Thursday, January 10, 2008

New Year, New Attitude


Well, we're back in rehearsals and it feels great! The program for the April concert is going to be a crowd pleaser. Very heroic. I'll give you more insights to that as the weeks progress. I've got to keep you reading this somehow ...


The most precious moment of the rehearsal for me this week was the very first downbeat (post-tuning). We started with "The Dam Busters" March (from the Associated British Picture "The Dam Busters"). John starts conducting, and after a beat or maybe two, cuts us off and says (slight paraphrase) "Uh, No." We started again, and it was good enough to move on, but it was quite funny.
Later on, during "The Man Who Invented Music", we got to the section where the trumpets are invented. John either let them finish, or stopped half way through (I can't quite remember...) and said, "Let's invent those trumpets again."
I thought to myself, "Wow, well, I guess John's New Year's Resolution for the band is to be harder on us. Or at least to be blatantly honest with us." I like it, though. It's good for us. It builds character.

In all seriousness, this program is looking to be quite good - and we only have the second half so far. We're still waiting for that piece from overseas - which will take up the whole first half of the concert! John is optimistic that it will be here for next week's rehearsal. It has to be, because it sounds like we don't have a plan b, and we need as much time to put this all together as possible!

In the meantime, you can check out a musical preview and the opening credits of "The Dam Busters" on YouTube.

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