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While I don't have the psychological expertise or qualifications of say "Dr. Phil" or "Oprah", I can say that similar situations have occured for me. In sports, some might refer to you as a "gamer." I always have felt that my best performances have occured either during the initial reading of a piece (sightreading) and during the performance(s). Perhaps that is why I enjoy gigs that have one rehearsal and a concert! I attribute this to my own personal concentration level. It seems that I can get easily bored by repetitious rehearsals and I focus more when I feel that it counts. This might explain why I hated being a band director in a school district where the philosophy was to "practice" the same three pieces for months and then take them to a contest.

As always - your mileage may vary. DLH

TheEngineer wrote:Not if you keep it clean, then it's the biggest and shiniest, and therefore most conspicuous, thing the director sees.

But other tuba players are often very large, they're not shiny, and they're good things to hide behind...

Allthumbs wrote:So, how do we define a B.A.T.P. (Big A** Tuba Player)?

How about a B.A.T.H. (Big A@@ Tuba Holder) ?

To quote a friend right before I went to Basic Training:

"Make sure you don't volunteer, bad stuff will find you no matter how hard you try to hide"


Chuck"who has taken that to heart and still finds himself in some of those very same situations I tried to avoid"Jackson

The first time I ever played in a "pit:" when I was in third grade, the entire grade put on the school Christmas play that year (back when you could still call it a Christmas play in public schools!) Since I had been taking piano lessons for about six months at that point, I was appointed to sit by the lady piano accompianist and play the glockenspiel and auxillary percussion. There was a glock solo descending G major scale: 18765432187654321 in eighth notes at a moderate tempo as an introduction to one of the pieces. I had just learned some of my sharps and flats, and the music teacher was very nervous I would miss the F#. Well, I concentrated as much as an 8-year old could, and nailed it! I've had fun in the pits ever since, and it was one of the last times he heard me perform before he passed away.

bloke wrote:... on some g.d.p.o.f.s. to boot (I seem to remember) called Sounds of Sonny and Cher

Ah yes, I dismember it well (no matter how hard I try to forget -- it's burned-in) ...

bloke wrote:Sounds of Sonny and Cher

"Whatever doesn't kill you will make you stronger... "

bloke wrote:...so not only did I have to drag my bass and amp to that band concert, but I had to be the stereotypical sorry-@$$(_!_) schmucky dork up there on stage playing an electric bass in a concert band and on some g.d.p.o.f.s. to boot (I seem to remember) called Sounds of Sonny and Cher

That's when you detune your bass about a quarter step flat and crank up the amp right before downbeat, avoid any input from the podium by keeping your face pinned in the music as if it's horribly complex and requires your full attention, and make everyone suffer as much as you. Oh yeah, and play a stinger with a long, long fall. Band directors loooooooove that.

tubarepair wrote:While I don't have the psychological expertise or qualifications of say "Dr. Phil" or "Oprah", I can say that similar situations have occured for me. In sports, some might refer to you as a "gamer." I always have felt that my best performances have occured either during the initial reading of a piece (sightreading) and during the performance(s). Perhaps that is why I enjoy gigs that have one rehearsal and a concert! I attribute this to my own personal concentration level. It seems that I can get easily bored by repetitious rehearsals and I focus more when I feel that it counts. This might explain why I hated being a band director in a school district where the philosophy was to "practice" the same three pieces for months and then take them to a contest.

As always - your mileage may vary. DLH

Oh, Daryl! Don't get me started on the overdone prep for contest. I also agree with you. I prefer gigs where I have one rehearsal and the performance, also. In fact, I most enjoy those sightreading gigs. They keep me on my toes, completely. When I have to wait for everyone else to learn the music, I tend to get bored, think about the grocery shopping I have to do or something, and that's when I tend to make stupid mistakes.

bloke wrote:I play in an orchestra where there are (basically) 3 rehearsals for concerts:

- reading
- main
- dress

Lucky you! The closest I get to that is at church (playing lead guitar in the praise band) where when the music director emails a new selection early in the week, listen to a recording of it to get the general feel once (only if it has been actually recorded by an artist), twice if there's a technical bit, rehearse at 10:00 Sunday morning, and lead the congregation when service starts at 11:00.

bloke wrote:I play in an orchestra where there are (basically) 3 rehearsals for concerts:

- reading
- main
- dress

... and I played in an orchestra where the maestro, who, when conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra during the summer, finished working on all the pieces early, and then went back to the top to use up all the rehearsal time...

TUBACHRIS85 wrote:

iiipopes wrote:

bloke wrote:I play in an orchestra where there are (basically) 3 rehearsals for concerts:

- reading
- main
- dress

Lucky you! The closest I get to that is at church (playing lead guitar in the praise band) where when the music director emails a new selection early in the week, listen to a recording of it to get the general feel once (only if it has been actually recorded by an artist), twice if there's a technical bit, rehearse at 10:00 Sunday morning, and lead the congregation when service starts at 11:00.

Wow, thats beter then some things I have done before. The times that I have played for a church, my performance was primarily me sight reading.

-tubachris

Yeah, today I got the list for Sunday, and on it is a song we have done before, but with a different instrumentation. So I get to cover a mandolin part on Sunday. Now, let's see, that's E,A,D,G going down, like a violin....

My favorite gigs, though, are sight-reading gigs. When I was in high school, as a way to prepare for contest, our director would order a new piece of music noone had seen, with a flair rip open the envelope in front of the audience at our spring formal concert, pass out parts, give us the two minute drill, then conduct the piece. Somewhere in the director's office are the old tapes of the concerts, to prove we sight read the pieces very well indeed!