The First of Many Posts About Music

Yesterday I had the honor of playing with the United States Air Force Band of Liberty. It was so much fun, and was truly a great experience. I got to spend some time with great musicians and people alike, and it was so much fun playing marches and band music.

The concert was outside, and sound check was at 5:30, and whilst I was warming up in a field (which reminded me of being at Tanglewood when I was in BUTI) I got a small opportunity to snap some pictures:

A nice sunset through the trees

My baby. 

The venue

This might seem like an advertisement for Altieri, but I liked the contrast between textures here...grass, cloth, wood, and metal.

And last but not least, a great shot of the setting sun through the trees with a nice looking sky.

We got lucky with the weather, but just in case we had to go inside, we were right across the street from the Manchester Community College. It's actually a really nice campus with new buildings, surrounded by grassy lawns and some woods. I got to explore a little bit while foraging for snacks and looking for a respectable restroom. Then I sat outside in the shade, wishing I had brought a book, and had a lovely conversation with the love of my life. 

Speaking of books...I've started yet another series. I've already completed Stag Larsson's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series (as well as the movie in English, and the complete movie series in Swedish), the Hunger Games (and saw the movie along with every person between the ages of 13 and 25 in the world), and Fifty Shades of Gray (which they are supposedly making a movie for, but how they are going to do that without making it X rated, I have no idea). I've started, along with many others, A Song of Ice and Fire...starting with the first book, A Game of Thrones. I've got to admit that fantasy books don't really do it for me, but after reading the first couple chapters, I'm really enjoying it. It's written kind of like As I Lay Dying in that both Faulkner and Martin entitle their chapters with the character's name of the view point it's written from. Does that last sentence even make any sense? 

Back to the band.

It's funny. No matter if it's orchestra, high school band, professional orchestra, professional band, volunteer orchestra or band, festival orchestra or band, all musicians are the same. From high school to professional, there is always some amount of fooling around and joking during rehearsals. There are also many stereotypes for people who play certain instruments. I'll save that for another blog post, but essentially people's personalities tend to match their instruments. People with big egos? Trumpet. Mellow? Low brass. Divas? Flute. Weirdos? Clarinet. Mellow and down to earth, perhaps a little less weird than clarinetist? Saxophone. 

The sad thing is, with all the financial crap going on in the United States, as well as other places, bands and orchestras are shutting down. The Band of Liberty is currently doing their last summer concert series, as they are shutting down within the year. The same has been true, and will be true for more and more military bands, as well as orchestras. Every year, thousands of students graduate from conservatories hoping to win a job, in a job market that keeps getting more and more competitive and impossible.

More on this subject tomorrow. 

I don't want to end on a sad note, however. There's success to be found if you go viral: