Soon to be home owners...

Less than one week until we hand over a very large down payment. Weeeee!

I was called for a composition class reading session at Grinnell College yesterday. I've been getting a lot of work with them recently--Dave and I are even on the same recording session for their symphonic band this week (today and tomorrow)--the first time we'll have played together in over a year. I have mixed feelings about composition classes. I think it's really important that the students have good musicians playing as well as they can to get an accurate representation of their pieces and/or orchestrations. That way, they know their pieces are bad, not the players. ;) Actually, most of them were not too bad. There were only 2 or 3 out of 17 that did not work at all. One girl had just forgotten to transpose the B-flat trumpet and horn parts. That was the piece where my part was marked "think of Scottland"...I said no, I would only think of Scotland. Anyway, I didn't mind being there and playing, but some people just don't take it seriously, which is a shame for the students and a drag for those of us who are there to do our jobs. It makes everyone look bad when people are snickering (out loud) about pieces, mistakes in parts, piece titles, etc. Granted, I'm sure not every student took the assignment seriously, but I'd prefer to approach these reading sessions as though every piece had great potential. Play the mistakes in the part--it's part of a learning process. You just shouldn't step on people, or laugh at them, who've tried their best.

By the way, I think it was ALW that my reeds were rebelling against. They feel fine now. Patty--just read your website and tried to sign up to comment on your "Cats" posting. The site didn't let me, so I'll try again another time. My comment: I know, ALW and high oboe notes...what was he thinking? Many of the pieces just seem like transpositions for the singers' comfort. My favourite was playing Evita--loved all the songs in that show. Got to sing out on those high F-sharps!

Song in my head now: "Vaults of Heaven"...I'll be extremely impressed if anyone here can name the musical that came from!! (Don't cheat and look it up on google.)

Going to look at shower curtains tomorrow--exciting stuff!! Have a great weekend, everyone! Especially Canadians! Happy Victoria day! Go BBQ'ing. Ciao!