Busy, Busy, Busy…

[the elephant]

I have just about everything ever written for tuba in my John Williams Pops folder for the next three nights. I have Prokofiev 5 in two weeks. I have the Broughton Concerto with an orchestra in two months. I still have all my regular gigs, like quintet kiddie shows on Mondays, and various freelance folders to prepare, like the Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem, Rutter's Gloria, some new stuff with large chorus (penned by someone unfamiliar with the mechanics of respiration), some quintet "milling music" gigs, etc.

Don't get me wrong, here. It is excellent to be busy… but why do they always seem to either give me everything simultaneously or let me languish for months at a stretch?

This is frustrating and exciting all at once. I can deal with one of those at a time at my age.

Ugh…

[bloke]

Busy is - at worst - exasperating (but often not that).

Not-busy can be quite worrisome.

Congrats on the lesser of the two emotions, and all the great rep.




...A few years ago, one of my freeway phil's got to vote on the big tune at the end of the season.
When it got down to two choices, the brass voted for Prokofiev 5, and all the strings and woodwinds voted for Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra...There are obviously more strings and woodwinds...Bartok is fine...Prokofiev 5 is also a great tuba thing, and/but tons of it doubles the basses - who must be respected. Mostly, it's good to be above ground and playing music.

[kingrob76]

Does that Pops folder include Jaws or CE3K? Or possibly the Suite from The Reivers? ( (jump to 3:10 to hear the excellent Cameron Gates lay this down)

[the elephant]

It is like this all the time here…

… or it's a musical ghost town for the tuba.

Very little in between.

Christmas and Easter are, of course, a bit crazy *every* year, but right now is usually quite dead. It's weird how this stuff shakes out, sometimes.

[the elephant]

Does that Pops folder include Jaws or CE3K? Or possibly the Suite from The Reivers? ( (jump to 3:10 to hear the excellent Cameron Gates lay this down)

CE3K - no. He only programs ET out of those two. The Mothership requires that we hire a bunch of folks (like 2nd tuba) and these are supposed to be money makers with expenses as low as possible.

[bloke]

yeah...January - in particular - is usually when everyone is "spent out" and many orchestras (regardless of full-time/a-lot-of-the-time/per-service) either do nothing or "fake it".

I was surprised at the calls I received for January...and this month has been a bit more than I had expected.
ex: One entity just stuck $750 in a blokeaccount (after some tootin' for which I was called just this month) and will probably stick another $200 in that account next week, and I got a surprise $250 for this-coming weekend...and a little 1-hour $100er trio job on the same weekend...
...and these are in addition to the ones I've had scheduled for February since last fall.

$1300 doesn't buy much after all of the shutdown money-printing, but it's still more than nuthin'...ok...and no Williams or Prokofiev, but it's still dough.

[the elephant]

My January was pretty crazy, too.

Freelance work is very cyclical around here. We have brass years and string years, sort of like fads or trends. (I played the Rutter 14 times in 1996!) This is obviously a brass year after several of little-to-nothing due to the pandemic.

Good times.

However, the MSO lumping Prokofiev 5 in there at the same time as when I am playing the concerto is… stressful…

Again, not complaining. I'm just shaking my head wondering why no one wanted me in November, or this past summer. SPREAD THE LOVE OUT, PEOPLE. SPREAD IT OUT. WE HAVE 52 WEEKENDS EVERY YEAR!

Can't wait for The Cowboys and 1941 tonight!

[bloke]

The Concerto and the Prokofiev simply give you a chance to pruposely practice both low range and high range.