Last night was the first meeting of my new band class. We met in a local middle school, which is located in the middle of one of the nicest neighborhoods in my immediate area (certainly nicer than my own neighborhood!). My original idea had been to ride my bike - if you remember, I did some detailed and highly dangerous reconnaissance work last week to determine the exact route I should take. It's only about 3 miles from my house, and takes less than 15 minutes on the bike, but I decided that for the first night, when I wanted to present myself somewhat professionally (and therefore, not sweaty, or with helmet hair), that to drive my car was a better idea. Also, on the way home I saw a pretty bad car accident in one of the intersections I needed to cross (where I recently tried out my newly found bravery for making left-hand turns on my bike in the left-hand lane), and decided it wasn't worth risking getting hit with my flute and piccolo on me just for a 3 mile ride.
The change in transportation also gave me time to change shoes from my glorious and gorgeous new Nine West cork-soled wedge platform heels to my oh-so-professional (!) pink ribbon and brown leather flip flops (which I have been living in, on the weekend, all summer). And I had time to breathe deeply and try not to be nervous about playing with strangers or meeting new people. These are things I get anxious about: I can't help myself. The flute choir has been a comfortable existence for me, but I need to get out and play more and be confident.
Anyway, maybe next week I'll ride the bike.
When I got there, the room was about 3/4 filled with musicians of all ages, shape and sizes. Most of them were either talking or warming up their instruments. The flutes were down in front, and there were already 3 of them in seats. Two of them, older ladies, were in the section I imagined reserved for the "firsts," and the third, a younger girl with curly hair, was in the third seat from the other end. She wasn't in the middle, she wasn't on the end. I didn't want to pass in front of her to take the middle, so I sat on the end.
I didn't know what to expect, so I put on my good-humored face and smiled at her just because she was within smiling distance (the conductor's stool and podium was between me and the other two ladies; I did smile at them but they were busy passing out music and talking to each other), and I took out my flute and warmed up, and tried to get comfortable in an uncomfortable plastic chair.
It took some time to start playing - there was music to pass out and hellos between old-timers, but finally we got started. We warmed up on an A flat major scale, and I could tell instantly that I was going to need to get prepared for things to be loud. That was fine with me: I like loud. (Also, interestingly, when we played our A flat major scale in whole notes, the conductor had us go one note higher than A flat - we played A flat at the top, and then played an extra B flat before heading back down. That was a new pattern for me; it wasn't terribly interesting in itself, but I wondered why we did it that way.) I can't remember the name of the very first thing we played (some kind of march, does that narrow it down?), and luckily we took it fairly slow the first time around ("tempo di learno," as it was called by the conductor, which I liked), but then he announced we were going to do it again up to tempo, and it was then that I realized that there was a second, even more important thing that I needed to be prepared for than the first: things were going to be fast. And I don't mean just fast, I mean, cut time fast, double time fast, - super fast! - in 2, with sixteenths and complicated rhythms and counting and repeated sections that whiz by and man was it fun.
After playing for about 45 minutes straight, we took a break where everyone introduced themselves, and I turned out to be the first one chosen to speak. The conductor actually did a little pre-introduction for me, which was embarrassing - he said, "Here's a new face!" Then he whispered, "She can play!" I'm not sure what he was basing this on - for one thing, how could he hear me? That room was loud. And for another thing, man, that music was not easy. I'm pretty sure I left whole chunks of it un-played - but it was nice of him. I announced my name to the room and said that I'd played with the Culver City Flute Choir for 20 years, and then it was off to the next person. I like the way the other people interacted with each other - there was some easy going teasing and lightly sarcastic comments and the kind of smart alec-y funny things I like to say in flute choir. Many people there have been playing in that band for more than 30 years. I like that, too. I think it's going to be fun, and I can't wait until next week to see what we're going to really be playing.
Also, afterwards I spoke to the woman playing piccolo (she was fantastic - she has a metal piccolo, and really sounded sharp [I don't mean out of tune] and sweet and perfect, and of course I told her this) and she asked if I had a piccolo, too. I said I did and she said maybe we could switch it up on piccolo. I don't know, though, if my new fancy wooden piccolo can hang with this group. I'm not sure if I could cut through in the same precise way she was. We'll see. I might hold off.
(I have a terrible memory and so can't list the pieces we played except for one, which was my favorite of the night: The First Suite in E Flat for Military Band, by Gustav Holst. Fun, and pretty, and exactly the kind of stuff I hoped we'd play.)
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