rehearsal

[bloke]

A whole bunch of really loud charts tonight from a bunch of James Bond movie main titles and other overtures from other spy movies. ...charts where stuff is marked piano or mezzo piano and the music director wants it all forte to triple forte ("more...as much as you can give"...etc.) because it needs to have that type of timbre, and we're playing in a huge place where the low brass sound gets eaten up by the time it gets to the balcony (which is about a city block away).

The point being that when I play in my pretty large room with a pretty high ceiling (for a residence), I play at a volume level that seems pretty loud, but when I play in that huge Convention Center (which is basically a barn... something the size of an airplane hanger...and no real shell), it's I completely different level and classification of loudness, and the big model 98 tuba just loves being played that loud and eats it up.

I also really don't get the cimbasso out and never practice on it until I need it. And probably 2/3 of the tunes I played on that (tonight's reading rehearsal). I got it out one or two days ago, got reacclimated to it, and forget about how much fun it is to play that thing. It's such an easy instrument to play in tune that it's ridiculous...and to have something that can drown out the percussion...(hee-hee)

summary:
certainly no artistic triumphs, but tons of fun playing really loud and...yeah...well.
One more rehearsal tomorrow morning and a concert tomorrow night. The folks will like it.