notes on notes....

[jennlk]

in general, I like playing with the Livingston band, but there are times when I don't enjoy it as much as I should. Sometimes, it's one piece on the concert program that could be soooo much better if people actually listened to each other, or if we actually spent some time *rehearsing* a piece, rather than just going straight through it and working on the obviously tricky bits. We got Russian Christmas Music for this December concert, and I'm going to be very disappointed with the performance. Farmington would have spent much more rehearsal time on specific bits and pieces of it than Livingston did (while spending less time on the easier parts, so that the total time spent rehearsing it would be the same) and there'd be much more music in it. I heard one trumpet player say to another "this is in the key of Loud", and while that's not entirely wrong, there's so much more to it. On a piece like this, Livingston devolves into a bunch of people all playing the same music at the same time, but it's not a band. There are a lot of meter changes in RCM, and Lvingston doesn't do well with those, either -- I think at least some of that is that the director isn't as clear as he could be.

I actually resorted to studying my music with a recording of RCM playing, just so I could hear where my part went. (I've not played the tenor part in 40 years, and there are places where it's very different than the bari part.)

Comments

[minnehaha]

So not a musician here, but I'm going to stretch and say that practice makes perfect.

K.

[jennlk]

dunno about 'perfect', but at least a bit more comfortable with the music so that one can look at the conductor once in a while, as zie attempts to keep the ensemble sounding more like a band and less like a group of people playing the same music at the same time....

Perfect is well beyond a community band's abilities -- there's always someone playing a note at the wrong time or at the wrong volume.