| My pal, Chuck...
No, my other pal, Chuck!
We were at the the airport awaiting to board the flight home to Minneapolis. I was having a nice conversation with one of our development types when Ellen Smith, our third horn player, comes up to me and says, "Chuck (Lazarus) is stuck here, in NYC, and can't get a flight home. He is supposed to play a gig tomorrow for brass quintet and band. Can you play it instead?"
It was a piece called "Tangents" for quintet and concert band and was to be a featured piece at the MMEA with one of the better high school bands in the metro area.
I've never heard of it.
"I can e-mail you a PDF of it and a recording by the Dallas Brass. it was written for them".
"What time's the gig?"
"9:00 am tommorow. Can you do it?"
So, I said yes but not after calling Chuck and giving him endless grief about being a bigshot and not traveling with the orchestra. I got to the Convention Center to warm up about 8 am and had downloaded the files so I'd have an idea of what the piece was about. We met early enough to run through about 10% of the piece and in a little while later, we were off and running. Chuck told me it was flashy but readable and that proved to be the case.
Some of you younger folk might still be wondering why put in all that time with scales and arpeggios. This is why: most pieces with runs and things are based on scales and arpeggios. Get to know those and you can read well in situations that come up at the last minute.
They introduced the quintet and told a Reader's Digest version of the story and the audience showed their appreciation warmly. it made me feel good. It's a nice piece, actually. It's by John Wasson. It's about 10 minutes or so long and has doubling work for flugelhorn in the slow movement. I played in on C though it's written for Bb. Scattered high D's and E's. So there you go, youngsters: sightreading and transposition together. We, your teachers, are not joking when we encourage the in-depth study of both.
It went very well and I had fun. The best part is that Chuck owes me big time and I can lord this over him for at least another good half a year! It's funny because he was horribly sick last Christmas and called me begging me to play a performance for him of Christmas Oratorio at a local church. I played it and it went fine. I must say it's fun not having to rehearse stuff and just play the show. In England this happens all the time. That's why many of the Brits are such ferocious readers.
This must be the month for it. I've been asked to play a concert without rehearsal in Mankato later this month that will be broadcast for our troopers in Iraq. It's an all Shostakovitch concert with Festive Overture and the 5th symphony. They're going to videotape it and play it for them sometime later. It's going to be at the armory there on the 26th of this month. I'm looking forward to it very much.
Keep your sightreading chops up!
ML |