We really need to lower our playing standard….said no conductor ever…. yet another solid rehearsal last night, preceded by a well attended workshop on sight reading.
Firstly, I want to comment on the team we have at Camden, only a few short years ago we were afraid of our own shadows and used to walk past other performers with our heads down, now we are sharing our music and musicians with other bands and spreading the joy of playing beyond our local district. You also notice (or at least I do) the many band members who give so much time, effort and expertise to making the whole operation successful, to have musicians of the calibre of Jill working constantly with our kids, Dennis arranging new music, Kerry and Rebecca attending to all the hygiene, our hard working committee always looking out for us says a lot about the team atmosphere and strong morale in our band ( there are many more who give but space is limited)
Secondly our sight reading workshop was very well attended and I hope you got something of benefit out of it, I know when I was writing it I was learning at the same time, if you missed it I will put the video up on line as soon as I have edited it and the notes will also be published for your perusal, I know several people have enquired about where the 6pm session are heading and it’s my desire to see a mixed ensemble emerge out of the brass and woodwind ensembles, a dance band and an adults learning group in dispersed with some more workshop material.
Lastly to our rehearsal, of note was the growth in some of the lower parts starting to come through. When I say lower parts I’m talking seconds and thirds because that is where the harmony lies and often you have the difficult job of pitching odd intervals or not playing melody. We still need to focus on the attack and release of notes…. it’s so important to breathe before the initial note and form the note early then play together but it is just as important particularly on sustained notes to release together. There is a mode of thinking that a long pause should release from the higher instruments down in a staggered style, but generally, that will occur naturally and need not be dictated, it’s far more important the we unify our release especially on the final chord, then freeze our position to allow the sound to decay naturally.
There are some large errors in the scoring of First Suite as we discovered last night and the errata sheet will be put up on the web so you can check your parts and I will be sitting down and working on what needs fixing for the bigger errors such as the missing 16 bars in horn 1, just remember if you think it’s wrong then check it out as it may well be so, as you will see in this major score printing mistakes happen!
Thank you again for an excellent, quality rehearsal, it is a pleasure and a privilege to work with you
Murray