The All-New Bunrab

Um, 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?

Yesterday was my saxophone lesson. I came home with a different soprano sax than I had left with. Pictures soon. The upgrade did not cost much, and it's a MUCH better horn - not any shinier, but ergonomically much easier to play. The longer I take lessons, the more I learn about what works and what doesn't on an instrument with that many little moving pieces, that I had never thought about before.

I'm sure I had already mentioned my new bari sax mouthpiece, the Jody Jazz 6; I wound up getting almost the same model for the soprano sax, the 6* (pronounced six-star) [http://www.jodyjazz.com/hr.soprano.html]. I also got a new used mouthpiece for the tenor a couple weeks ago, a German make called Strathon, with a built-in reed holder, obviating the need for a ligature, AND a built in sliding baffle which can change the chamber shape, and thereby change the sound from fairly mellow (though still jazzier than my C-Star mouthpiece) to quite edgy. I could never have afforded one new, but used was do-able. It is the Adjustotone model. (Strathmann's web site has only minimal info about them, and no pictures; they seem to now be far more into making their alto flutes than their sax and clarinet mouthpieces - but here's a link, such as it is: http://www.strathmann-musicinstruments.de/gbpatente_u_lizenz.htm)

Today, we retrieved the fake tree and the pertinent ornaments from the storage unit; we'll get it up over the weekend and I'll take photos then. If it snows tomorrow, S will NOT be doing TubaChristmas outdoors at the harbor, so we'll get it up then, otherwise, it'll be Sunday.

Reminder: richspk, guavmom, and n5red, I still need your snail addies.

It's that season - something featuring loud brass instruments everywhere you turn. Saturday was Baltimore's TubaChristmas, in which squirrel_magnet participated. There was a good turnout, 215 assorted large pieces of brass (or, in some cases, fiberglass - those marching Sousaphones, ya know.) And one of them was a Jewsaphone - a large white fiberglass sousaphone decorated with a huge Star of David over the bell, and lots of little blue stars of David all over it. There was also a parade of the Drunken Santas at the same time - the two events don't always coincide, but they did this time. Which included at least one Santa in a red yarmulke and prayer shawl. And a bunch of 8 or 9 TubaChristmas fans had come wearing reindeer antlers, and when the Drunken Santas happened across the Reindeer, some impromptu skits ensued. The Ravens Marching Band brass were there in their purple uniforms, with a few tricks up their sleeves. There was a helicon, three double-bell euphoniums, one forward-bell marching tuba, and a forward-bell recording tuba (which was sitting right in back of squirrel_magnet). A good time was had by all - especially since there were also waitpersons from nearby restaurants circling through the crowds with little sample cups of desserts and of hot spiced apple cider, much appreciated as the temperature had decided to be in the high 40's after a week of 68-70. (Note: high 40's F = 8 or 9 degrees C.) Cindy took pictures, but didn't bring the USB cable for her camera, so pictures of this will not be available until she gets back to Austin, later this week.

And Sunday afternoon, the Montgomery Village Community Band played at the Margaret Schweinhaut Senior Rec Center in Silver Springs. The audience was small but enthusiastic. The program included my "Jingle Bells Hora" again - whee!! There was another novelty number as well - our conductor, playing the bass trombone, in a special arrangement of "Frosty the Snowman." We do good holiday stuff, if I say so myself. We get to do it all over again next weekend - 2:30 p.m. at the Lake Marion Community Center (there's a Map of East Montgomery Village here; check the map service of your choice for directions to MV via I-270, or state highways 108, and/or 124, and/or 355, all of which go through Montgomery Village.) I know that several of my flist are in the greater Washington, DC area - if you can make it to this concert, please do come! Montgomery Village is pretty easy to get to via the Beltway and 270. I would enjoy meeting you - and would love to have you hear my music!

Tomorrow, we're going down to DC for a bit of touristing. squirrel_magnet doesn't think he'll do the DC TubaChristmas at the Kennedy Center, though that's tomorrow. Well, maybe next year!