Summer Pops Orchestra
A painful, exciting rehearsal experience
The Dakota Valley Symphony began its 10th summer season last night with our first rehearsal of the summer. Attendance was up again this year, and the sight-read music went pretty well. With our regular first-trombonist off for this summer, I had the opportunity to read the first part on a majority of the works chosen for our concerts.
In the symphony, I have been playing the bass trombone part for three years now, and while in college, I generally played second part in the band and orchestra with only occassional stabs at first part. I haven’t played first often since high school. but last night was an opportunity to explore.
After the first few works, I settled into the groove and was reading the pieces fairly well, popping out the notes in the high range. But once we hit the fourth work … well, things stopped going so well with my high range. But, that can be fixed with some extra range exercises and some advanced warm-ups and post warm-downs. So things were hurting a little bit. About halfway through the rehearsal we had a break and some time to catch up with some of my orchestral friends. When we started playing again, I could feel the soreness starting to spread in my lips.
At this point in time, I switched to a few more of my standard third parts. However, since most of what we are playing are movie works and great “pops” works, the brass parts are all very heavy and even the bass parts tend to shoot a little higher in the register. So, in other words, time for a little pain. But, no pain, no gain, right? Well, by the time we approached the last few rehearsal numbers on the second to last piece … split went my upper lip. And blood flowed.
I was re-baptized in blood to the first part.
Gotta love that!
Felt good, can’t wait for the Wednesday rehearsal.
- Now check out a little more about our summer season, and attend a free concert!
Posted: 22 June 2004, Matthew Schlukebier
Happy Birthday!
And, Happy Father’s Day!
Happy Birthday, Mom! And, Happy Father’s Day, Dad! Both on the same day! Plus, a big family party too! This’ll be fun. Hope you both have a great day and a great party at your home. Love you both!
Posted: 20 June 2004, Matthew Schlukebier.
Not much news …
Nothing major going on right now for me.
Nothing major going on right now for me. Just getting going in my new job at Nonin Medical, Inc. and working on my first-floor renovation project in my town home.
New web site look
I suppose I could announce that this is a new look for my web site, but even that is nothing major. Well, back to work!