In preparation for NABBA, the Georgia Brass Band hired Dr. Colin Holman to rehearse with us last Friday, Saturday and Sunday. By Sunday, all I could think about was the fact that I hadn’t played so much or with such intensity since the All-State rehearsals in high school. We went from 7:30 to 10:00 on Friday night, 9:30 to 12:30 Saturday morning and 12:00 to 3:00 Sunday afternoon. Then (just for good measure), I drove to Rome, GA, immediately after the Sunday rehearsal and rehearsed with the Roman Festival Brass from 6:00 to 9:00. Don’t know if I got any better, but I do know that I broke my face. It’s almost recovered now…but I’ve got a rehearsal from 7:00-9:30 tonight during which time I’ll probably break it again.
Dr. Holman is an amazing clinician though. I videotaped each of his rehearsals and the difference in the band’s tone between when we first started on Friday night and where we were 10 minutes after he took the baton is astounding. On Sunday afternoon, while we were playing the “Elfland’s Daughter” thing, I actually liked the piece. I’ve played for some really fine directors in my life, but this guy might be the best – or at least second best. Darryl One conducted a gig I was playing when he was the assistant conductor of the Atlanta Symphony (he’s since gone on to bigger and better things). He’s absolutely brilliant.
There’s an interesting 20 seconds or so near the end of the Friday night tape, which was filmed from behind me. During one section of resting that is particularly difficult to count, the tubist next to me and I were both bobbing our heads in order to avoid getting lost. We look amazingly like two of those little cymbal-crashing monkeys as seen from behind. But the two of us sounded damned good, if I say so myself.
Anyway, the band improved quite a bit over the weekend and hopefully we can keep it going for the next six weeks and make a splash at NABBA. It’ll give me something to put on the new website that I’m building.
I noticed going to and coming back from Rome on Sunday that my front brakes sounded terrible – I also was long overdue for an oil change and for some strange reason the tires on the left side of my car were inflated to about 4 pounds PSI less than the right-side ones. So I decided to at least take care of problems two and three yesterday at lunch. Figured I’d hop over the the mechanic and get the oil changed and the tires rotated (and, presumably, inflated correctly). In and out in an hour, right?
Almost. After a few minutes, the mechanic came out and said, “Tom, you really need some new front brakes.” Since I knew that already, I said, “I know.”
Then I asked him how long it would take him to fix them. “Not long at all.”
So, in spite of the fact that it was going to cost me $475 instead of $30, I told him to go ahead and take care of the brakes. Then he proceeded to take my wheels apart and called the parts place to have the proper parts driven to him.
The truck carrying my brakes got into a accident. 5 hours later, my car was ready for me.
You haven’t really lived or experienced hell until you’ve sat in the waiting room of Kauffman Tire for 5 hours. Your magazine selection is limited to tire advertisements, newspapers of undertermined age and maybe an Ebony magazine from last summer.
And one Cosmopolitan. I eyed it a few times, but didn’t want to be seen reading it. I mean, I’m a guy and all….but I was kind of curious about the “foreplay that will blow his mind” which was apparently featured somewhere between the covers.
Fortunately, I had my iPaq with me (which always has about 12 books loaded on it), and I spent a great deal of time reading one of them (a mob thriller called The Good Guys). Even so, the chairs left a lot to be desired. As did the television, which was tuned to CNN Headline News.
Interesting thing about CNN Headline News – they might be a 24-hour station, but the news only takes about 10 minutes….and then you get 4 commercials followed by the same 10 minutes of news being shouted at you again. I’d seen coverage of the bus crash in Atlanta about 13 times before I realized that I was alone in the waiting room.
Time for the Cosmopolitan, baby.
In reaching for it, I discovered the remote control for the television. Spent the next hour watching the History Channel.
After I finally got my car back (they knocked $50 off the price because I had to wait so long), I went back to my office, packed up my stuff, and left. Oddly, nobody seems to have noticed that I wasn’t there all afternoon.
It’s good to be needed.
TWD