Playing with the Stillwater Community Band on the pier of lovely Boomer Lake in Stillwater, Oklahoma on the night of the 4th. Good patriotic fare...American Overture for Band, America the Beautiful, March Grandioso, and of course Stars and Stripes Forever. A couple of strange inserts...Holst First Suite in F, Amazing Grace, and music from "Pirates of the Caribbean."
I also managed to get my arrangement of Carnival of Venice Variations for solo tuba and band in there... I was gonna play it on one of the school's sousaphones, but it's just not practical on a 20K (does anybody like those short-stroke valves?). I'm using a Yamaha YBB201 instead...nice small bore for clarity and lightning fast piston valves. I got to do it since we played a concert tonight in my hometown of Ponca City, and we're using the same concert on the 4th. Yippee!!!
July 4 I'll be at Lebanon Oregon playing with the Linn Benton Concert Band.
We play in a "mobile stage". They take two open-sided 48 foot semi trailers and park them side by side. The space between the trailers is covered by pieces of plywood. The fun part is that we play Star and Stripes during the beginning of the fireworks. We are about 100 feet from the fireworks staging area. I usually end up near the gap in the side between trailers closest to the staging area so I get the impact of the concussion of the fireworks going off.
Actually, I'll be playing on the 3rd for a rehearsal of my FD band. We're trying out the Manhattan Beach March for the first time.
For the 4th, I'll be grilling burgers and watching the fireworks. I also hope to play an old video from 1982 which has an 18 year old Matt Dillon playing the sousaphone. I kid you not! It's titled "Jean Shepards Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters."
We were in Bucharest, Romania at the US Ambassador's residence. Romania's president, prime minister, and ministry of defense chief of staff were in attendance as well.
TubaTinker wrote:The Old Dam Community Band http://www.olddamband.com has a 'fireworks' gig on the evening of the 3rd at a retirement village on the west end of Evansville. Of the 4th we have a 4th of July parade at 4pm in hometown Newburgh and will also perform before the fireworks later that evening. We're having a family picnic between the parade and fireworks concert. It's always busy around here in July! It's all free stuff.... but loads of fun!
Well.... the fireworks in Newburgh on the 4th got re-scheduled because of the threat of severe storms. We still had our picnic and did an outdoor 'rehearsal', anyway. The fireworks (and concert) have been scheduled for Friday (July 7th) at 7:30pm on the riverfront. C'mon down!
Dan Schultz
"The Village Tinker" http://www.thevillagetinker.com" target="_blank
Current 'stable'... Rudolf Meinl 5/4, Marzan (by Willson) euph, King 2341, Alphorn, and other strange stuff.
I was busy playing pops music with the Lima Symphony under the direction of Elephant's favorite maestro, Crafton Beck. The concert went off without a hitch, though we almost got rained out at the beginning. It stopped just in time to get incredibly muggy. Oh, the life of musicians on outdoor gigs......
This weekend we're playing the Beach Club near Fort Morgan on the Gulf of Mexico. Five high-rise condos circling a pool-bar/restuarant complex.
Great idea! Built in clientelle. No driving. Customers can drink all the umbrella drinks they can hold and crawl on their hands and knees back to their room. The condos are mostly rented by tourists who tip well and buy lots-o-c.d.s.
By the time we start, we are shaded by the tiki bar next to the pool.
Many well-filled bikinis, free beer and fish sandwich for the band.
Tough job but somebody's got to do it.
Thanks to everyone that replied to this post! It was great to see everyone's plans for the 4th!
My wife recorded one video during our concert. Not the song I would have chosen but I shouldn't be too picky! It was recorded with a Sony DSC-H1 digital camera. Not the best for audio recordings but still not too bad for quick & easy videos!
Only about 30 musicians showed up for this show but it still sounded pretty good! We had 2 sousaphones and 2 forward facing tubas. Too bad you can't hear more of us... Typical!
