An interesting night, Starting out with a dance band session at 6 under Harolds leadership, this was a great session to sharpen your sight reading and to look at some alternate tropes of music, I highly recommend anyone who is available come on down and join in as it’s not only a good social occasion but we get to play some great charts as well.
To our main rehearsal, I think again Harold conservatively summed it up when he said “ we have a fair bit to do” on Phantom of the opera! I would like this to be the centre piece of a future concert but only if it is correct. The main sticking points are some unusual key signatures that throw flats into the saxes and lots of flats at the C instruments but be aware that the key changes rapidly as does the time signatures, this is not for the faint hearted and should be considered along the lines of overture to a new age (just think how much effort went into that) use a pencil or highlighter to mark the key changes and be aware of the respective time changes.
From my part of the rehearsal, I note we still have a tendency to hold on to notes longer that what is written, making for a ragged ending of phrases, it also causes the band to drag as we get slower or delay the next entry, this makes the band sound ponderous and heavy. We have spent considerable time working on entries by breathing together and playing together and the band now has a solid start generally but we must concentrate on the release of the phrase more so that there is a lightness and clarity to the notation…counting is the key!
Thanks again for all your efforts and continued dedication
Murray