zbd1960

Yesterday I went to an ad-hoc string orchestra day on the Wirral. Usually there are three of these days a year (roughly September, January, and May). This was the first since January 2020 due to the joys of Covid. About 60 of us (8 o cello) for the day which was mostly focused on the Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis. It's written for double string orchestra plus a string quartet. In reality it splits into many lines - can be 27 or more independent lines. I was in 'orchestra 2' and at times it split into three separate staves with two parts per stave i.e. 6 parts and that's just cellos in second orchestra... There were only 2 celli assigned to the second orchestra. It's a work I like and I was pleased to have the chance to play it as I hadn't done so up until yesterday.

The 'Midlands' is a rather amorphous zone. I'm at the extreme northern end of it, and I have a 30 mile drive in any direction to get to a motorway... I accept that wouldn't locate something at one of the extremities as people wouldn't turn up. I also know that there is no easy answer to the venue selection as availability dictates as much as anything. I was thinking that somewhere like Telford would be suitably inconvenient for most people, although I don't have nay specific suggestions for a venue (I will ask someone I know for ideas). For me, Nottingham is roughly 90 miles away - depends on the route, via M6 it's over 100.

Well I have one of those....

I'm at the very north end of the Midlands (a few miles short of the Cheshire boundary and 1 mile from the Welsh border)

I saw the Ludlow pin, remembered someone saying 'Bridgnorth' so assumed 3? The pins are very very slow to load in my browser, so I can't always tell if I've got a full picture or not. Anyway, another tumbleweed zone

And lo, it came to pass in the land of the Marcher Barons, that the Low End Lords were dispersed far and wide... aka - I think there's now three of us in the entire county. My nearest fellow bass chatters are in Cheshire and Staffordshire, not Shropshire where they are 40 and 50 miles away.

Nearest to me seems to be around 25 miles

Orchestra rehearsals in Chester resumed last night. Looked at suite #1 fro Bizet's Carmen and Haydn Symphony #82.

Similarly end up on the platform of my local railway station

About 40 miles away...

The majority of the music-making I do is in genres / styles that require me to read the music. I have done some jazz workshops where you need to be able to read for the ensemble parts of works, but then you get say an 8 or 16 bar improv to do within the harmonic context of the lead sheet. I can sight-read reasonably well, but I find improv difficult. That is down to the simple fact I have done lots of sight-reading and very little improv.

Living in the Border Marches one has to be prepared for invasion at any time...

Shropshire it seems is a barren hinterland bereft of bassists...

Yep, that's about right. My cello cost me £1,800 back in 2011 and the bow was £450.

I have one (BG250 208) as my practice amp. It had an outing to summer school recently and was fine for the big hall I played in.

Do not underestimate the forces involved with the bridge. A few years ago I was in an orchestra rehearsal and my cello was on its side on the floor next to me. Suddenly there was loud 'ping' and the cello was on its front. What I think happened is one of the strings suddenly lost tension. There was enough twisting force to cause the cello to roll onto its front. The bridge snapped in two, the fingerboard becomes a big lever and it just peeled off the neck. The front of the cello was now a mess. The luthier made a new bridge for me - repairs came to about £350, which the insurance paid for.

As a cellist I'd say make sure you don't skimp on the bow. Cheap bows are useless and will hinder your progress.

Today was a camera day - I was covering a touch rugby competition end of season finals day in Chester. Now have a mountain of photos to process

The C string on my cello would cost £125 to replace.... fortunately they last a long time

I know a husband and wife who perform as a duo (both play classical guitar and are opera singers) on cruises. They tend to get engagements for specific cruises, so will do 2 or 3 week stints periodically. I knew a sax player that did it - he was expected to double sax/clarinet for the onboard band and play several sizes of sax.

OK a bass playing post for a change! I've missed the last couple of jam session with the local rock school due to it conflicting with my holidays. The adult sessions are fortnightly, so it's been 6 weeks since I was there. One of the tutors there is my bass teacher. He's 25 and a music grad - he plays bass, guitar, keys, and drums. He also lives near the southern end of the county so he's nearly 50 miles away. The franchise is opening a new one somewhere much nearer to him so he's dropping my local one. It's understandable as a 50 miles rural drive is going to be around 90 minutes and not cheap with fuel costs. So last night was the last session there with him. It also means I've lost my bass teacher. For our 121 sessions, he see me either before or after the local sessions. Of the four bass teachers I've had, he's the only one I've made any progress with. The first one I never met as he kept cancelling. The second one I did meet a few times, but he quickly realised I was more qualified than he was..... The third one was strange - he'd run three students in separate rooms at the same time... Trouble was, I only found this local teacher as Covid hit, so we've had protracted periods of not being able to meet. Anyway, I'm now back to having no teacher. I can't imagine the local bass teacher scene has changed much since I last looked. All rather frustrating.

I only started playing just before my 60th.... In 1972 I could read music...

Agree with you. I think I'm a competent choral singer, but I never do solo as I don't think I'm good enough.

I posted in the thread about the questionable singer... and said I'd post more about the gig I had a few years ago. I used to play in an amateur orchestra in the Midlands. A well-known nightclub brand wanted to do an orchestral concert version of 90s/00s dance music. Now this is well outside of the comfort zone of your typical amateur orchestra and it required a lot of preparation, with months of rehearsals. First, the conductor had to engage an orchestrator to arrange the music for our forces, which were going to be augmented to make us a 60 piece orchestra (we're about 40 usually), which meant paid deps. In addition we needed a 5 piece horn section, a band (synths, guitars, bass, drum kit), gospel choir... So that the orchestra could rehearse, the orchestrator created a playable file with click track for rehearsals. The music was arranged as two continuous 1 hour sets. We spent months rehearsing. The last three rehearsals were with the extra players and the gospel choir. The final rehearsal was with the 4 vocal soloists. These are I believe 'well-known' performers of this music. Two were decent, two seemed to be more ego than ability. The gig was a sell out in a major concert hall (2,200). In addition to the musicians, there was a whole light and effects show, aerialists, dancers... The conductor had issues with one of the singers in the rehearsal. The singer didn't seem to understand that when you have about 80 musicians playing from a score, there is no way of looping back because you missed your entry. Trouble is he got lost in the performance as well and the conductor ended up making huge extravagant gestures and singing his part to cue the twit. The other singers were at least in the right place, although tuning was definitely a novelty for some of them. I have sung in choirs and performed in hundreds of concerts over the years. If we sang that badly we'd be embarrassed and we'd never hear the end of it.

hmmm... OK it's not a genre I normally sing (I'm a classical guy) but I have a lot of experience as a singer and I've had a lot of singing lessons. Basically, the guy does not know how to sing - end of story. Well done for getting him through it. Trouble is he'll probably think he can wing it next time as well. An orchestra I used to play in did a 90s/00s dance music gig - I'll put a more detailed post in my thread - but long story short: the 'name' artist didn't have a clue about how to sing with an orchestra. He was obviously used to being carried by the gig band. You cannot do that with 60 piece symphony orchestra. He didn't even know where to come in with his own songs...