What a fantastic couple of rehearsals we’ve had over the past week. Apologies for the delay in getting this out, I was enjoying a bit of time off to do some much-needed wedding planning!
A good deal to go through today, so thanks for reading.
What we did on Saturday 22nd October:
Firstly, a huge thank you to Adrian and Julie for their incredible hospitality and welcoming us to their home to rehearse. I hope you all agree that it was not only a productive rehearsal but a really lovely afternoon. I’m sure you’ll also all agree that I’m sacked and Julie is hired in my place, haha!
We began by working through Colonel Bogey thinking about style, character, and the subtleties that will make the work worth performing. I made a mistake in where we finish, so please note we will do AS PRINTED on the parts; after the D.C. al Fine we go back to the beginning, play through and finish at the “Fine” before the Trio, as printed.
An excellent play through and work on the Beethoven – clearly the hard work you did with Chris payed off. We’ll touch this up on Monday 7th Nov.
Great work on all of the Star Wars movements. I needn’t remind you to just keep practicing the parts you’re unfamiliar with, as I will be doing over the next couple of weeks too!
We finished with some great playing in West Side Story – it’s really coming together now, with just a bit more work to be done on the joins between sections. The ‘Something’s Coming’ section felt a lot more secure with the double basses joining us (brilliant to have you basses!), just still be careful not to drag, off-beat strings.
What we did on Monday 24th October:
It was lovely to welcome the percussion on Monday, and we had a good start to the rehearsal working on Pirates of the Caribbean, perfecting the different changes between sections.
We then did lots of detailed work on James Bond – something we haven’t done since July. Each section individually went well, but we didn’t quite have time to work on the opening; something for next week.
After the break we corroborated what we did on Saturday in West Side Story and did some really good work on the joins between sections. Again, having the percussion made all the difference, and it’s so important we all lock in together with tempi and ‘grooves’.
We ended with The Imperial March – a good “brass-fest”… just make sure it doesn’t have any ‘swing’ which makes it sound camp! Little bits to be done on this next week.
What we’ll do on Monday 31st October:
A last-minute sectionals this week to touch up anything that needs immediate work.
19:30 – Tutti in the Main Hall on I. Main Title.
19:50 – Continued work on Star Wars and West Side Story: Strings in main hall with Ben, Wind and Brass downstairs in the Library with Chris.
20:25 – Break.
20:35 – Strings work on Allegretto. Wind work on West Side Story.
20:50 – ‘Call for concerns’: open sectionals on any problems members are having with any work.
21:10 – Pirates of Penzance. A quick reminder of this, as we’ve not done it since July.
Tomorrow (at the time of writing) is exactly 2 weeks away from the concert… let’s put in the extra hours of practice between now and then together for this!
Playlist
Keep making use of the Spotify Playlist HERE. It contains everything except the James Bond Medley which you can hear if you click HERE.
See you all on Monday 31st.
– Ben
