day 7 & Symphony Rehearsal 1 & I am in love with this instrument

Damn, I love playing this thing. I love the feeling in my face when I have been playing hard and my face tingles. Sometimes my face tingles all the way up into my forehead.

I love playing with people. Maybe that is the best part. I just love being in rehearsal and playing with people who all have the same intent. I like it when we have all been counting rests and as if by magic, we all lift our instruments to our faces to play, at perfectly the right time. Today we had a lot of rests in one piece and a fellow player was even reading a magazine, and it was so cool how we were all relaxed there in our corner in the back, then we got maybe 10 measures from playing and we all started doing little things, sitting up straighter, emptying the water key, and as we got closer and closer to coming in, we just all came together as if directed, choreographed. I just love that.

I'm an Alaskan Bush kid, and a lot about Alaska is antithetical to orchestral musicianship. We pride ourselves in our fierce independence. We don't take orders from anyone. We know how to do things ourselves and we do a fine job of it, thank you. Growing up in the Bush, I just never did anything like this at all, actually, nothing at all in that life was like sitting in a room with 50 other people all tuned to the conductor and the music, and that intense collaborative thing that happens with your fellow musicians nearby, where you help each other keep track of where you are in the music and you learn how to cue each other, and you just enjoy sharing the little funny things that you think of or that come up, but you have to share them real quietly so as not to be disruptive ... I just love it, just love it.

Anyway, I have my notes that I took during rehearsal:

• I need to practice my tiny bit in the Mahler third movement - so small a part that I can't let it slip, it is easy but I have to make sure I nail it;
  
• the Berlioz 4th movement, play it through, play it well, play it loud (quit pussy-footing), and it is in tenor clef so make sure I can read it and play it easily;
• Hansel and Gretel, got to watch the key changes, and Jack said since they give it to us in both bass clef and tenor clef, play it in both clefs, it is a good way to learn tenor clef - WHAT A GREAT IDEA
• Hexenritt, they don't give it to us in bass and tenor, just tenor. I need to play through the whole thing without getting intimidated by the tenor clef and the eighth notes, practice it.

But overall, I am not ashamed of how well I did for the first rehearsal and I know that now that I have the sound in my head and know what I need to do, I will do it. I love this stuff.