Good luck!!
I'm pretty tired these days, but there is much music to be made!
Recorder quartet was last Thursday; it went well. Small but appreciative audience.
Friday was to be the second rehearsal for the one-off band we're putting together for the charity thing, but our singer ended up in the E.R. Thursday night, was released Friday, but was taking some time to rest. We'd penciled in a rehearsal for Monday (last night) because the gig's this Friday, and losing last Friday's rehearsal changed last night's from "maybe" to "definitely". So we rehearsed last night.
Oh yeah, in between, Sunday morning was Easter of course, so the church choir did three pieces from Handel's Messiah. I swear to God, Handel must've had an ex-boyfriend who was a Tenor who pissed him off or something because Handel writes absolutely sadistic Tenor parts. We opened with the Hallelujah Chorus, and it was the
easiest of the three pieces we did. We closed the service with the final piece from the oratorio, so there are like 10 pages of "Amens" going on and on and building and getting higher and higher and more complicated and parts are interweaving and pretty soon the Tenors need oxygen masks. Holy Crap! Like, literally. But we did it.
Easter Morning, we traditionally augment the choir with "real brass", but it's getting harder and harder to find trumpets and/or trombones to play, and we don't have a huge budget. So just like last year, Brian and I played saxophones, which are made of brass, so technically that counts. Unlike last year, Brian played his tenor sax; I stuck with my alto. It sounded sweet. So singing three tunes, playing sax on two more, plus other incidental stuff (Doxology, etc.)
Back to the one-off band. After last night's rehearsal, there were serious concerns about even doing the gig Friday. Bill (guitar) and Ryan (drums) have been "so busy lately" that they haven't had time to practice any of the tunes. Haven't even had time to listen to them. And it showed. But seriously, are you fucking kidding me?? Three weeks, you haven't found even an hour to listen to the fucking songs? Bill is the most concerned, and I guess it's really his gig and not Mike and Karen's, but he's just been "so busy lately". Mike asked him something, and I didn't hear the question, but Bill said "Yeah, we can listen to music at work. I could at least listen to them."
Three weeks. Hasn't even listened to the songs.
Two days after the song list went out, I'd downloaded the few I didn't already have, uploaded all 12 of the original songs to my Dropbox, and sent links out to everyone on the mailing list.
Everybody had mp3's of all the songs three weeks ago, downloadable or streamable. I also loaded them onto my iPod in a new playlist, and put them all on a flashdrive for in my car. I've been listening to them over and over for three weeks. When we added some new songs because some of the first batch weren't looking good, I added them as well, to the Dropbox and and my flashdrive. I showed up for the first rehearsal with charts for every song. I'd already spent a few hours practicing them. I showed up last night with all 27 songs ready to go. Our guitarist and drummer have had three weeks and have not even listened to them, and the gig is this Friday.
So Bill looks concerned (and he should). It's his gig because his wife works at the homeless shelter (the charity we're doing this for) and he jumped at the chance to please his new bride by putting a band together. Mike had contacted me, but that's because Bill doesn't know any keyboard players. Anyway, Bill is seriously considering dropping the whole thing, except for one problem: His wife would not be happy. Thus, Bill (and the rest of us) decide that we will do the gig.
We add another rehearsal, tomorrow night. It was between Tuesday (tonight) and Wednesday, and I pointed out that Tuesday doesn't make any sense because what we need is time in between to work on the songs individually. I didn't name names, but fuck, we all knew. So we're rehearsing again tomorrow night. Then Thursday I have choir practice, Friday's the gig, then I get up Saturday morning for rehearsal with my regular band, FlashDrive. I'm tired now. I'm gonna be exhausted by Saturday.
But these are the sacrifices we make for our art.