So ... what gives?

What I don't understand is what combination it is that makes playing good one day and not good another day. I wasn't real happy about how I played in the concert on Saturday - who knows what contributed. Was it my uncertainty in the setting, was it my embouchure, was it something I ate that day.

Tonight, I was tired when I headed out for marching band rehearsal. I got up at 5 am today, worked at a dead run pace all day, met for marching band concert and parade planning at lunch in the state office building atrium (a very cool place to meet, btw), had only time to heat a can of soup and eat a bite for dinner before rehearsal. I went at a dead run all day long. Then I missed the first couple of songs at marching band rehearsal because I was getting music for people (though Sandra Strandtmann is serving as our librarian now and it was wonderful to have her there tonight, it brought such calm to the process).

So I had to sneak in, a couple of songs into the rehearsal, and start playing with no warmup. I've done that before and it took half a rehearsal before I could even reliably hit the right partial. Tonight, I snuck in by reading over Galen's shoulder on Washington Post March and sure I didn't play perfectly, but I just dropped right in to the rehearsal. I just played ok, I felt fine playing. The music's not real hard, maybe that's part of it. Maybe my practice on the marches is paying off. No, no maybe about it, the practice is paying off.

Maybe the most important part is that I feel comfortable now in this setting. Actually, I just loved how it felt to drop into the playing like that and be able to pick up and play.

This is the first year that I feel confident playing the marches, too. We practiced marching and I didn't have a lyre so just poked at playing from memory during our practice march and that was cool, too. I haven't been able to figure out where my lyre was but when I got home I rummaged around in my tromboney stuff and finally found my clip-on-bell lyre. Next week I'll bring my Jupiter and practice marching with that with the lyre - cringing I was to be out marching with my lovely Yamaha but I held that slide tight.