goes. I can't tell if I want to do it again next semester. Perhaps. If I can get us some better equipment, then definitely.

M