We started our evening with a great dance band session lead by Harold, I can highly recommend these sessions to all as it’s a good opportunity to try a different style of music, bone up on your reading skills and look at some alternative ways that music has been written over the years…. we have another session next week if you are interested, starting at 6pm.
To our main rehearsal, you may have noted that our seating is closer together than it has been for the last 12 months or so, as due to the continued easing of restrictions, we no longer have to sit apart. This means however a change to the balanced sound in the ensemble, you might not think it but seating of sections is important to the overall sound. By being closer together we can listen more carefully to others but we must also be more aware of our sounds and the part we play in the ensemble…. leaving room for moving parts or balancing the harmonics of your section becomes more critical! Whilst talking about balance, one of the challenges facing any community ensemble is the often changing numbers of players in the section…one week you have 10 next week 1, but it’s important that when we have sufficient numbers that all parts are covered, this means that at sometimes you might be playing part 3 and then the next week part 1, be flexible and sort out the parts to suit the number of players present. Under our current library system you should have access to all your sections music on the playlist. It’s also a good way to see how your part fits into the rest of the section as the more advances we make in our playing, the more diverse each part becomes.
Finally a couple of house keeping matters…. fingers crossed we are on the road to making covid a piece of history and as such there are a few dates appearing in the book, please keep an eye on them so you don’t miss out on a gig. Remember most of these dates have been hard fought for by the committee and they deserve our support. Secondly, there were a couple of questions raised regarding uniform, It’s actually not the Director of Musics responsibility as to the uniform of the day, that was discussed and decided at a recent committee meeting and should you have any doubts, please check the minutes for the February meeting or speak to a committee person.
Thanks to all for your continued contributions and dedication to the band, we continue to grow both musically and as a group and I can’t wait until we can get out and play for real more often
Murray