Blog off hold

I am a new woman and my blog is arising from its brief hiatus. That was not even two weeks off, but I needed it. Now, the student symphony concert is done and I am practicing and rehearsing hot and heavy for the Brahms in April and the concert band concert on May 1.

I played for hours today - probably about 3 1/2. Two of those were concert band rehearsal and there is a little rest there for measure counts, but one of the things I love so much about playing that kind of music is that we on low brass get to play so much of it.

Lots of this concert band music needs work by me. I worked tonight on one tricky rhythm part in Hindemith's March from Symphonic Metamorphosis, figuring it out and working it very slowly - it goes fast when we play it!

Earlier today, I played through all of the Brahms. For the most part, this is easy music to play, which is wonderful because it allows me to focus hard on how it sounds, my legato where needed, cleanness of note separation, my tuning. This is in tenor clef and I pretty much have that clef now. That feels good. I worked last night on the Brahms as well, playing through all of it. I'll miss next Tuesday's rehearsal so I want to get in the best shape possible for Thursday's.

Time just goes rushing by. I traveled a week ago and I'll travel again next week and that always makes keeping on track worse. I like to be in different places but I just don't like the havoc it wreaks on my schedule and life left behind.

I went out after work last night and had a couple of martinis - mercy. I crashed on the couch when I came home (after eating some dinner - I'm not that bad) and was sorely tempted to not buzz the mouthpiece when I woke up after my 9 pm music cutoff ... but I did, so I have not blown my play-every-day track record. March 9 was 171 so today is 183 = 1/2 a year! Just like that.