Embrace the opposites

Date: 2/7/13
Orchestra: CYO
Repertoire Rehearsed: one march for wooden toys, and one for a dead one.
Coaches present: Mr. Luckenbil and Mr. Lin (Thanks!)
Attendance: good!
Little things I noticed: one less painting... only one left in the whole room...

Notes:
We will potentially have a new tenor sax player, yay! He'll be able to cover some of the much needed lower "woodwind" lines, which would be great! Thanks for bringing him in Mr. Luckenbil! Back to writing more parts for me :)

The attendance was good but I thought the chattering was more disruptive than usual today. Keep them down kids. In fact, can we work on paying at least just enough attention so you know when I'm yelling out who is playing and where? I would prefer not having to repeat that like 600 times after each time we stop, if we can help it.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how the Gounod is coming. We just need to be tighter. This piece has much more exposed wind parts. For the most part, the "woodwind" section has one person per part, so you are almost always alone. You guys are doing just fine, so when you come in, come in with confidence and that should help the ensemble get tighter somewhat.

I really like having 9 after rehearsal D in forte (in Gounod). It makes much better sense. So let's do it that way. Start crescendoing from 4 before (when the first violins and oboe(flute) enter, and reach forte by the 9th of D.

In general, I need the brass to watch me better esp. for the Jessel piece. Right now the tempo and the dynamics are lacking in discipline. I think an orchestra, that has louder instruments who try to follow the softer instruments, always has a tighter ensemble.

Really watch out for 4 after G onwards in Jessel. I'll try to be as clear as possible.

I need to add something at rehearsal F in Jessel. It lacks dimension. Saxophones, I hope you don't mind me giving you a little more notes/work, because I'm thinking of giving you guys a little counter melody to play there :)

So I super briefly mentioned something about contrasts. Between loud and soft, fast and slow, aggressive and gentle. Contrasts are beautiful things. Lets embrace them and enjoy them. That should give us more richness and variety in our overall sound. That alone can make us sound 3,000 times better (I'm exaggerating, only a little bit).

Thanks for bringing the bass in Mr. Lin! Sounds sooo much better with the bass!