April's Life Adventures

Friday, October 13, 2006

Fearless?

Time to update all of you on what happened to me last night. I arrived a few minutes early for rehearsal. There were only three people there! Suddenly I was terrified that they had all heard that I was running the rehearsal and decided not to show up. Can we say inferiority complex?

Fifteen minutes after the rehearsal was supposed to start, I had enough people to actually make it worth the effort. I sent the winds and brass to a sectional, while I worked with the strings. We are playing the Egmont overture by Beethoven, a piece that I have performed more times than I can remember. There is a very difficult section near the end that the strings always struggle with. Our director had been taking it at about half tempo (really slow) and planed on keeping it there for the performance. I asked him why, and he replied that he didn't think our string section could take it. That is where I come to the rescue! I got those strings going enough that they are now up to full tempo! I was extatic! I just gave them some clues to help and suddenly we were there, at the speed we wanted to be at. I can't wait to tell the director!

When I pulled the entire group together, I decided to tell a joke. It lightened the mood considerably, and helped me to bring them all to a happy place where we could actually get some work done.
Q: What do you do with a violist who can't count?
A: Take away their viola, give em' two sticks and send em' to the back.
Q: What if they still can't count?
A: Take away one stick and send them to the front.
*Insert happy sounds of laughter*

I did learn something about myself last night though. Strings I can handle like the back of my hand. I am a string player, and therefore I know how they think and how they function. Winds and Brass however, terrify me. I am intimidated when they look at me wrong, I think they are waiting for me to fail (although I know it wasn't the case). Throughout the rest of the rehearsal, things went really well though. I was scared of those mean ole' winds and brass, but I got through.

The best part of the evening was when we were all finished, packing up, and getting ready to leave. This old farmer guy who plays the trumpet in our group came up to me and said "I really like your conducting style". Said in a very simple, back country way of his but it made my night!

Now that I have substituted for K, I know he will ask me to do it again and again... I am actually going to suggest to him that I always handle the string sectional at the beginning. The director is not a string player and therefore gives very little direction to them other than to play in tune. I think that my idea could really shape the sections and help them to progress a little bit more... Just a thought though. But then, I am probably just getting ahead of myself. At least next time I fill in, I won't have a heart attack the week before. I can do this. I can!

Posted by April_Mommy :: 9:10 AM :: 6 comments