back from band camp.
Aug. 12th, 2025 03:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennlkStill tired. But it was back on the horse today at work (to be fair, BC did payroll and the journal entry last week, *and* the voter files) -- we have a full election coming up in the fall, with various arrangements of issues on the ballot depending on where a voter lives in the township. (You'd think that with less than 2500 voters, we wouldn't have these issues. You'd be wrong.) Tomorrow is some "security training" seminar in Howell. I am thrilled (not). I suspect that there will be very little at this seminar that will be applicable to such a small jurisdiction, but I am prepared to be wrong. At least it's only Howell. The one that BC+DC went to last year was in Jackson.
Band camp was a blast, as usual. I was (almost) wrong, however. The section coach had made up the quartets before we arrived, and "we" had a new person in our quartet (the three of us have all played together at least twice). She was a bit concerned about the ensemble performance, and TS said "we will not be the best ensemble in the recital. We will not be the worst. At that point, why worry?" And then we almost nailed "best performance". We took a simple piece (which does not mean "easy") and wrung all the music we could out of it. There weren't a lot of notes in the piece, but that meant that we had to *mean* the ones we played. J came up on Friday -- to tourist around and come to the recital and Sunday's concert -- and he said that he could "hear us listening" to each other. (we got "beat" by the brass ensemble that played Lauridsen's O Magnum Mysterium.)
It was hot and sticky at camp, and smoky at the start of the week. The AC in the room mostly worked. :) I have experience with the AC at the Stone Hotel, so I brought a small fan to help with air movement in the room. It made a big difference. If I hadn't brought one along, I probably would have wound up buying one.... The biggest issue I had this year was that there were shows at Kresge nearly every night, and when there's a show at Kresge the waterfront is closed off. I like taking my dorm food down to the patio and eating there, rather than eating in the cafeteria full of high school students....
Band camp was a blast, as usual. I was (almost) wrong, however. The section coach had made up the quartets before we arrived, and "we" had a new person in our quartet (the three of us have all played together at least twice). She was a bit concerned about the ensemble performance, and TS said "we will not be the best ensemble in the recital. We will not be the worst. At that point, why worry?" And then we almost nailed "best performance". We took a simple piece (which does not mean "easy") and wrung all the music we could out of it. There weren't a lot of notes in the piece, but that meant that we had to *mean* the ones we played. J came up on Friday -- to tourist around and come to the recital and Sunday's concert -- and he said that he could "hear us listening" to each other. (we got "beat" by the brass ensemble that played Lauridsen's O Magnum Mysterium.)
It was hot and sticky at camp, and smoky at the start of the week. The AC in the room mostly worked. :) I have experience with the AC at the Stone Hotel, so I brought a small fan to help with air movement in the room. It made a big difference. If I hadn't brought one along, I probably would have wound up buying one.... The biggest issue I had this year was that there were shows at Kresge nearly every night, and when there's a show at Kresge the waterfront is closed off. I like taking my dorm food down to the patio and eating there, rather than eating in the cafeteria full of high school students....
