MEMBERS NOTES
Dear Musician,
Please see below a list of the current repertoire. The only repertoire to add to this will be 2 or 3 movements of a Beethoven Octet (Blaseroktett) entitled 'Pathia' opus 103 - I'm looking at first and third movements plus possible the fourth.
As it seem likely with the world as it is, our next concert may well be the one at Swalcliffe Church on 21st November 2020.
I have tried to take into account the varying standards of the players and mixing up easier and more challenging work: then mixing up the repertoire so we have popular song, jazzy film, renaissance, classical, classical-romantic and twentieth century music. Yes, I know we aim for concerts but I still want to try and make Wednseday evenings enjoyable - even if I have to jump around and buy new jumpers nearly every week.
With the considerable help and patience from our IT genious, we have moved forward with the use of the BWE Google Drive, this will make it easier for players to access both their own part but see how it relates to the full score.
If however, you have difficulty accessing your music, let me or Natalie know, I can send music via email (I will attach your part as a PDF to your home account) and Natalie can look into any Google Drive issues. In this way, we will never run out of copies and of course we will always have a master score with parts on file for the future, which again should save the group money in the long term. The plan is to eventually have an mp3 audio file or recording of all the repertoire pieces so that you can listen.
This is our current repertoire:
Band of Brothers
Can- Can
Canzon
Charleston
Distant Stars
Forest Gump
Glenn Miller
The Lone A-ranger
Octet (Menelssohn)
The Seal Lullaby
You Make me feel so young
Adagio - Samuel Barber
Passacaglia & Touch her soft lips - William Walton
Serenade in F - C V Stanford
I am well aware that there is no 'magic money tree' for music and the list below will I think not be added to before Easter next year - if we do a Christmas concert, I will look at stuff we have played before - Corelli's Christmas Concert and Bach/Handel - that we can, with a bit of rescoring, produce with not much rehearsal time.
With the way the world has gone, it might be an idea to be more community-based at Christmas rather than a formal concert.......something to mull over.
Notes for Practise....
Practise is better done regularly and in short bursts - even 10 minutes a day is worth it (2 lots of 15 minutes is better learning time than 30 mins in one go).
Don't always start from bar one; play the last 16 bars, then the previous 16 bars.
Warm up with something familiar; move on to a challenge; finish with something fun in a practise session
Pick out a tricky passage and play it very slowly - work out why it is tricky.
Use a mirror to practise in front of and watch your fingers.
Sometimes just forget the music and concentrate on tone and control of you dynamic range whilst still staying in tune.
Practise without blowing into the instrument - finger technique and music memory.
Most of all, enjoy your playing.
