dopey wrote:To be perfectly honest i'm a bit torn about attending. The median age group is certainly a 'risk factor'. Personally I am in my 30s, healthy, etc. While I have taken things fairly serious I am out'n'about.
I am tempted to sit out the first few to see if the restart of community bands causes any spikes/spread which subsequently stops them again.. I respect everyone's *decision* to go, but personally I am not comfortable attending a group event with so many people over the age of 60+.
I am hitting 42, and am "relatively" healthy, with a bit of high blood pressure. However I am MUCH more worried about the other members, as I am definitely one of the younger members of the group. Many are retired or close to that age, and a lot have health conditions. While I am fairly confident if I got sick I would probably pull through, it still can be quite serious, and for many of the members it could be deadly.
Never an easy choice. If it was all strings, it would be an easier choice.
Yamaha YBB-631S BBb Tuba, B&H Imperial Eb Tuba, Sterling / Perantucci 1065GHS Euphonium
Yamaha YBL-621 RII Bass Trombone and a bunch of other trombones
Exactly my thoughts tbonesullivan! It's an interesting dilemma. I am not worried about myself, but I can't imagine the guilt if I went played with them one night and woke up the next with a sore throat -- only to hear of other members getting ill.
Yet each of those members are, ofcourse, making their own decision to go. That, to me, would not reduce my guilt if something bad happened tho.
My entire company on the other hand (6k+ people) is WFH rest of the year. I struggle how we can make that decision for our company, yet a community brass band should start gathering again . :-/
I don't believe in the "science" of what we've been presented so far because of wildly differing viewpoints on what is and what is not (and that's an opinion, you're welcome to disagree) so I am ready to go back at any time personally and am not afraid nor in the most vulnerable age groups. Hopefully once "a" or "the" vaccine comes out it will ease the fear for some of the rest of you so we can all get back to normal and get back to life.
dopey wrote:Mine offiically started back yesterday, but I was still out on vacation.
To be perfectly honest i'm a bit torn about attending. The median age group is certainly a 'risk factor'. Personally I am in my 30s, healthy, etc. While I have taken things fairly serious I am out'n'about.
I am tempted to sit out the first few to see if the restart of community bands causes any spikes/spread which subsequently stops them again.. I respect everyone's *decision* to go, but personally I am not comfortable attending a group event with so many people over the age of 60+.
There has been a lot of choirs how had a lot of members getting sick all around the world but I've heard anything like that for bands yet.
There has been some research showing that singers (and possibly flute players) do spread a lot more virus, in the Netherlands and Belgium bands started rehearsing 2 and one month ago under strict rules and there hasn't been an local outbreak yet.
Republic, Mo Community Band (west suburb of Springfield, Mo) is starting back up Thursday, June 3. We got word last week after months of discussions as to the virus situation. I practiced for 30 minutes night before last to start getting ready for rehearsals. Ohhhhh, am I out of shape!
Our brass band started up again yesterday. Public school bands hadn't needed to even distance or wear masks for the last month or so of the semester. The bigger issue for us is going to be performance venues.
My orchestra, big band and college groups haven't started back yet, but I'm in two trombone quartets, one has been playing again for a couple months, and the other starts tomorrow. So I'm easing back into it. No chance of burning out quickly. Maybe I'll be more selective about where I play with this fresh start. I'd love to do more big church gigs...
I play in several community bands. Two, that play mostly in assisted living facilities, have not started up and I don't expect anything until fall (aka September). I play in a city band that has played continuously each summer for 123 years. Last year, we did not play. We start practice in mid June and will play 9 concerts (mostly Thursday nights) in an outdoor band shell in July and August. I suspect we will play a lot of marches and easy show tunes because most haven't kept up this lip for over a year. It will be good to be back!!!
I'm only in 1 band. It is good though. we started playing again last fall but then had to stop after Christmas due to covid in the band. We started up again on paper at spring break, but no rehearsals were scheduled from then until just after easter, so nothing more until then. Christmas to Easter is a long time to not play with other people. I will be glad when this mess is over. We have a lot of old guys, though, so we have to be careful for their sake. I had covid last summer, but I had super-mild symptoms and was back to normal after six or seven days anyway. I guess I got lucky. My mother had it and nearly croaked! She had the original version back in September of 2020 and was in the hospital for six weeks, but never on a vent, thank god. She's okay now.
The community band my wife and I founded on Leap Year Day of 2000 was certainly hindered by the COVID problem but we really never quite. We got tossed out of the school we called home for about ten years but after two weeks of scratching out heads figuring out how to deal with state guidelines... we continued to meet in different locations including church parking lots and so forth where we could observe social distancing. It was quite a struggle to dodge the weather are leased a small theater through the Winter months. We downsized to about 30 members to promote social distancing. Our smaller ensembles never quit playing... often meeting in park shelter houses and in band members driveways. Where there's a will there's a way!
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.
