4KCBWDAY2 β A Mascot Project
Apr. 23rd, 2013 11:23 pmUm, a mascot for being in the House of the Bee for Knitting and Crochet Blog Week? I suppose that if I had time to do anything, it could be an amigurumi bee, but I don't have time to do that this week. This week is totally taken up with music, in real life, since I have three concerts to play this weekend. I know what I'll do! I'll play Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee at some point while practicing.
And I will have to practice, because I found out at tonight's rehearsal that the alto sax is really sick, and if she doesn't get better by Saturday, I'll need to play alto, and I'd rather not sight-read at the concert; there's a couple of short solo spots. So practice it is. Along with practicing the euphonium I bought last week, and the clarinet someone gave me last month.
Did I tell y'all about the euphonium?
When Steve died, I sold most of his instruments. I only kept the bass trumpet, because it was the smallest and the one he had bought most recently - and the one that would bring in the least money if sold, so selling the others made more sense. That includes Steve's euphonium, which 40 years earlier had been Jerry's student euphonium. If I had known that I was going to want to play the euphonium, I would have kept it, but I didn't know then. Anyway, what I figured out recently is that what I want to do is play in a TubaChristmas or two in Steve's memory, and maybe, just maybe, even participate in a reading session at the Army Band's annual Tuba-Euphonium Workshop. Might not be good enough for that this coming January, but I'm pretty sure I can get good enough for TubaChristmas. So, a bass trumpet wouldn't work for TubaChristmas - even though it's in the same range as a euphonium, and it's a valved brass instrument, it's really not the same thing - it's far more like a trombone in tone, and in fact, uses a trombone mouthpiece. Which isn't nearly as useful for practicing to potentially play the euphonium as you'd think - the mouthpieces are different enough in size and shape that I need to work on it quite a bit still.
Anyway. So I went back over to Baltimore Brass, where the bass trumpet was from, and sold it back to them as a trade-in on a euphonium. It's an inexpensive student euphonium, a Chinese brand, and just a three-valve - but that's OK, three-valve fingering is certainly what I was practicing on the trumpet. And three valves are certainly adequate for anything TubaChristmas can throw at me; that's not music with virtuoso solos that require faster alternate fingerings. And so I've been practicing my new euphonium - I can play scales in a couple of keys, reliably hitting the notes I'm aiming at for about an octave and a half, having a little trouble with the notes below the low B-flat, and I can't hit the low E at all yet, and I am having trouble with the notes above the high E, too. But hey, I've been playing the euphonium for all of a week. I'm doing OK for one week. I actually read the euphonium part to a version of Amazing Grace that one of the bands has. Slowly, but I was playing euphonium music from a euphonium part on a euphonium for the very first time.
Euphonium, by the way, is Greek for "good sound thingy."
My sounds aren't there yet - my attacks are still quite buzzy, and the tone isn't smooth between octaves. And on those extra low and extra high notes, I don't reliably hit the one I'm aiming for right off. More practice needed.
If I had kept Steve's euphonium, trying to play it would probably make me cry, so maybe it's just as well I didn't keep that one. As it is, I'm sure that finally doing TubaChristmas will make me cry. But better to do it on a new euphonium so that every single breath doesn't make me think how much better Steve sounded on it. And - I didn't know then that that's what would make sense now. I had no way of knowing what would feel right later on.
Steve would have turned 67 this Thursday.
Not much about knitting and crochet in this post, is there?
And I will have to practice, because I found out at tonight's rehearsal that the alto sax is really sick, and if she doesn't get better by Saturday, I'll need to play alto, and I'd rather not sight-read at the concert; there's a couple of short solo spots. So practice it is. Along with practicing the euphonium I bought last week, and the clarinet someone gave me last month.
Did I tell y'all about the euphonium?
When Steve died, I sold most of his instruments. I only kept the bass trumpet, because it was the smallest and the one he had bought most recently - and the one that would bring in the least money if sold, so selling the others made more sense. That includes Steve's euphonium, which 40 years earlier had been Jerry's student euphonium. If I had known that I was going to want to play the euphonium, I would have kept it, but I didn't know then. Anyway, what I figured out recently is that what I want to do is play in a TubaChristmas or two in Steve's memory, and maybe, just maybe, even participate in a reading session at the Army Band's annual Tuba-Euphonium Workshop. Might not be good enough for that this coming January, but I'm pretty sure I can get good enough for TubaChristmas. So, a bass trumpet wouldn't work for TubaChristmas - even though it's in the same range as a euphonium, and it's a valved brass instrument, it's really not the same thing - it's far more like a trombone in tone, and in fact, uses a trombone mouthpiece. Which isn't nearly as useful for practicing to potentially play the euphonium as you'd think - the mouthpieces are different enough in size and shape that I need to work on it quite a bit still.
Anyway. So I went back over to Baltimore Brass, where the bass trumpet was from, and sold it back to them as a trade-in on a euphonium. It's an inexpensive student euphonium, a Chinese brand, and just a three-valve - but that's OK, three-valve fingering is certainly what I was practicing on the trumpet. And three valves are certainly adequate for anything TubaChristmas can throw at me; that's not music with virtuoso solos that require faster alternate fingerings. And so I've been practicing my new euphonium - I can play scales in a couple of keys, reliably hitting the notes I'm aiming at for about an octave and a half, having a little trouble with the notes below the low B-flat, and I can't hit the low E at all yet, and I am having trouble with the notes above the high E, too. But hey, I've been playing the euphonium for all of a week. I'm doing OK for one week. I actually read the euphonium part to a version of Amazing Grace that one of the bands has. Slowly, but I was playing euphonium music from a euphonium part on a euphonium for the very first time.
Euphonium, by the way, is Greek for "good sound thingy."
My sounds aren't there yet - my attacks are still quite buzzy, and the tone isn't smooth between octaves. And on those extra low and extra high notes, I don't reliably hit the one I'm aiming for right off. More practice needed.
If I had kept Steve's euphonium, trying to play it would probably make me cry, so maybe it's just as well I didn't keep that one. As it is, I'm sure that finally doing TubaChristmas will make me cry. But better to do it on a new euphonium so that every single breath doesn't make me think how much better Steve sounded on it. And - I didn't know then that that's what would make sense now. I had no way of knowing what would feel right later on.
Steve would have turned 67 this Thursday.
Not much about knitting and crochet in this post, is there?