Concert's over, moving on

It was a very fun concert, lively music and fun to play and I would gather from the audience's response, fun to listen to. Karen Paulick guest conducted Stars and Stripes and the audience and musicians loved it. Sue Kazama's piano solo on I got Rhythm was really good, and the audience loved that. It was great for me to pair with another 2nd 'bone from Anchorage, Jenny McCoy (I think) - she's a strong player, and just a nice person to play with.

I feel a need at this point to be more selective about what I play in, trying to focus my energies more in order to play better more consistently. Marching band is coming up and that's something I don't want to miss, but as the season progresses, I will become a little more careful about saying yes. I need to become a stronger player, I need to develop more confidence, I need to become a better sight reader - well, the list goes on, doesn't it? And the dichotomy, of course, is that I also need to have more confidence in performance - and to get that, I need to perform.

One last thought. Yesterday during rehearsal I realized that I knew the music much better after the rehearsal cycle, I could feel it, I knew instinctively where to come in. I must remind myself the next time that I feel like freaking out in the early rehearsals (I can't do this!) that we are all in some stage of being new to the music and we will all get better. I need to play out right from the beginning in rehearsals and make my mistakes then so I can play it right later. Enough already of this timidness!